OPERATOR VIDEO MONITORING PRACTICES April 17, 2013
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TODAY S SESSION Approximately 50 minutes discussion 10 minute Q&A at the end, however.. Ask questions anytime throughout the session Asking questions adds value and enhances learning opportunity for you and others
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NOW LET S GET STARTED OPERATOR VIDEO MONITORING PRACTICES April 17, 2013
Jeremy Bennington SVP Video Quality Cheetah Technologies LP Leads Cheetah Technology s V-Factor business Prior to Cheetah Mr. Bennington successfully built multimillion dollar DCOSIS business and is an expert in data and video services. Bachelor degree in Computer Engineering, Master of Science in Management
AGENDA Effective Video Quality Practices What is a MOS? What is QoE, QoS and PQM? Monitoring Architecture Fault Isolation & Troubleshooting So What? Operational Impact of Monitoring
EFFECTIVE VIDEO MONITORING PRACTICES All Video Monitoring should be focused on solving a problem or improving quality. Before subscribers complain First: Do you have a problem? (Loss &/or Degradation) Second: Where is the problem? Third: What is the impact? Fourth: How do I fix it?
WHAT IS A MEAN OPINION SCORE? MOS 5 Imperceptible 4 Perceptible 3 Slightly Annoying 2 Annoying 1 Very Annoying MOS 5 Imperceptible 4 Perceptible 3 Slightly Annoying 2 Annoying 1 Very Annoying
PERCEPTUAL QUALITY MEASUREMENT Human Vision System Model MOS Subjective testing Objective testing MOS scores a quality from 1 to 5 (the highest) The MOS score is made up of many artifacts including: blockiness, blur, jerkiness, color, spatial complexity, temporal complexity, freeze, blackout, etc. Goal: Simple score of what a typical person would see, so you can prioritize issues based on perceptual severity
VIDEO QUALITY JARGON QoS QoE PQM How well is the networkperforming Did the packets get from point A to point B Content agnostic Quality of Service What is the network impact on the viewer Statistically estimated from QoS& encoding information Content aware, but does not measure the quality of the content Quality of Experience What is the viewer s perception of quality Measures content using the model of the human eye Network agnostic, can be used ingest, encode, network & client Perceptual Quality Monitoring
VIDEO QUALITY ARCHITECTURE Acquisition Monitoring Baseline, SLA enforcement, early detection Programmer issue? Garbage in? Encoder/MUX Monitoring Did I measurably degrade the quality? Quality outage notification Garbage out? Network Monitoring Did the bits get from point A to point B If not, potential impact? Hub site / Ad Zone Do I roll a truck? Can I see the problem at the hub, or just the subscriber? Home Status Monitoring Do I roll a truck? Subscribers Impacted
VIDEO QUALITY ARCHITECTURE Acquisition Monitoring Perceptual Quality Monitoring (PQM) Baseline MOS to compare to Programmer and downstream Encoder/MUX Monitoring Perceptual Quality Monitoring (PQM) Compare MOS to Acquisition QoE/QoS Monitoring Network Monitoring QoE/QoS Monitoring Hub site / Ad Zone QoE/QoS Monitoring, PQM Monitoring of Ads Real Time diagnostics & customer support Home Monitoring of the home is evolving. Subscribers Impacted
EFFECTIVE VIDEO MONITORING PRACTICES First: Do you have a problem? PQM Content MPEG-TS Transport QoS/QoE Most losses are found at the IP, ASI or MPEG layer QoS & QoE tools find many of these issues SCTE 142, TR101-290 and ATSC A/78 are appropriate Most performance issues are found in the content PQM tools find many of these issues They must look deep into MPEG and often decode the video to find these issues Common causes: Programmer quality, over compression, mux interaction, ad insertion, or encoded artifact caused by loss Performance is a continuous process of improving quality
EFFECTIVE VIDEO MONITORING PRACTICES Second: Where is the problem? Monitoring location (hub, home, headend) Location (region, city, ad zone, hub, address) What layer (IP, MPEG, content) Service (Linear, Replay, VOD, Streaming) Programmer, MSO, CDN, etc. Correlation
EFFECTIVE VIDEO MONITORING PRACTICES Third: What is the impact? Was it visible to the subscriber? One event? Periodic? One channel? Many? How many subscribers? You should not have to ask: Do I care? Control the impact: Monitoring must be a part of customer service!!!!
EFFECTIVE VIDEO MONITORING PRACTICES Fourth: How do I fix it? Can I fix it? If it is the Programmer: Can you prove it? Can you help? If it is the MSO: Encoder settings MUX choice Etc.
FAULT ISOLATION & TROUBLESHOOTING Don t assume that the network is homogenous TBS in Sunnyvale and Pittsburgh from the same provider have different quality (no QAM or MPEG issues)
FAULT ISOLATION & TROUBLESHOOTING Operations needs Green/Red light. What, when & where? Do I act? Best Practices SNMP Alarm generation into the NOC s OSS Detailed EMS for the video monitoring solution, but must be straight forward XML is great for configurations, API/SQL for datamining Graphs, clips, thumbnails, live video is fine for troubleshooting
FAULT ISOLATION & TROUBLESHOOTING Troubleshooters and Customer Service need live data & video imagine being able to see a feed at any hub! Must be scalable!
OPERATIONAL IMPACT OF MONITORING So, What? Determining what the customer is seeing is critical to reacting to all the alarms coming into operations Knowing if the issue is: At the programmer: Contains cost & effort. Having PQM tools stops the finger pointing. At the encoder/mux: Contains cost & effort. One fix for many subscribers. No truck rolls. At the Hub/Ad Zone: Saves many truck rolls, can be powerful in the hands of customer service but must be a cost effective solution At the Home: Makes the truck rolls effective and decreases re-roll Video is a cost, quality and accessibility war!
SUMMARY All Video Monitoring should be focused on solving a problem or improving quality. Before subscribers complain An End-to-End architecture with QoS, QoE and PQM is required Should address: Do I have a problem? What s the Impact? Where is the problem? How do I fit it? Solution should have both customer service and tech ops interfaces to enable cost containment & resolution
HOW TO ASK A QUESTION Questions? Type your question in the Type here to chat window. Click Send (Only presenters will see questions)
THANK YOU TO OUR SPEAKER Jeremy Bennington Cheetah Technologies jbennington@cheetahtech.com
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