When multiple feeds trigger alerts simultaneously, Lens visualisation gives service operators a centralised view of monitored assets and active alerts across large-scale operations.
TAG Video Systems’ Media Control System [MCS] version 1.7.0 now includes Lens, a visual interface for analysing the health of broadcast services. By organising monitored video feeds into hierarchical groups, and displaying alarm distribution, the new tool gives service operators a centralised view of monitored assets and active alerts across large-scale operations.
Lens addresses a common operational challenge that arises when multiple feeds trigger alerts simultaneously. Operators typically need to cross-reference data across TAG’s New Visualisation Tool Analyses Large-Scale Broadcast Services to identify the root cause. However, Lens is able to generate a unified view of all monitored assets and active alerts with colour-coded severity indicators.
Lens organises video streams into customisable hierarchies to help engineers pinpoint root causes quickly. Operations can structure their facilities by data centre location [such as ‘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, in which case it allows operators to view the same feed through different operational perspectives.
When issues trigger, colour-coded severity indicators appear at each hierarchy level, showing whether problems affect isolated feeds or wider categories. Engineers can expand nested hierarchies to drill from high-level overview to specific diagnostics, filter by severity thresholds and quickly 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 efficiently – in seconds rather than minutes – minimizing downtime across large-scale operations.
"Broadcast operations manage hundreds or thousands of channels across multiple data centres, and each channel may have dozens of monitoring parameters," said Michael Demb, VP Product Strategy at TAG Video Systems. "When something goes wrong, every second of downtime matters. Lens gives operators a unified view of system health and lets them drill down from a data centre-wide view to specific sources."
Lens is available now in TAG's Media Control System [MCS] version 1.7.0 and later. tagvs.com
