Cincinnati, OH — GatesAir, a global leader in wireless, over-the-air content delivery solutions for radio and TV broadcasters, demonstrated a new compliance and monitoring innovation in partnership with Qligent, a QoS/QoE expert specializing in cloud-based monitoring, at the 2015 NAB Show. The demonstrations proved the viability of monitoring in the cloud for TV services coming into and out of the transmitter, with extendibility well beyond the RF building. As modeled, the architecture monitored all related physical, serial transport, data and audio/video streams for standards compliance and quality of experience at any point in the air chain, and applies to single station deployments as well as large national over-the-air networks.
The concept is powered by Qligent’s Vision platform, a comprehensive QC, monitoring, analysis and troubleshooting system that can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud as a managed service. Qligent’s strength in monitoring multiple stream layer data points evolves the concept of remote transmitter monitoring, ensuring complete visibility of the input (IP, ASI, etc.) and output stream (RF, TS, decoded audio/video/data) to and from any number of transmitters; as well as expanded monitoring across multiple points in the broadcast chain. This includes simultaneous monitoring of critical coverage area boundaries, where signal quality at the fringe is a concern.
Integrated with GatesAir UHF and VHF transmitters, the combined platform would benefit both transitional and long-term monitoring across digital TV rollouts. This not only ensures a reliable, functional and cost-saving solution from the commissioning stage while transitioning to digital or establishing a new network, but additionally protects against lost ad revenue and penalties due to transmitter maintenance or downtime. Additionally, the integrated platform is built to address monitoring and compliance requirements across emerging delivery platforms and challenges, including LTE mobile convergence and the Spectrum Repack.
“The combined power of our high-efficiency UHF and VHF transmitters with Qligent’s monitoring and analysis expertise aligns strongly with GatesAir’s goal of 100 percent reliability of our over-the-air TV solutions for customers worldwide,” said Rich Redmond, chief product officer, GatesAir. “This important initiative will demonstrate how broadcasters can provide the best quality of service and uptime, and remain competitive in a world where TV consumption options continue to multiply – all while working in a world of reduced technical staff and lower operating budgets.”
“Working with GatesAir, we have jointly conceptualized a fully automated solution for monitoring quality of media service as experienced by over-the-air viewers in the analog or digital TV transmission chain,” said Ted Korte, chief operating officer, Qligent. “With QoS/QoE metrics monitoring across multiple inputs, outputs and layers from on-site and remote locations, we aim to demonstrate the most advanced service today for understanding the root cause of quality and compliance issues; and quickly repairing performance issues.”
About Qligent
Qligent was formed from the Tecom Group Inc. in 2014 as a separate company. Qligent architects complete monitoring and visualization solutions for broadcasters, content distributors, ad agencies, regulators and network operators. Based in Melbourne, Florida, Qligent’s software-defined approach provides an open, vendor-agnostic platform to monitor performance, integrity and compliance of multiple signals, streams and systems across enterprises of any size. Its solutions provide the same consistent quality of content and service across multiple delivery platforms simultaneously.
About GatesAir
Since 1998 Tecom Group as the software developer partner has successfully carried out numerous projects in field of automation systems, media asset management, and other software solutions for Harris Corporation, and in particular for its Broadcast Communication Division (BCD). Starting from 2014, after rebranding of Harris Broadcast and its separation into two independent companies: Imagine Communications (studio equipment) and GatesAir (over-the-air transmitters) Tecom Group continued to collaborate effectively with both of them.