Tektronix (News - Alert) has taken the wraps off of its Sentry adaptive bit rate (ABR) digital content monitor, which enables broadcasters and other content creators to ensure the quality of their ABR-based TV Everywhere and over-the-top over-the-top (OTT) services.

OTT delivery is increasingly being adopted by broadcasters and content creators to deliver content to TVs, PCs, tablets and smartphones both in the home and on the go.  However, because they do not operate the cable or telecom networks their customers use to receive their programming, broadcasters and content creators cannot guarantee that bandwidth always be sufficient for optimal picture and sound quality. Using ABR streaming to accommodate bandwidth fluctuations is a proven solution, but proper monitoring is required to ensure programming assets are properly stored and available when requested by viewers.

"Thanks to the combination of OTT delivery and ABR streaming, broadcasters and content creators can achieve their goal of directly reaching viewers anywhere in the country with a full suite of multiscreen services," said Eben Jenkins, general manager of the video product line at Tektronix. "However, delivering video using OTT over unmanaged networks poses quality concerns that our Sentry and Sentry ABR solutions have been specifically designed to address."

Sentry ABR validates all assets, bitrate profiles and manifest files based on a highly parallel HTTP fragment fetching engine. Sentry ABR supports up to 250 top manifests, which can each support up to 12 profiles of each program. Manifest files and fragments can be fetched from any place on the network – such as origin servers and content distribution network (CDN) caching servers – to simulate a subscriber's request for content.

Tektronix' ABR solution complement the company’s suite of Sentry video quality monitoring solutions including Ethernet-based, QAM, ASI and 8VSB interfaces. The portfolio enables content to be proactively monitored for quality and compliance whether carried from studio to transmitter, over-the-air or via linear delivery networks.