TAG enhances recording, analysis and reporting functionality of its multiviewer and monitoring platform
TAG Video Systems has enriched the error source recording functionality and capacity of its multiviewer and monitoring platform as the rise in OTT usage continues. Effective immediately, users can manually set a recording of an OTT channel, record all metadata elements of additional OTT formats and set 32 channels to be recorded simultaneously, a significant increase in capacity.
“OTT monitoring and error event recording has quickly become a priority issue with our customers and so we’ve enhanced the platform’s capabilities and capacity to help provide information easily for an effective post-mortem analysis,” explained Pinky Maron, VP professional services at TAG. “We’ve made it possible for operators to manually record and detect errors that fly under the radar, and because there are now so many different formats with multiple profiles, we’ve added robust support for recording supplemental data to ease the analysis process. OTT applications come with their own set of challenges, but we’ve listened to our customers, and provided tools that aid the successful delivery of their content.”
The TAG recording feature is set to help users analyse and report detected error events. The platform automatically records a range of the last few minutes of each pre-defined stream in a cyclic mode using a ‘first in, first out’ method. When an event is detected that meets a threshold set by the user, the recording is automatically saved to external storage. The recording can later be used to analyse the event and troubleshoot the cause.
Prior to this feature, recording was triggered automatically by an alarm that detected errors in the content that were beyond an acceptable threshold. There are situations, however, when alarms are not initiated because the problem isn’t critical enough to be reported, or the service isn’t affected, but the channel still needs to be recorded for investigation, testing and analysis of the instance, and this is especially important in OTT with its multiple flavours and different sets of metadata for different formats. Now users have the added option to manually record instances of OTT channels as needed to troubleshoot problems and document even seemingly innocuous errors.
TAG has also enriched the functionality of the monitoring and visualisation platform to address the major shift to more metadata that comes with more OTT formats. Each OTT format has unique characteristics and unique metadata headers associated with the transmission. Users need to have all this information available for the post-mortem analysis, so TAG has incorporated recording capability to include all elements and headers of HLS, MPEG-DASH, MSS, and CMAF OTT streams for improved analysis capabilities or recorded errors. Additionally, the recording of encrypted content before and after the decryption is now available.
“As OTT formats multiply, so does the additional data which is unique to each profile. We’ve gone from support of only MPEG transport streams to recording headers and metadata for all the new flavours which is all part of our Zer0 Friction philosophy: provide solutions and services that eliminate obstacles for our customers and make it easier to work with TAG,” added Maron.