In Broadcast - March 2021 - 49

49

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 11 - Issue 3 | March 2021

Zero Friction and
The True Promise of IP
think about it that 60-70 per cent
of the time an asset is sitting in a rack
unused. "
The industry talks about sweating
its assets, to make the most of the
hefty capital outlay and an eventual
return on investment. It's an extremely
expensive and highly inefficient model,
especially when there is an alternative
at hand.
TAG says that a zero friction business
model allows for product deployment
wherever and whenever it is required,
in turn rocketing asset utilisation up to
80 and 90 per cent.
" This prepares media organisations
for flexibility of production at scale, "
Briscoe says. " Rather than a
news studio being used for two
hours a day before going dark,
or dedicating another facility
solely to production of the
network's soap, it is far more
efficient to be able to combine
resources. For example, having
one control room serve many
studios, or multiple control rooms
serving a suite of studios and a

remote production. The idea is to use
resources when they are otherwise
dark and you get the mileage out of
them. "
Attaining production agility is also
driving changes in playout. Here,
the decades old model dictated by
dedicated infrastructure severely
limited the ability of a broadcaster
to launch new channels. Channel
launches were expensive undertakings
that took months if not years to create.
Today, broadcasters can launch
new channels to accommodate spikes
in viewing - and open monetisation
opportunities - around one-off events
(a national election, an Olympics),

InForm

cont'd...

literally at the press of a few buttons.
Pop-up channels are not economically
viable if you have to engineer one from
racks of hardware. An all-IP system,
however, allows you to configure
software and services for a new
channel within hours if not minutes
with keyboard commands.
That is the model zero friction fits
into.
Laying the groundwork
TAG isn't slow to the IP party. It read
the runes fifteen years ago and began
to transition its product line, research
and development into IP.
" This experience has given
us some insight into
how to deploy not
just
multifunctional
technology and to
overlay an operational
agility model and then
overlay a zero friction
business model, " says
Joyce. " We believe that this
will be the only way the media
industry will acquire and use

technology in the future. You must
have this capability in order to yield a
far greater return on asset utilization. "
There's one last important message.
TAG say they are not going to stand
still. 'Zero friction' is not a one-off
marketing exercise but a philosophy
that informs its whole business.
" With IP accelerating our plan is to
introduce more product categories
for the M&E business, " says Joyce.
" Regardless of the technology you buy
from us we will keep track of it and
manage it for you so that you can use
your zero friction TAG assets for any
application we develop in the future.
Our hope too is that this will push the
industry to think about new business
models for the industry. "
TAG's Cloud 101
webinar series
Join TAG's Director of
Corporate Strategy, Peter
Wharton on a multi-session
tour of everything you need
to know about building media
systems in the cloud.
Click here to register https://www.tagvs.com/
news/tags-new-webinar-line-up-toconcentrate-on-mapping-a-simplifiedpath-to-the-cloud/

How Exception Is Proving The Rules
Multiple broadcast and OTT channels cannot be checked and corrected in the same way as
analogue TV channels. As Erik Otto, CEO of Mediaproxy explains, exception-based
monitoring has proved to be the solution to a potentially difficult problem...

T

he media business loves a good
buzzword or phrase. Sometimes
these are just jargon that does not
readily explain what it is describing.
Among the more common is 'exceptionbased monitoring'. This may sound
like more techno-speak but, when you
break it down, it is a neat description
of a method to ensure that broadcast
output is good quality and error-free.
It came about through necessity
because, in these days of multiple
digital TV channels, plus a proliferation
of OTT services, all outgoing audio and
video signals cannot be checked and
monitored as they used to be. In the
days of only three or four analogue TV
channels, it was standard practice for
master control room (MCR) operations
staff to look at monitor screens for
each service and also monitor sound
on loudspeakers.
This is no longer practical in modern
playout centres, where many different

channels are being transmitted
simultaneously. The solution
has been for operators to
only scrutinize video or audio
feeds if a problem has been
detected and requires human
intervention to solve it. In
enabling this way of working
there has been a move away
from older passive multiviewers
to software-based interactive displays.
These allow operators and engineers
to focus on a specific fault within a
stream, using specialized tools to get
into the transport layer and resolve
any issues.
Exception-based
monitoring
is
the core technology that facilitates
this more efficient way of working.
Mediaproxy
has
implemented
monitoring by exception on its
Monwall interactive software-based
multiviewer. This makes it possible to
configure thresholds for compliance

Monwall interactive
software-based multiviewer

problems such as loudness levels,
signal loss and closed captioning. In
addition, the system can also check
for IP related bandwidth fluctuations,
stream disruptions and ETR (ETSI
Technical Report) 290 error messages.
If any of the thresholds are crossed,
the identified problem is added to
a penalty box on the multiviewer,
highlighting the error category and
level of severity. Broadcast engineers
are able to respond to any error
messages by clicking on the event
notification, which connects them to

the video stream in question
so it can be rendered and
examined. Operators are
able to configure multiple
penalty boxes, allowing
them to cover many
different points along the
transmission path.
Incorporating
incident
management and penalty
boxes within a multiviewer such as
Monwall allows for more accurate
diagnoses and faster problem
resolution. Ultimately, new softwarebased
technology
employing
exception-based monitoring enables
engineers to troubleshoot from
wherever they might be working,
which might not necessarily be
the MCR. It also reduces capital
expenditure by moving away from
expensive hardware. Both of which
make a great deal of sense in a fastmoving, multi-channel world.
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://www.tagvs.com/news/tags-new-webinar-line-up-to-concentrate-on-mapping-a-simplified-path-to-the-cloud/ http://www.mediaproxy.com
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