OTT advertising has the potential to greatly increase revenues for streaming providers, but it adds complexity to an already complicated OTT streaming workflow. When a problem occurs, diagnosing the issue is very difficult causing providers to lose millions in advertising dollars.

Telestream’s IQ Video Quality Monitoring solution is said to protect the ad business model by monitoring and auditing the ad-insertion workflow, making sure ad opportunities are present and without error. The solution provides data, metrics, and alarms in real time, pinpointing where the issues are occurring in the workflow so errors can be quickly resolved before they affect the viewer. Automated alerts, simplified dashboards and analytical reports help operations teams proactively and effectively manage the ad-insert workflow.

“Ad-insertion on streaming networks can be complex and is increasingly a top focus for streaming operators,” said Matthew Driscoll, Director of Product Management, Telestream. “Our goal is to provide a single pane-of-glass dashboard for advertising workflows. Simple trending graphs and metrics confirm ads are present and working properly. When things fail, we highlight the area of focus so our users can isolate the issue quickly and use diagnostic information to restore services.”

Telestream’s IQ Monitoring Solution checks if ad frequency is dropping or meeting targets; and if ad opportunities in the linear source are available for OTT playout. It verifies that clients can reach the ad servers and that the ad plays correctly, with the right format, duration, and alignment. And it affirms that the quality of the ad video, audio and captions is good.

“Occasionally advertisers will question whether their ad played or had issues,” comments Driscoll. “With our new Ad-Insertion Monitoring solution we provide valuable information about ad events, including the date, time, duration and thumbnail images that provide confirmation that the ad played as expected.”