Challenges Before Implementation
Q. What challenges or problems were you facing before implementing our service?
As the number of streaming business projects grew, we were searching for a streaming monitoring solution. At the time, we were looking for a solution that could address the following three challenges:
- Video monitoring capability
- Simple video availability monitoring capability
- SCTE information display capability
However, the market was dominated by high-feature, high-cost foreign products, and we could not justify adoption from a cost-effectiveness standpoint.
Reasons for Selection
Q. With other options available, why did you choose our service?
The following points were the key evaluation criteria:
- Easy to implement — available from the same day in a cloud environment
- Easy to scale up or down based on the number of monitored streams
- Only the necessary monitoring solution can be applied to the required streams
- Monitoring can be stopped during off-hours, reducing costs beyond server fees
In particular, the pay-per-use billing model (point system) was an excellent match for our broadcasting operations.
We also highly value the ability to flexibly expand the minimum required monitoring features at additional cost only.
Adoption Process
Q. What steps did you take during implementation? Was there anything that left a strong impression?
We proceeded with implementation by following the instructions on the website.
Simply executing commands as documented, the environment setup was completed in approximately 20 minutes from EC2 instance startup. We were very impressed by this ease of use and strongly felt the innovative nature of this system.
Changes After Implementation
Q. What changes occurred after implementing our service?
We can now not only visually confirm encoder availability, but also easily and cost-effectively detect stream outages and isolate SCTE insertion issues through the app.
By refining our operational approach, we have also been able to achieve high cost-effectiveness not found in other solutions.
Specific Results
Q. What specific results or improvements have you seen since implementation?
We were able to implement monitoring capabilities — including visual monitoring, audio/video availability monitoring, and SCTE information monitoring — for various streaming sources at very low cost.
Previously, isolating troubles that occurred between the encoder and the distribution platform was time-consuming. Now we can quickly determine whether the issue originates on the encoder side or further downstream.
Customer Voice
Q. Are there any aspects of the service you particularly like, or things you would like to see improved?
The point-based pay-per-use billing model is extremely appealing.
Looking ahead, we expect that the addition of comparison monitoring features and Webhook notification support for chat tools would further improve usability.
Words of Recommendation
Q. How would you introduce this service to other companies or colleagues in your industry?
Easy, affordable, and convenient! If you’re unsure which stream monitoring tool to choose, try this one first!
Architecture and System Configuration
Company
Station Management Division
Mr. Takayuki Inatsu
Transmission Division
Mr. Kazuyoshi Yao
TBS ACT, Inc.
Transmission Division
Mr. Fuga Tanaka
Transmission Division
Mr. Daisuke Mitsuzono