IneoQuest Technologies, a provider of video quality and service assurance solutions, and Envivio, live and on-demand multi-screen IP video processing solutions provider,  collaborated to offer quality assurance tools to Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and over-the-top (OTT) services using adaptive bit rate video delivery technology.

As per the agreement, IneoQuest and Envivio (News - Alert) will exchange core technology that will be built into each company's products to offer tighter integration within the ecosystem.

The alliance is expected to merge multi-screen video encoding with real-time, end-to-end monitoring and analysis. With the collaboration, operators can ensure that they are sending a robust, intact and adaptive bit rate streams into CDNs or mobile infrastructure, while addressing the quality viewing expectations of their subscribers.

“This partnership helps bring focus to the requirement of quality and service assurance for HTTP streaming video,” said Marc Todd, president and CEO, IneoQuest (News - Alert), in a statement. “Working together, IneoQuest and Envivio can improve visibility and operational efficiencies, and provide operators with the capability they desperately need to cater to the rapid advances in adaptive bitrate video deployments.”

Video providers use full adaptive streaming of OTT and multi-screen video using HTTP Live streaming and other HTTP delivery methods to offer expanded services. With these solutions, video providers can also enable consumers to enjoy TV everywhere.

According to video providers, operational challenges for such systems can significantly affect the end-user experience. Any problems arising with adaptive streaming can be difficult to pinpoint and simply manifest as a poor experience at the end client device, company officials said.

“Quality of experience is critical to subscriber satisfaction whether they are viewing the content on a TV, a mobile phone, a tablet or a PC,” said Julien Signès, president and CEO, Envivio.

“The partnership between Envivio and IneoQuest fills a significant gap by bringing actionable service analysis and metrics – the type long required by cable, satellite, IPTV (News - Alert) and other premium services – to the new breed of operators that are relying on adaptive bitrate technology to deliver uninterrupted service via CDN and other OTT techniques,” Signes added.

Recently, Envivio announced the release of its third generation Envivio 4Caster C4 live encoder/transcoder for mobile TV, internet TV and IPTV services. It is a powerful solution for producing live video streams for mobile TV, internet TV and IPTV from a single platform, eliminating the need for multiple headends.

Rajani Baburajan is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Rajani's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Carrie Schmelkin