Live Stream Monitoring works across all elements of broadcasting chains from the front of the camera to the performance of content across the web. It is important to ensure stream stability and quality for businesses that wish to attract, engage and retain both viewers and subscribers to business channels.

Although all industry professionals agree that live stream monitoring is important, it is surprising to what extent opinion varies about the level of monitoring that is truly needed.

What are the basics of live stream monitoring?

Most industry experts agree that the basics include making sure that the content is correct and is appearing in the right place, and that it is accessible quickly. One of the biggest causes of a viewer abandoning content will lie in latency – how long the video content takes to play.

These basics are typically agreed upon by all live stream monitoring professionals.

Some professionals, including The Streaming Company, believe that there is much more to live stream monitoring than this – even in basic terms.

Fully analysing the content

To fully monitor live streaming for your business involves more than just checking to see if the content is there and viewable. Only when businesses can gain a holistic view of their content can they truly understand its value and performance.

Some industry professionals fully analyse the content:

• Making sure that it looks right in every frame
• Checking sound quality and audio levels
• Checking that any advertising is appropriate
• Making sure that detailed analytics are used to determine the overall ‘health’ of the content
• Media bandwidth analysis
• Video compression standards
• Elementary stream buffering
• And more.

Understanding compliance

Many industry professionals believe that compliance is only going to increase in live video streaming, and this is something that will grow in importance for monitoring companies. Currently, closed captioning is required in live streaming if the content is broadcast elsewhere (such as cable TV) with it in place.

It is thought that soon the industry will see mandatory requirements for audio quality, particularly with network broadcasting, when audio streams of reduced quality could hinder a network if the issue lies at the source.

How The Streaming Company can help

When live streaming monitoring is professionally handled and carried out to its maximum potential using multiple stream viewing points, the diagnostics are in place to spot an issue before delivery is completed and the viewer is left disappointed.

The Streaming Company understands the importance of live stream monitoring and reporting for businesses and content of all sizes. We monitor and analyse a broad range of metrics, including bandwidth, MDI (including delay factor and media loss rate), PCR clock, real-time PSI/SI table decoding and much more.

Our Network Operations Centre (NOC) monitors our own CDN and live services in addition to those of our clients. We are also extending our managed services to provide monitoring support for external broadcasters and networks.

To talk to us about your business needs for comprehensive live stream monitoring, please visit the Monitoring Services page or contact us today.