Tektronix VNM-VFY2

Sentry Verify™ monitors and validates MPEG Transport Stream quality at hub sites as an integral part of the source-to-edge monitoring solution.

Key features

• Real-time 24/7 QoS monitoring and analysis of the entire channel line-up
• In-depth monitoring for compliance to closed captioning standards
• Live thumbnails and Thumbnail Wall
• Comprehensive TR 101 290 measurements
• User-triggered and alert-triggered stream captures
• QoS monitoring for JPEG2000 codec
• Error second and program availability reporting
• Stream to View (video backhauling)
• Historical reporting and graphing
• Transport Stream and Program Group bandwidth graphing
• Analyzer-quality RF measuring capability
• EBIF and Data Carousel monitoring

Key benefits

• Cost-effective solution for QoS monitoring
• Verify RF and IP transport streams are compliant and stable for delivery
• Reduce operational costs
• Achieve regulatory compliance and protection from fines
• Verify the delivery of ad inserts

Video quality monitoring with Sentry Verify™

Sentry Verify™ enables video service providers to accurately determine the health of the MPEG/IP transport network. Sentry Verify provides alerts and generates useful reports in the same fashion as Sentry®.

Sentry Verify provides quality of service (QoS) measurements to detect subscriber-impacting events during MPEG-over-IP transport and offers a historical database to assist with troubleshooting and trending analyses. Sentry Verify also offers a multiple alert-trigger capture capability to quickly identify and visualize issues as they arise. Sentry Verify is a cost-effective solution for large-scale deployments to hub sites and other remote locations. It provides necessary, accurate, and timely information to assist in the identification of faults within the IP network.

Sentry Verify's QoS measurements include TR 101 290 Priority 1, 2 and 3 tests and service providers can configure the system to only be notified about errors on the priority checks they are most concerned about. Sentry Verify also offers PCR measurements including PCR Interval and PCR Accuracy.

Sentry Verify can also be configured with a variety of RF inputs further extending the visibility into the transport stream quality by detecting transport stream and RF modulation errors at the edge of the network. Correlate reports and conduct comprehensive, cross-layer, root-cause analysis across locations.

Software options

Quality of Service (QoS) monitoring

Quality of service measurements look at the transmission and health of the MPEG/IP transport network. Sentry Verify monitors the most critical TR 101 290 Priority 1, 2 and 3 tests to offer comprehensive QoS checks and alarming. Real-time monitoring and alerting notify service providers right away if there are errors related to the priority checks they are most concerned about. This saves on operational costs related to mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to repair (MTTR) an issue. Sentry Verify also offers PCR measurements including PCR Interval and PCR Accuracy.

Ad insertion monitoring

Sentry Verify provides the most complete digital ad insertion monitoring solution by combining real-time monitoring and alerting with historical auditing across the entire channel lineup in all advertising zones. Sentry Verify delivers extensive data that improves digital ad insertion on any platform, allowing engineering teams to ensure proper function of insertion technology by identifying and correcting system errors when they occur. In addition, the ad insertion verification capability allows ad sales groups to provide higher levels of customer service, resulting in greater revenue potential. Using the web-based interface you can monitor digital ad insertion across your entire network. By strategically placing Sentry or Sentry Verify in each of your ad zones, you can monitor and be alerted on all insertion opportunities network-wide, as well as issues that arise from problems.

Monitoring Ad Insertion

Compliance monitoring

For Closed Caption compliance monitoring, Sentry Verify has the ability to monitor, alert and report on the availability and quality of closed captions across all channels in real time. Sentry Verify will check that the captions are present and not in error. When errors do occur, Sentry Verify will let you know how long they were in error and the reason for the error. Data and syntax anomalies within the closed captioning data stream are detected to allow for an accurate closed captioning quality of service (QoS) measurement. This applies to SCTE20 and ATSC transported caption data.

For Audio Loudness monitoring, Sentry Verify helps video service providers ensure compliance with its advanced audio level detection and analysis based on the ITU-R BS 1770 specification. Sentry Verify monitors the loudness of every audio element on every program in every transport stream in real time. The thumbnail timeline feature captures thumbnail images to help visually confirm the relative location of audio issues in programming or commercials. Sentry Verify offers 90-day historical reporting to help service providers with documents needed to prove compliance or to show when violations have occurred.

Data Carousel and EBIF monitoring

Sentry Verify monitors tru2way™, OCAP/MHP and DSM-CC carousels. Detailed reports of carousel performance and activity are based on their real-time behavior and data output. Service providers are able to identify the root cause of errors and make necessary changes to eliminate issues and guarantee rapid application deployment. The reports show detailed source and file structures and carousel changes in real time while observing streaming metrics such as cycle time, bandwidth utilization, and stream packet continuity. Real-time alerting notifies users of critical situations, enabling them to resolve issues such as outages, cycle-time fluctuations, and unauthorized changes.

Monitoring tru2way™/OCAP Carousels

eTV applications and metadata are prone to errors introduced during transport, ad splicing and multiplexing. Sentry's EBIF module decodes the application data and signaling information enabling proactive eTV monitoring and fast troubleshooting.

Monitoring EBIF/eTV

SA-BFS monitoring

Sentry is designed to identify and monitor data carousels within the transport, which enables it to keep detailed information about the real-time and historical status of the Scientific-Atlanta Broadcast Files System (BFS). Similar to the way other application carousels (tru2way, DSM-CC, etc) are monitored, Sentry is able to provide critical information about the status of BFS carousels. Multichannel service providers can set alerts to be notified of bit rate errors, file changes, file cycle times, and if files are missing.

Monitoring Scientific-Atlanta Broadcast Files System