FROM THE INDUSTRY
Of course, it isn’t only the technology that has changed for QC testing. Today, most operations and QC teams have traded their large-scale lab for remote work, often from different countries and continents. This has created a need for reliable and secure technology that allows providers to access their real testing devices wherever they’re located. With IP delivery, testing and monitoring on the actual network where the video is being played is essential to understanding service quality. Remote access technology allows teams to achieve that and easily collaborate, even when they’re on the other side of the world. Navigating Content Discovery and Dynamic Ad Insertion One factor that should not be forgotten in the video delivery shift is content discoverability. In an environment crowded with services competing for the attention of viewers, discoverability is more coveted than ever. Providers should implement deep indexing, a technology that directs the customer’s universal or voice control search requests to the service provider’s application. The default response is to direct searches to a platform handler like YouTube or the Google Play Store. Deep indexing is the most effective method to ensure that the provider’s content will reach viewers when they are searching for it. Delivering advertisements is also vastly different with IP delivery. Linear TV has always relied on ad revenue, but recently streaming ads have begun to take hold over subscription-based services as well. Ads delivered over IP are typically handled through DAI. DAI adds cues into the content, which trigger the video player to pull ads from a large inventory of different sources, almost always originating in different servers than the main content.
The complex process of DAI can lead to streaming errors for both ads and the main content being played. These range from poor visual performance, audio issues, and content being cut off, to dire issues like frozen screens, errors returning to the main content, and full device crashes. In testing, we have observed that up to 30% of all streaming video sessions encounter an error caused by DAI. Like other QC testing, some of these errors can also only be seen on real testing devices. As the industry moves to IP and relies on revenue from third- party advertisers, properly verifying and resolving these DAI issues is essential to delivering exceptional video quality to viewers. Adjusting to IP Video Delivery Transitioning from QAM to IP video delivery has resulted in a massive shift for TV providers. Video operations and QC teams are navigating new platforms, third-party applications, and DAI, on top of having their apps being used on dozens of different devices and fighting for content discoverability. Teams are working remotely and transitioning to using automated testing and monitoring to operate at scale. Reliable technology and testing on real devices are key to operating securely and delivering the best service quality to viewers all around the world. With IP delivery, advanced testing and monitoring are more essential than ever.
These errors are unique to the systems being tested, meaning they can only be observed on the real devices and networks that viewers are using at home and on the go. New Approaches to Quality Control Testing The prevalence of video errors today underscores the need for QC testing. However, that process has also changed significantly in the transition to IP video delivery. In the QAM days, most service providers directly controlled the platforms their service ran on. With reference line-ups, QC teams could efficiently run a large-scale testing lab. Now, most IP STBs are built on either Android TV or Comcast’s RDK platform. These platforms are not owned by the provider, and they frequently receive framework updates with little prior warning. With each platform update, providers need to retest their service quality to see if it has been affected by the change. The same QC challenge holds true for providers that offer their service on other third-party devices in addition to their own. Video apps need to be tested on more devices than what seemed previously possible, including popular consumer-grade ones like Fire TV and Apple TV. Apps are also often built directly into smart TVs, most of which run on their own proprietary operating systems, which need to be tested individually. It’s an overwhelming task that providers can manage through continuous test automation. Automation is the only effective method to testing their app at scale across different devices that are frequently updated.
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Volume 46 No.2 MAY 2024
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