Cover Story
Testing times
Lockdowns and working from home during the pandemic has significantly affected viewing patterns . With Test & Monitor essential to consumer QoE , have sector players faced additional challenges ? Euromedia found out from a range of players how they have responded , as well as continuing to enable their broadcaster and service provider clients to maintain market share and protect revenue .
What challenges have lockdown and home working created ? How have these been met ? Interra Systems : During the Covid-19 global health crisis , we ’ ve observed that many broadcasters and TV service providers had a
10 EUROMEDIA limited IT infrastructure and minimal access to their systems when working from home . If a video delivery system doesn ’ t function properly or breaks down , prompt customer support is important . Partnering with a technology provider that has responsive , remote-ready support and engineering departments is critical for emergency situations like the one we ’ re experiencing . During this pandemic , when access to physical location is either limited or non-existent , companies are struggling to keep operations going uninterrupted . Accessing systems , performing software updates , and managing systems via remote logins has been problematic for organisations . Mediaproxy : Most challenges posed by having to adopt remote workflows have relatively easily been met . After all , it ’ s an engineers ’ job to come up with solutions to those technical obstacles . The slightly more interesting consequences coming out of Covid is that , whilst companies can continue to run their businesses , it ’ s proving far more challenging to grow the business . Promptlink : More pressure on the networks , especially on the Upstream channels , has affected operators ’ ability to deliver services . Network noise and upstream capacity have challenged operators ’ network management . Qligent : The lockdown has affected us in several ways . We cannot meet with many customers face-to-face , with the spontaneity of the boardroom meeting by prioritising conversation and interactive discovery . This means fewer demos , and more direct discourse and interaction with customers through platforms like Microsoft Teams and Zoom . Rohde & Schwarz : Naturally , it was clear that many of the technicians were working from home too as they couldn ’ t easily get on site . Broadcasters became ultra-careful by ringfencing crucial infrastructure areas such as Master Control Rooms in order to keep those vital facilities infection free . We had an increased interest in our Prismon monitoring solutions as they can be used remotely and even in the cloud . As lockdown progressed many broadcasters started thinking about 2021 and all the live events postponed from 2020 ( especially the European football championships ) which has also driven an increased interest in how to monitor facilities remotely , since if there is yet another pandemic wave they may not be able to enter the big event facilities . Broadcasters are looking to protect their interest in those events by ensuring they ’ re able to work differently . SSIMWAVE : A key challenge for the video industry was that studios , broadcasters and OTT services had to quickly readjust workflows and accelerate the adoption of cloud solutions . The ones that had already made this transition were at a clear advantage vs . the rest of the market . Streaming services had to scale quickly to millions of subscribers across many geographies and some of their technologies were not ready .