Efficiency Archives - TAG Video Systems

Strengthened by Successful 2024, TAG Video Systems Plans to Further Enhance Platform in 2025

noa@tagvs.com — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 14:31:10 +0000

Innovation and Partnerships Combine to Deliver Elevated Media Performances

In 2024, TAG Video Systems dedicated itself to empowering customers to achieve their goals and deliver truly extraordinary media experiences. For 2025, TAG has announced that it will continue to enhance its Realtime Media Platform, forge new partnerships, and expand its team to meet the evolving needs of the broadcast industry.

“TAG remains committed to its core mission of delivering unparalleled quality and ensuring exceptional media performance,” says Kevin Joyce, Zero Friction Officer at TAG. “Driven by customer feedback and a dedication to continuous improvement, our Realtime Media Platform saw significant enhancements in 2024, providing clients with greater control, efficiency, and insight into their media workflows. This momentum will serve as the building blocks to a successful 2025, and we look forward to revealing more exciting developments at NAB in April.”

Key highlights of 2024 include:

Enhanced Platform Capabilities

Advanced User Management: Enhancing security and efficiency, the new Advanced User Management feature allows for role-based access control, ensuring only authorized personnel access critical systems. This reduces human error and improves confidence in managing complex workflows.
QC Elements: Integrated within the multiviewer mosaic tiles, Quality Control Elements provide deeper insights into stream quality, enabling operators to quickly identify and address issues.
Content Matching Technology: Content Matching Technology ensures content integrity and facilitates efficient troubleshooting by creating unique fingerprints for precise matching across the media distribution path.
Operator Console: This intuitive interface streamlines multiviewer control, enabling operators to adjust layouts, modify tile content, switch views instantly, and balance between efficiency and engineer control.
SSIM Support: Supporting the Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM), a straightforward, perception-based QoE measure, enables quick, realtime qualitative video quality evaluation and analysis.
Language Detection & Captioning: Ensuring compliance and quality, the enhanced Language Detection & Captioning feature automatically assesses subtitle quality and accuracy, supporting multi-language management.
Additional Cloud Support: TAG’s Realtime Media Platform now supports additional cloud environments, including Oracle, Tencent, and Alibaba Cloud, offering users greater flexibility in deploying and scaling their media operations.
UI/UX Enhancements: The Media Control System (MCS) received significant user interface and experience updates, making it more intuitive for operators to manage and monitor media workflows.
AMD CPU Support: Expanded support for AMD-based COTS servers alongside existing Intel support provides more flexibility in deploying monitoring solutions.
Expanded HDR Support: With improved High Dynamic Range (HDR) visualization and quality assessment tools, broadcasters and content creators can confidently monitor HDR signals in realtime, ensuring stunning picture quality and a truly immersive viewing experience.
MCS Support for Rocky Linux: The Media Control System (MCS) now supports the robust and reliable Rocky Linux operating system.
VALID Test Signal Verification: TAG now supports the reception, identification, and utilization of VALID test patterns, enabling automated measurement and visualization of A/V sync and latency directly within the video mosaic. This eliminates the need for external tests, improves efficiency, and ensures consistent media quality.

Security and Compliance

TAG achieved ISO 27001 certification, demonstrating its commitment to the highest standards of information security management. This certification provides clients with the assurance that their sensitive data is protected by internationally recognized best practices, reducing the risk of security breaches and enhancing trust and confidence.

Growing Team Expertise

TAG invested in top talent across various departments. Key additions included an AI developer, DevOps Engineer, QA, Sales Manager, HR Specialist, VP of Finance, and Customer Success Account Managers across multiple regions.

Strategic Partnerships

In 2024, TAG expanded its ecosystem through vital partnerships with industry leaders like Techex, Zixi, Amagi, BNS, and Skyline Dataminer. These collaborations provide clients with integrated solutions that guarantee comprehensive workflow control, ensure seamless content delivery, and simplify complex operations.

Industry Recognition

TAG’s commitment to quality was recognized with numerous industry awards in 2024, including NAB Product of the Year, Digital Media World Awards, Future Best of Show, APB+ awards, Streaming Media Readers’ Choice Awards, and Future Best in Market Awards.

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TAG Video Systems and Techex Win Silver Digital Media World Award for Joint Solution

ilana@tagvs.com — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:28:08 +0000

Strategic Partnership showcases how interoperable solutions guarantee comprehensive workflow control with best-in-breed tools

TAG and Techex, a leading cloud and IP video specialist, have announced that their joint solution has won a Silver award from Digital Media World in the IP Broadcast Solutions category.

The award-winning entry “ACO Workflow – TAG|Techex Integration” provides an immediate, realtime response to signal disruptions in IP-based media workflows. It actively monitors the health of both primary and secondary signal paths, guaranteeing the highest quality content delivery by instantly transitioning to a backup source at the first sign of errors. This preserves the integrity of the broadcast and eliminates the potential for viewer disruption.

“We are thrilled to receive this recognition from Digital Media World,” said Kevin Joyce, Zero Friction Officer at TAG Video Systems. “This award is a testament to the commitment we share with Techex to empower broadcasters with the reliable technology they need to deliver exceptional viewing experience.”

“This win comes to highlight the power of partnership,” said Scott Kewley, CEO at Techex. “By combining our expertise in IP video transport and processing with TAG’s leading monitoring and visualization capabilities, we have created a truly unique and valuable solution for broadcasters.”

The Integration leverages Techex’s tx darwin IP video gateway, which provides high throughput transport protection and monitoring for critical broadcast services. This, coupled with TAG’s real-time monitoring and analytics, allows for immediate detection and resolution of any issues that may arise during transmission or processing.

About Techex:

Trusted by premier global broadcast and media customers with their most valuable live workflows, Techex transports, protects and transforms live video over IP and in the cloud. Its expertise ensures the safe and secure delivery of high value content, where precision, scalability and flexibility are paramount. Using its extensive broadcast experience, Techex supports organisations in transitioning to IP and the cloud.
Techex develops its own award-winning software and partners with market-leading technology companies developing an ecosystem of best-in-class solutions and services which can handle the most challenging scenarios.
In a market where customer expectations continually evolve, content providers require solutions that deliver reliable and high-quality video whilst optimising cost and operational efficiencies. Techex bridges the gap between the rigours of traditional broadcast and the agility of cloud native infrastructure.

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TAG Keeps Customers Ahead of the Technology Curve with Major Investment in Expanded R&D Team Including AI Specialist

ilana@tagvs.com — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 15:29:42 +0000

Company remains laser focused on driving innovation, reducing complexity and ensuring customer success

TAG has announced the addition of several new members to the TAG R&D team. This move reflects TAG’s deep commitment to developing and delivering precise solutions that keep customers ahead of the consistently evolving technology curve. Amongst the new R&D team members is a specialist in AI development and an expert in cloud-native applications. Others on the expanded team will focus on enhancing the user experience and ensuring customers optimize their TAG systems.

Noa Magrisso – AI Developer

Noa Magrisso, a software and information systems engineer, has joined TAG as an AI Developer responsible for broadening the Company’s AI capabilities. Magrisso, formerly an AI Algorithm Engineer at Intel, will ensure TAG’s platform incorporates the most cutting edge AI technology available to maximize customers’ business potential and streamline their operational workflows.

Pavel Rozentsvet – DevOps Engineer

Pavel Rozentsvet has assumed the role of DevOps Engineer at TAG, bringing a significant skill set encompassing specialization in cloud-native applications. Rozenstvet will collaborate with the Research and Development team to optimize processes, enhance efficiency and reduce development timelines. This investment in R&D underscores TAG’s dedication to delivering innovative solutions that position customers at the forefront of industry advancements.

Liad Bercovitch – Frontend Software Developer

TAG is ensuring customers experience seamless, intuitive interactions with all elements of the platform by appointing Liad Bercovitch as a Frontend Software Developer. Bercovitch will be focusing on enhancing the user experience of the TAG platform UI, improving the overall customer experience, and ensuring their continued satisfaction.

Ella Maudy and Maxim Rybkin– QA Specialists

Rounding out the enhanced R&D team are Ella Maudy and Maxim Rybkin, TAG’s newest QA Specialists. Maudy and Rybkin are responsible for ensuring each version of TAG’s software releases are packed with new features, functionality, provide format support, and work as planned. This meticulous attention to detail guarantees that TAG’s customers experience the highest quality and can confidently expect the upgrades to function reliably and correctly.

“TAG Video Systems’ unwavering focus on customer satisfaction and innovation is reflected in the addition of these new team members,” said Kevin Joyce, TAG’s Zer0 Friction® Officer. “By investing in top talent and expanding our team, we continue to strengthen the services we offer and enhance the customer experience. Please join us in welcoming Noa, Pavel, Liad, Ella and Maxim to the TAG family. We look forward to their contributions and their participation in driving success for our customers worldwide.”

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TAG Expands EMEA Team to Elevate Customer Experience

ilana@tagvs.com — Mon, 02 Sep 2024 16:28:20 +0000

Key appointments reinforce TAG’s dedication to customer growth and success in the EMEA market

TAG has announced two strategic additions to its EMEA team. This expansion underscores TAG’s commitment to providing tailored solutions and exceptional support to customers of all sizes across the EMEA region.

Benoit Leygnac – Sales Director EMEA

Benoit Leygnac brings decades of sales leadership at Harmonic to his role as Sales Director EMEA for TAG. Leygnac’s in-depth knowledge and experience navigating an evolving broadcast industry underscores his ability to design workflows that align seamlessly with customers’ business goals. With an initial focus on France and Poland, Leygnac will leverage his strong regional relationships to support existing customers and strengthen TAG’s presence.

Benoit Leygnac can be reached at: benoit@tagvs.com

Stefan Schindler – Technical Account Manager EMEA

Stefan Schindler steps into the role of Technical Account Manager EMEA for TAG following ten years as a Broadcast Engineer specializing in live production and streaming, most recently for Riot Games. As a Technical Account Manager, Schindler’s mission is to minimize complexity in customers’ workflows and ensure they maximize TAG solutions to their fullest potential.

Stefan Schindler can be reached at: stefan@tagvs.com

“The new team members demonstrate TAG’s ongoing investment in customer satisfaction and innovation”, said Kevin Joyce, TAG’s Zer0 Friction® Officer. “By expanding our team with top talent, we are enhancing our service capabilities and elevating the overall customer experience. We warmly welcome Benoit and Stefan to the TAG family and look forward to their contributions in driving success for our EMEA customers.”

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TAG to Unveil Transformative Technologies at IBC 2024, Redefining Broadcast Efficiency, Reliability and Scalability

danna@tagvs.com — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 16:15:07 +0000

TAG will introduce several new capabilities at IBC 2024 aimed at strengthening security, reducing human error, increasing confidence and providing a quick path to root cause analysis. Demonstrations will be conducted in TAG’s stand 1.C19.

Enhancing Security and Operational Efficiency with Advanced User Management

At IBC, TAG will present its new advanced user management (RBAC – Role Based Access Control) functionality designed to align its solution with organizational structure as well as increase efficiency and control for large operations with separate systems such as OTT, production, and playout. The advanced user management creates roles and assigns operators their own area of responsibility. It is structured to strengthen security and reduce human error by restricting or permitting access to inputs, outputs, sources (or subsets of sources), and functionalities based on that person’s role in the workflow and the organization. Knowing that access is limited by specific tasks, sources, or networks brings an additional measure of confidence to those managing multiple networks under the same TAG Media Control System (MCS).

Streamlining Troubleshooting with Heatmap

TAG will also be previewing a functionality at IBC designed to simplify the monitoring and troubleshooting of massive media networks. Visitors will get a sneak peek at TAG’s Heatmap – an interactive visual tool accessed directly from TAG’s Media Control System (MCS) interface. Heatmap provides an at-a-glance overview of the entire network’s status, consolidating thousands of sources onto a single screen. The intuitive tile-based display uses color coding to instantly highlight potential issues, allowing operators to quickly assess the overall health of the system.

Heatmap’s real strength, however, is in its ability to zoom in on the root of the problem quickly. A simple click on any group tile allows operators to effortlessly navigate through a structured hierarchy, filtering by various categories to pinpoint the exact source of the issue. This level of precision enables rapid, focused resolution, preventing minor glitches from escalating into major disruptions.

Empowering Engineers with QC Elements

TAG continues to enrich visualization and simplify troubleshooting capabilities with QC Elements (Quality Control Elements). This feature enables a vast array of elements to be arranged on a tile for a comprehensive view of critical technical data, bringing engineers a built-in quality control station within the multiviewer display. Engineers can tailor the information presented on each tile, including details on codecs, frame rates, resolutions, closed captions, audio channels, transport streams, and more. This powerful tool expedites the identification and analysis of technical issues, minimizing downtime and ensuring seamless content delivery. QC Elements represents a continuation of TAG’s expanding capabilities; stay tuned for news of further developments.

Showcasing the Future of Broadcasting: Content Matching and Operator Console Advancements

At IBC, attendees will experience the next generation of content matching technology and operator console, giving broadcasters unprecedented control over content accuracy and an optimized operational workflow.

The advanced content matching technology leverages sophisticated algorithms to automatically verify content accuracy and consistency across all platforms, minimizing errors and ensuring the right content reaches the right audience.

TAG’s operator console, an intuitive touch panel console, provides a live, interactive view of the multiviewer output on any touch-controlled device. Operators can effortlessly switch between layouts, modify tile content, and isolate audio sources for verification. Additionally, they gain instant access to pre-defined and customizable configurations, simplifying complex workflows.

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TAG Video Systems and LiveU Partner to Deliver Enhanced Live Video Quality for News and Sports

ilana@tagvs.com — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 14:09:50 +0000

TAG has announced a strategic partnership with LiveU, a leader in live IP-video and remote production solutions. This collaboration will empower live news and sports broadcasters to deliver exceptional live video experiences with unparalleled quality assurance.

Through this partnership, TAG Video Systems’ comprehensive real-time media performance solutions will seamlessly monitor LiveU’s industry-leading live video transmission feeds, notify for events per custom set thresholds and visualize them in real-time. This integration will be particularly beneficial for live news and sports production, where maintaining pristine video quality and catching issues before they impact viewers is critical.

Broadcasters will gain:

Real-Time Visibility into Live Feeds: Gain real-time insights into the health and performance of live video streams from remote locations, ensuring smooth on-air delivery of breaking news and sporting events.
Proactive Problem Solving: Identify potential issues like signal degradation, allowing for immediate corrective action.
Optimized Transmission for Challenging Networks: Leverage TAG’s robust analysis to optimize LiveU’s resilient transmission, underpinned by its LRT (LiveU Reliable Transport) protocol, maximizing video quality over wire-free networks at sporting events or remote news locations.

“Live news and sports broadcasters operate under immense pressure to deliver high-quality content under tight deadlines,” said Ziv Mor, Chief Growth Officer at TAG Video Systems. “By integrating our solutions with LiveU’s field-proven technology, we are providing them with the tools they need to ensure flawless live productions and maintain viewer trust with a simplified, agile workflow.”

“We are thrilled to partner with TAG Video Systems. Our customers are managing an ever-increasing number of video streams across a range of IP-video protocols and standards, including LRT. By adding TAG to the rich and diverse LiveU EcoSystem we can offer our customers even greater efficiency, while reducing complexity for live news and sports professionals,” said Gideon Gilboa, Chief Product Officer at LiveU. “This collaboration offers a powerful solution for monitoring and optimizing every type of feed from one single service, simplifying even the most demanding live workflows, and helping to guarantee a superior viewing experience for audiences worldwide.”

See the Integrated Solution in Action at NAB 2024

Experience the power of TAG Video Systems and LiveU’s integrated solution firsthand at the upcoming NAB Show in Las Vegas, April 13-17, booth #SL5105 (LiveU) and #W1655 (TAG Video Systems). TAG and LiveU will be showcasing live demos highlighting the benefits for live news and sports production teams.

About LiveU

LiveU’s EcoSystem adds efficiency and shortens workflows across the entire video production chain for news, sports, public safety and other verticals. Reducing complexity, the LiveU EcoSystem delivers an optimized and flexible IP video network for contribution, production and distribution. Building on our global market leadership and innovation, LiveU offers the highest quality, reliable IP-video solutions for all types of live productions – producing more for less. Our rich portfolio, built on the pioneering LRT (LiveU Reliable Transport) protocol, ranges from our portable production-level field units and smartphone apps to next-gen cloud IP management, ingest, production and distribution solutions. With over 5,000 customers in 150 countries, LiveU’s technology is the solution of choice for global broadcasters, sports, public safety and other organizations (including government, education, enterprise, and production houses), streaming live video to TV, mobile, online, and social media. LiveU is a multi-award winner, including Frost & Sullivan for global product leadership and Technology & Engineering Emmy® Awards. For more information, visit www.liveu.tv, or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn or Instagram.

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TAG Monitoring Layers: Key Parameters at Workflow Points

noa@tagvs.com — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 16:54:17 +0000

In broadcast engineering, maintaining realtime visibility across every aspect of a media workflow is essential. Complex workflows and diverse media formats require a comprehensive solution continuously monitoring every component. TAG Video Systems delivers a multilayered monitoring platform that provides deep insights at each critical workflow point, helping operators and engineers stay ahead of potential issues while maintaining operational efficiency.

Media Essence: Realtime Monitoring at the Core

Monitoring video, audio, subtitles, and metadata in realtime is essential for maintaining content quality. TAG probes critical parameters such as bitrate, resolution, and frame rate to ensure accurate transmission of each frame. Whether dealing with uncompressed formats like SMPTE ST2110 or compressed formats like JPEG-XS, TAG provides real-time oversight of each codec’s performance. Loudness levels and audio channel integrity are monitored to ensure proper audio consistency. TAG tracks metadata, including closed captions and subtitles, to maintain accurate synchronization with the media essence. By probing these parameters, TAG helps operators catch and resolve issues before they impact the viewer.

Signal Integrity: Ensuring Accurate Stream Parameters

Realtime monitoring of signal integrity is essential for delivering consistent, high-quality content. As mentioned, the TAG platform continuously checks parameters like resolution, bit rate, and Program IDs (PIDs) to ensure each stream aligns with expected standards. Importantly, using fingerprinting, TAG Content Matching Technology provides an additional layer of verification by confirming that each segment matches the original source, helping operators detect and address discrepancies—whether it’s a PID mismatch or bit rate drift—before they affect downstream workflows.

With over 500 actionable thresholds and alarms spanning video, audio, OTT, SCTE, and other key parameters, TAG’s platform enables operators to remain informed on stream health. This detailed, realtime feedback supports engineers and operators in maintaining signal integrity throughout pre- and post-encoding, pre- and post-packaging, across to the edge of your CDN networks, ensuring that the highest standards are met for every frame delivered through live production, playout, and delivery.

Transport Layer: Maintaining Stream Stability and Timing

TAG’s Transport Layer monitoring ensures reliable content delivery by actively tracking the stability and timing of essential packet-based protocols, including RTMP, SRT, MPEG-DASH, HLS, CMAF, and others. Key metrics like PCR timing, packet loss, and packet inter-arrival times (IAT) are continuously monitored, allowing operators to detect and address potential disruptions that could impact stream quality. TAG’s system also probes adaptive bitrate (ABR) conditions, flagging issues like missing files or delayed segment delivery to keep streams stable across variable network conditions.

With deep, comprehensive sets of thresholds and alarms for each transport protocol, TAG provides operators and engineers with realtime alerts to any transport-related irregularities. This level of monitoring ensures that all streams adhere to timing and packet integrity standards, supporting an uninterrupted viewing experience at any scale.

Dynamic Ad Insertion: SCTE/DAI Triggers and Compliance

TAG’s platform provides complete visibility into dynamic ad insertion events by probing all SCTE-35 and SCTE-104 parameters in realtime. This comprehensive monitoring ensures accurate cue points for ad insertions, program starts and ends, and other critical splice points. TAG detects and flags issues like invalid triggers, missed events, or expired ad windows, helping operators maintain a seamless ad experience and prevent revenue loss.

With extensive probes dedicated for SCTE-35 and SCTE-104, engineers and operators receive instant alerts if ad signals deviate from expected standards. TAG’s platform ensures each trigger is executed as intended, providing confidence in ad integrity and compliance across all broadcast and OTT environments.

Realtime Visualization: Comprehensive Video and Data Insights

TAG’s platform delivers realtime visualization that extends beyond traditional multiviewing, integrating advanced tools for probing, monitoring, and visualizing both video and data streams. Operators can build customized mosaics to visualize multiple streams and data points within a single, dynamic view, providing instant, actionable insights across all workflow layers. TAG Bridge enables efficient source sharing, allowing teams to access necessary streams without redundant processing.

In addition to its powerful in-platform visualization, TAG supports third-party data tools like Kibana and Grafana, among others. This enables engineers to create custom dashboards that merge TAG’s realtime metrics with additional operational data. QC Elements, a new feature providing in-depth quality control insights, gives engineers a precise, focused perspective on stream health and performance. This versatile approach ensures end-to-end oversight, empowering them and managers to make data-driven decisions and proactively address issues within media workflows.

Flexible Deployment: Scalable QoS for Optimal Viewer Experience

TAG’s platform is engineered to provide scalable, high-quality service (QoS) that supports broadcasters in meeting the rigorous demands of media workflows, directly contributing to an enhanced Quality of Experience (QoE) for viewers. Whether deployed on COTS hardware, in the cloud, or hybrid deployments, TAG adapts seamlessly to all environments, ensuring operators can manage workflows without sacrificing performance.

Supporting both OPEX and CAPEX financial models through TAG’s Zero Friction Licensing (ZFL), the platform offers flexibility that aligns with operational budgets, enabling broadcasters to adjust resources based on realtime needs. This adaptive approach lets engineers confidently manage high-density content delivery, upholding QoS standards while ensuring every frame is delivered accurately and efficiently. TAG’s deployment options align with current and future demands, helping broadcasters maintain exceptional viewer experiences, regardless of scale.

Advanced Tools: Optimizing Monitoring for Proactive Management

TAG’s platform provides a suite of advanced tools designed to elevate operational efficiency and precision, helping operators manage and optimize workflows seamlessly.

Smart Recording enables automated stream recording based on custom thresholds, capturing content pre- and post-event, along with critical metadata such as manifest files and IP addresses. This feature supports compliance needs and provides invaluable data for later analysis, allowing operators to access historical insights and ensure content integrity.

Adaptive Monitoring offers flexible modes—Full, Light, and X-Light—that adjust resource use based on current system demands. This ensures continuous content analysis while intelligently optimizing resource consumption, ramping up to full visualization only when an issue is detected. Operators gain the advantage of efficiency without compromising the platform’s responsiveness.

The Penalty Box function, TAG’s monitoring-by-exception tool, relieves constant “eyes on glass” by displaying only flagged streams requiring attention. By focusing operators on areas needing immediate action, the Penalty Box reduces operational fatigue and enhances overall workflow management.

TAG’s Content Matching Technology leverages realtime monitoring to assess A/V synchronization, latency, and consistency across different resolutions and frame rates, providing a comprehensive view of content health across the entire workflow. These tools empower engineers to manage issues proactively, ensuring optimal performance and viewer experience.

Actionable Data: Driving Insight and Informed Decisions

For operators and engineers, having access to actionable data is essential—it’s not just about monitoring; it’s about understanding and improving workflows. TAG’s platform integrates with powerful third-party data visualization tools like Kibana, Grafana, and Kafka, enabling teams to harness realtime insights that support quick, informed decision-making.

This capability means operators aren’t just reacting to issues but anticipating them. Engineers can analyze trends, identify recurring challenges, and optimize current and future workflows based on real metrics rather than guesswork. TAG’s data tools allow broadcasters to enhance quality, reduce downtime, and streamline operations, ultimately delivering a smoother, more reliable viewer experience. It provides a clear view of system health and performance for management, translating technical insights into actionable strategies and business enablement planning, such as new revenue opportunities.

Conclusion: Comprehensive Monitoring, Realtime Insights

TAG’s monitoring platform gives engineers the precise visibility to maintain seamless operations. From content integrity to transport layer stability, SCTE compliance, and realtime visualization, TAG offers comprehensive monitoring at every workflow stage, ensuring efficient and uninterrupted performance.

Using TAG’s platform, engineers can ensure that issues are identified and addressed without delay, keeping broadcasts on track and viewers happy. With advanced features, flexible deployment, and comprehensive real-time data analysis, TAG’s solution is designed to meet the needs of even the most complex media operations.

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The Top 5 Challenges in MCRs & NOCs—And How to Stay Ahead

noa@tagvs.com — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 12:13:08 +0000

A smarter approach to balancing automation, human oversight, and QoS/QoE monitoring at scale.

Introduction

Ensuring the seamless monitoring and management of video, audio, and metadata streams across live production, playout, and delivery workflows has never been more critical. As workflows expand and become more complex, maintaining signal integrity, service reliability, and revenue protection—such as ensuring ad insertions are accurately detected and executed—requires a more adaptive approach.

With increasing complexity, many operation centers are moving away from dedicated hardware appliances that once defined broadcast infrastructure. Instead, IP-native, software-based solutions are becoming the preferred choice, offering greater scalability, flexibility, and deeper insights into signal performance.

As media operations continue to evolve, traditional monitoring methods no longer provide the efficiency, accuracy, or scalability required to manage an increasing volume of streams and formats. Operations teams face challenges in ensuring realtime visibility, maintaining consistent quality across diverse delivery methods, and keeping up with the transition to IP-based infrastructures.

The following are five of the biggest technical challenges facing NOCs and MCRs today, along with strategies for effectively addressing them.

Managing Diverse Signal Formats and Transports

Modern media workflows span a mix of compressed and uncompressed formats, requiring seamless handling of SMPTE ST 2110, JPEG-XS, H.264, HEVC, and various proprietary and cloud-based transport protocols. As IP-based infrastructures become the norm, the challenge is not just format compatibility but also ensuring realtime visibility across different transport layers—from contribution and production to distribution.

A flexible, software-based monitoring solution eliminates operational inefficiencies by providing a unified, format-agnostic approach that supports all signal types in a single platform. This allows teams to simplify operations, reduce infrastructure complexity, and ensure seamless interoperability between legacy and next-generation technologies.

By consolidating format monitoring into one scalable system, operations centers can improve efficiency, minimize errors caused by format inconsistencies, and reduce reliance on fragmented monitoring tools—leading to a more agile, future-proof media operation.

Scaling Operations Without Scaling “Eyes on Glass”

As media operations expand, traditional monitoring models that rely on dedicated personnel visually tracking every feed become inefficient and unsustainable. Increasing the number of monitored streams should not mean adding more staff, as this approach does not scale effectively and leads to higher operational costs, subjective decision-making, and potential human error.

A smarter, software-driven monitoring approach reduces dependency on eyes on glass by leveraging intelligent probing, automated error detection, and workflow-driven prioritization. Instead of operators actively watching every stream, more sophisticated, advanced solutions alert users to only the critical events requiring human intervention, ensuring staff resources are applied efficiently.

By implementing intelligent monitoring solutions, operation centers can optimize staffing, reduce fatigue and distractions, and enhance focus on true quality assurance rather than merely increasing ‘eyes on glass’ resources, even while scaling up operations. This results in improved QoS and QoE, ensuring that the key service attributes directly impacting the viewer experience are continuously monitored and maintained.

Ensuring QoS and QoE Across OTT and Legacy Distribution

As content delivery diversifies across OTT platforms, CDNs, and legacy broadcast infrastructure, maintaining a consistent and reliable viewer experience becomes increasingly complex. OTT introduces variable network conditions, hardware complexity, and unpredictable congestion, while legacy distribution requires strict adherence to traditional broadcast standards. Managing both Quality of Service (QoS – network and transport health) and Quality of Experience (QoE – how the viewer perceives their experience) is critical to ensuring content reaches audiences as intended.

A deep, end-to-end monitoring solution provides complete visibility into both QoS and QoE, allowing teams to detect and diagnose delivery issues before they impact the viewer. By continuously probing transport streams, CDN origin and edge performance, and end-device playback conditions, these solutions ensure that operators and engineers can proactively mitigate network fluctuations, latency issues, and service interruptions.

With intelligent monitoring across both OTT and legacy workflows, operators can be alerted to buffering and dropouts, maintain service consistency, and ensure a seamless viewer content experience regardless of distribution method. This approach eliminates blind spots, improves troubleshooting efficiency, and safeguards audience engagement across all platforms.

Compliance, Error Mitigation, and Realtime Troubleshooting

Maintaining regulatory and contractual compliance, mitigating stream errors, and quickly identifying root causes are critical for ensuring smooth broadcast and streaming operations. Each of these areas requires a different approach but is equally important in protecting the quality of service and, ultimately, exceptional viewer experiences. Without a centralized, data-driven monitoring strategy, teams risk operational inefficiencies, regulatory violations, and service disruptions that impact both business and audience trust.

A comprehensive monitoring platform enables operations teams to track and log compliance parameters, detect faults in realtime, and conduct root cause analysis efficiently by providing automated alerts, intelligent diagnostics, and historical data insights, Engineers can identify system vulnerabilities, trace the origin of faults, and ensure regulatory adherence.

Implementing a centralized, intelligent monitoring system reduces the burden on operations teams, allowing them to move beyond reactive troubleshooting to proactive fault prevention. This approach enhances service reliability, minimizes disruptions, and strengthens long-term operational resilience

Balancing Automation with Human Oversight

Despite the power of intelligent realtime monitoring tools, there are still scenarios where human expertise is indispensable. High-value or sensitive content often requires direct operator engagement to ensure the highest possible Quality of Experience, while large-scale or system-wide issues may demand human intuition for effective troubleshooting.

Alongside automation and intelligent monitoring, TAG provides human-centric tools that ensure operators remain focused on what matters most—without distraction from the broader system. Penalty Box enables realtime, exception-focused issue detection, allowing engineers to isolate critical issues instantly. QoS and QoE metrics provide deep diagnostic insights. At the same time, Content Matching Technology verifies correct audio and video across workflows, measuring latency and maintaining QoE throughout a path or within a group.

Rich visualization tools further enhance troubleshooting efficiency, offering on-mosaic displays incorporating external data via UMDs and Tallies, along with TAG’s internal monitoring metrics. These features empower operators and engineers to confidently accelerate root-cause analysis and resolution.

People are still the number one asset in any organization. By providing intelligent issue prioritization and a comprehensive toolset within a single platform, TAG ensures that human resources are optimized—not just operationally but strategically. A unified monitoring ecosystem eliminates the complexity of managing multiple solutions, streamlining training and maintenance. Whether in live production, playout, MCR, or NOC environments, TAG serves as a single, trusted source of truth for monitoring—delivering precision, accuracy, and reliability.

Conclusion: The Future of Monitoring in MCRs and NOCs

As media operations grow in complexity, the demands on monitoring systems continue to evolve. Legacy hardware-based solutions and fragmented monitoring approaches no longer provide the flexibility, efficiency, or scalability required to manage today’s dynamic workflows. Operations teams need a smarter, more proactive approach—one that enables realtime insights, scales without adding complexity, and ensures quality from source to distribution.

By leveraging modern monitoring solutions (need adjectives)

Unify monitoring across diverse formats, transport protocols, and distribution methods.
Ensure realtime visibility into live production and playout workflows.
Scale intelligently without increasing operational overhead.
Protect both QoS and QoE by identifying and resolving issues before they impact the viewer.
Maintain compliance and fault mitigation through intelligent diagnostics and root-cause analysis.
Deploy software-based solutions that integrate seamlessly with IP and cloud workflows

Monitoring solutions must lead the pace of change, not simply adapt to it. The shift to IP and software-driven workflows presents an opportunity to move beyond human-centric oversight and embrace active, intelligent monitoring that empowers operators, engineers, and media organizations to stay ahead of issues rather than react to them.

As your workflows expand, is your monitoring strategy keeping up?

The post The Top 5 Challenges in MCRs & NOCs—And How to Stay Ahead appeared first on TAG Video Systems.

From Hardware to Hybrid: The Broadcast Industry’s Journey to IP Workflows

noa@tagvs.com — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 12:08:18 +0000

Written by: Robert Erickson, VP Sales Americas, TAG Video Systems
Co-authored by: Paul Schiller, Product Marketing Manager, TAG Video Systems

Where It Started

The broadcast industry has long relied on on-premise SDI hardware as the cornerstone of production workflows. While dependable and capable, this technology required significant investment, consumed substantial energy, and often operated below capacity. As content demands grew, these inefficiencies became impossible to ignore.

The introduction of IP workflows represented a pivotal change. Standards like SMPTE ST2022-6 and later on SMPTE ST2110 removed the physical interface between systems, enabling broadcasters to virtualize resources. These changes allowed media to flow dynamically, laying the groundwork for more adaptable workflows. Yet, this was only the first step in a broader industry transformation.

The Transition Phase

As the industry adapted and technologies evolved, the focus shifted to removing physical hardware entirely. Moving workflows into software environments promised flexibility, but the early “lift-and-shift” attempts often fell short. Legacy software was moved into the cloud without optimization, resulting in high compute costs and inefficiencies. Meanwhile, some vendors continued relying on hardware-centric solutions, wrapping them in IP interfaces that added complexity but little innovation.

This phase also exposed a key challenge: the cost and bandwidth demands of uncompressed ST2110 workflows. While ST2110 remains the gold standard for on-premise production due to its quality and reliability, it can be prohibitively expensive for some broadcasters. As an alternative, compressed workflows, offer a path to high quality without the same bandwidth burden. These solutions are increasingly relevant for organizations seeking cost-effective options, particularly in hybrid environments.

Where We Are Now

Today, the broadcast industry is embracing flexibility as its guiding principle. The idea of a single, universal standard dominating workflows is fading. Instead, broadcasters are gravitating toward ecosystems that support multiple codecs and transport methods, tailored to specific operational needs.

For example, a broadcaster focused on live production might prioritize ST2110 or JPEG-XS for their low latency and high quality. The key is to enable workflows that allow customers to mix and match technologies based on their unique requirements.

This shift underscores the need for broadcasters to evaluate their investments carefully. Hardware or software solutions should not only meet today’s demands but also adapt to the evolving ecosystem of codecs and transports. By prioritizing modular and scalable architectures, broadcasters can future-proof their workflows while remaining agile.

A Simple and Straightforward Approach

To navigate this landscape effectively, simplicity is paramount. Broadcasters need solutions that minimize complexity, embrace open standards, and allow them to create workflows without being locked into proprietary ecosystems. Modular designs enable engineers to build efficient, adaptable workflows using tools from different vendors.

This straightforward approach reduces friction, allowing teams to focus on their core tasks. Whether managing live sports or handling OTT playout, workflows should align with operational needs rather than forcing organizations into rigid models.

Looking Ahead

The transition from SDI to IP workflows and hybrid environments is a work in progress. While 60% of the industry remains reliant on SDI, the future lies in software-native, codec-agnostic solutions that adapt to diverse use cases. Broadcasters must prepare for an environment where flexibility and customization define success.

TAG Video Systems is already at the forefront of this transformation. By offering an IP-native platform that supports hybrid workflows and a wide array of codecs and transport methods, TAG ensures broadcasters are equipped for the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow. The shift to a dynamic, modular ecosystem is no longer a question of “if” but “when”—and broadcasters who embrace this approach will be ready to lead the industry forward.

Robert Erickson

VP Sales Americas

Paul Schiller

Product Marketing Manager

The post From Hardware to Hybrid: The Broadcast Industry’s Journey to IP Workflows appeared first on TAG Video Systems.

Monitoring is just the beginning

ilana@tagvs.com — Sun, 10 Nov 2024 15:38:41 +0000

TAG’s Realtime Media Platform goes beyond monitoring

If you google ‘multiviewing’, a mere 847,000 search results pop up. TAG Video Systems is right up there, on the first page. Which is great. However, although TAG is known for its exceptional ultra-low latency multiviewer adaptable to every media workflow, multiviewing is only one small component of the TAG Realtime Media platform – a comprehensive toolset that manages and elevates media performance across operations at any scale, setting TAG in a class of its own. TAG’s unique differentiators enable broadcasters and media companies to unlock significant operational efficiency and flexibility, so we’ve picked a few, outlined below.

Content Matching

Content Matching is TAG’s unique and award-winning process that ensures content is delivered in real time to its intended destination without errors or discrepancies. Content Matching identifies potential issues and confirms signal integrity, leading to increased broadcaster confidence and a high-quality viewer experience.

Content Matching creates a unique fingerprint for video streams to match them across the entire media distribution path. It accurately identifies and correlates audio and video uniqueness regardless of the resolution, bitrate, or framerate, thus enabling a match between two or more points in the workflow. This technology notifies users when the first content inconsistency occurs allowing them to get to the root cause of problems faster and troubleshoot more efficiently. Workflow complexity is dramatically reduced, allowing operators to work more efficiently by reducing “eyes-on-glass” while ensuring consistent delivery of quality content.

Content Matching can be applied to the most requested applications including frame-accurate latency measurement, SCTE ad insertion, AV alignment and audio channel drift validation.

Integration of Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM)

TAG’s platform is designed to deliver an unparalleled viewer experience by combining advanced Quality of Experience (QoE) and Quality of Service (QoS) tools. Based on Content Matching Technology, TAG now supports straightforward, reference-based QoE measures like Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM), an industry-leading algorithm that mimics human visual perception to assess video quality in real time. SSIM is seamlessly integrated with TAG’s Content Matching technology allowing for precise comparisons between reference (e.g., source at acquisition) and other points along the workflow (e.g, before/after encoders/packagers). This standardized evaluation simplifies quality assurance across workflows, ensuring a consistent and high-quality viewer experience.

However, TAG’s commitment to quality goes beyond SSIM. The platform also includes comprehensive QoS features that monitor video and audio parameters, signal loss, jitter, latency, and compression artifacts. Together, these tools provide operators with a comprehensive view of stream quality, ensuring both visual and technical fidelity throughout the entire media workflow.

TAG Bridge

TAG Bridge solves two major problems. It helps reduce the bandwidth needed to deliver uncompressed video from the receiving device to a remote location for multiview generations, and it eliminates the need to process the same source multiple times.
This technology is designed to handle various transport methods, such as 2110 uncompressed video or compressed MPEG TS streams, and many others.

TAG’s Bridge removes the complexity of routing the same stream across multiple locations ensuring efficient resource use with minimal bandwidth and compute requirements. This proprietary technology enables an operator to receive a source once – including video, audio and metadata, analyze it for quality, compliance and errors, pre-scale it to the destination tile size and display it directly on any TAG system, anywhere, regardless of input source, size or format. Compute resources are drastically reduced, and a minimum amount of network bandwidth is consumed, freeing up capacity for the customer.

Managing HDR in Live Broadcasting

High Dynamic Range (HDR) technology is redefining the visual standards of television, offering unprecedented brightness, contrast, and color that dramatically enhance the viewing experience. Across Production, Playout or Distribution, multiple HDR formats are here to stay and co-exist for a while. All have different color volume characteristics, many formats include metadata, and SDR will be present in many places. All these need to be managed correctly end-to-end to ensure that the viewer’s TV makes the right choices in displaying them, and that they arrive with appropriate quality and accuracy. They may traverse many codecs and transports; they may incorporate multiple HDR formats in their composition and provide HDR and SDR versions for some time to come. Monitoring this complexity requires adaptive, flexible, and data-driven tools that provide a comprehensive view of all elements in real time, which can accommodate any combination of source characteristics and provide probing/monitoring / alarming, visualization and rich content data from network to essence in one solution.

TAG Video Systems empowers broadcasters with the tools they need to navigate the HDR transition without dependency on expensive, dedicated hardware. By enabling the integration of multiple HDR formats into a single HDR multiviewer mosaic, these solutions offer an accurate visualization of all sources regardless of type, full monitoring of all metadata and behavior. This allows broadcasters to ensure the highest quality standards while also exploring new opportunities for content monetization through enhanced viewer experiences.

Zero Friction® Licensing

TAG ‘s Zer0 Friction® is an agile licensing model that fits both CAPEX and OPEX budgets, unlocking a world of possibilities with every TAG functionality at your fingertips, in every application and workflow. Zer0 Friction allows dynamic sharing across functions, workflows, and locations maximizing efficiency and adaptability in real time. This level of flexibility ensures that customers can adapt quickly to changing requirements, using the same TAG license to visualize a production in one location today and monitor an OTT data point in a different location tomorrow.

Conclusion

TAG is known for its multiviewers, but that’s just a part of the TAG story. The TAG Realtime Media Platform empowers customers to adapt to the rapid changes in content delivery workflows while ensuring consistent quality and operational efficiency. TAG provides the tools to scale operations efficiently and adapt to new challenges. This article gives a summary of some of those tools, unique to TAG.

The post Monitoring is just the beginning appeared first on TAG Video Systems.