TAG Video Systems has expanded its Media Control System (MCS) version 1.7.0 release with Lens, a visual service health analysis interface that organizes monitored video feeds into hierarchical groups and displays alarm distribution. The new capability provides operators with a centralized view of monitored assets and active alerts across large-scale broadcast operations.
Lens addresses a common operational challenge: When multiple feeds trigger alerts simultaneously, operators typically cross-reference data across separate monitoring tools to identify the root cause. Lens provides a unified view of all monitored assets and active alerts with color-coded severity indicators.
Lens organizes video streams into customizable hierarchies to help engineers pinpoint root causes quickly. Operations can structure their facilities by data center location (“US West” → “Rack 7” → specific encoders), content type (“Sports” → “Basketball” → individual game feeds), or signal path (“Playout” → “Contribution” → contributor name). Each feed can belong to multiple categories simultaneously, allowing operators to view the same feed through different operational perspectives.
When issues trigger, color-coded severity indicators appear at each hierarchy level, showing whether problems affect isolated feeds or entire categories. Engineers can expand nested hierarchies to drill from high-level overview to specific diagnostics, filter by severity thresholds, and efficiently trace which upstream or downstream systems connect to affected assets. By consolidating alarm data and system relationships into a single interface, Lens significantly reduces mean time to repair (MTTR). Operators can identify root causes in seconds rather than minutes, minimizing downtime across large-scale operations.
“Broadcast operations manage hundreds or thousands of channels across multiple data centers, with each channel having dozens of monitoring parameters,” said Michael Demb, VP Product Strategy at TAG Video Systems. “When something goes wrong, every second of downtime matters. Lensgives operators a unified view of system health and lets them drill down from data center-wide to specific sources.”
Lens is available now in TAG’s Media Control System (MCS) version 1.7.0 and later.
