TraceBox Data Sheet TraceBox White Paper As the video world is moving to IP and telecommunication and broadcast industries are converging, operators need a system to monitor their video systems in order to mantain a good signal. This type of monitoring should be done in a technical manner in order to analyse streams at down level, monitoring the problems which may occur in the streams. But it is also highly important to monitor the signal from the customer's point of view in order to know if the end-customer is satisfied with the service or if something needs to be changed.
Combining VideoBridge and TraceBox
BridgeTech and TraceBox are two powerful, useful, and easy-to-use tools for monitoring video networks. Together they constitute the perfect, complete monitoring solution. The operator can install a BridgeTech probe, a TraceBox, and another extra card (QAM, COFDM or QPSK input cards, for example) in a single 1U rack chassis, and in addition STB.
The operator only needs to install the monitoring points in each point of the network where you want to monitor the streams (Head-end, PoP, DSLAM) and the two central servers in the Network Operation Center. Furthermore, operators can access the monitoring points via a web browser from all points in the network. Authentication and profiles are provided to give access only to the allowed operators in each site. Furthermore, the TraceBox and BridgeTech probes can send traps SNMP. Therefore, they can be integrated in any existing management system. With TraceBox and BridgeTech you can manage a full monitoring system for both QoS and QoE analysises with a remarkably competitive price.
VIdeoBridge IP-Probes
BRIDGE Technologies' probes have been designed not only to satisfy the engineer but also the operators. It provides an wide range of possible measurements in the stream as well as a completely intuitive visual system to identify, filter, and report alarms. The probes provide a complete stream analysis including services, PSI/SI tables, bit-rates, and ETR 290 alarms for up to 180 services per probe in the top-of-the-line probe, the VB220. It also provides a simple way to see all the information in an intuitive windowed system, allowing to view ETR 290 alarms of several channels in the same window, with the micro ETR technology, and making operations easier and less confusing for the operator.
TraceBox monitoring system
If the BridgeTech probes are the perfect tools for QoS measurement, the Trace Box is designed to measure the QoE. An operator needs not only to view, analyse, and report the alarms in the streams, but also to monitor, from a central control site, the actual user-experience. This is highly important as the STB is a key element on the QoE as it uses interactive applications intensively. In addition, video and audio streams are encrypted and only the STB is able to decrypt them.
The TraceBox monitoring system allows for decoding a stream in a remote site, encoding the output of the STB and streaming it to the control site, which allows the operator to actual user experience. QoE is a key parameter to control in terms of customer expectation, satisfaction, and churn reduction. The TraceBox provides a tool for TV service layer monitoring: live TV channels availability, zapping times, VoD, EPG load time, portal access, etc.
