Enhanced Actus QA Compliance Logging

We introduced the new multiviewer features, including the popular round-robin (carousel) mode and a new penalty box interface for error by exception.

Actus Media Insight: Advanced AI for News & Content Monitoring

Our Media Insight now offers more powerful AI capabilities, changing the news and content monitoring. Media Insight is the only way to monitor and analyze a large volume of content, accurately and quickly, with no language barriers.

Seamless Integration with DataMiner

The DataMiner integration with the Actus System provides a centralized way for customers to manage and monitor their recording channels and transcoding jobs. Operators receive real-time alerts, ensuring quick responses to any issues. It’s all about efficiency and proactive management!

We were thrilled to hear such positive feedback on several key areas:

Intuitive User Interface

Customers love our UI: User-friendly and intuitive, yet features rich, that can be used by both technical and non-technical users, after a short training.

Scalability Across Departments

Customers appreciate our solution’s scalability, which allows multiple departments to work seamlessly within one platform. The ability to expand over time was a key highlight for many (rather than needing to purchase an additional system).

Reliability

Our reliable solutions are always mentioned, allowing teams to focus on their core tasks without having to spend unnecessary time on system maintenance.

Innovation 

For the past 20 years, our customers have consistently recognized us as thought leaders, with our innovation driving richer compliance and monitoring solutions—all within a single platform. The latest addition of AI to our platform further expands its capabilities, adding a wide range of new use cases and scenarios that previously required significant time and manual effort from our customers.

The industry continues to evolve, and Actus is on top of it:

AI-Driven Solutions for Efficient and Automatic Workflows

AI is now a part of many broadcasting systems. Our new AI-based Media Insight for intelligent content monitoring and automatic clipping received great feedback.

Unified Systems

The push for an integrated solution, where one system can serve different departments and different use cases: compliance logging, technical monitoring, multiviewer, OTT monitoring, advanced clipping and export to social, and advanced AI options, all on one platform, allowing the customer to purchase what is needed now and expand later.

OTT Stream Monitoring: QoE and QoS

With the rise of OTT, the demand for ensuring Quality of Experience (QoE) and Quality of Service (QoS) is growing. Our customers love the fact that both their OTA and OTT can be mixed into one system.

Actus Digital, the leading provider of compliance logging and monitoring systems, has proudly integrated with DataMiner systems for many years, enabling customers to centralize information from multiple sources. DataMiner’s powerful platform offers customizable real-time monitoring, analytics, control & orchestration capabilities, ensuring efficient management and operations of any modern media infrastructure, ultimately enhancing the customer experience.

The integration between DataMiner and the Actus System provides customers with a unified approach to managing and monitoring their recording channels and transcoding jobs. Operators can receive real-time alerts, enabling quick responses to any potential issues. This integration is all about driving efficiency and proactive management.

At IBC 2024, Actus Digital is excited to announce an extra level of integration with DataMiner, providing even more valuable insights and capabilities.

“Many of our customers have been using DataMiner systems in conjunction with Actus QA Compliance Logging for years. This enhanced integration will allow additional data from the Actus system to be seamlessly displayed within DataMiner, including new options like playing media directly from Actus,” said Sima Levy, CEO of Actus Digital. “Our customers prefer having all their information centralized, eliminating the need to switch between applications for analysis.”

Visit our booth at IBC 2024, Hall 7.C21, to learn more about how the Actus-Dataminer integration can benefit you.

Boston, MA — August 20, 2024 — Actus Digital, winner of the NAB Best of Show Award for its AI-enhanced QA Compliance Logger and Intelligent Monitoring Platform, will showcase the enhanced compliance and monitoring suite at IBC 2024. This year marks a significant milestone for Actus Digital as they celebrate their 20th anniversary. In that time, Actus Digital has delivered over 1,300 reliable monitoring systems initiated by its four global offices: USA (HQ), Europe, Emirates, and Asia.

The Future of Compliance Logging – Comprehensive Intelligent Monitoring

QA Compliance Logger: Compliance Logger requirements continue to evolve, with new regulatory mandates, existing functionalities adapted for new workflows, and new video standards in the broadcast industry emerge that require ongoing support.

For two decades, the Actus QA Compliance Logger has been a pivotal tool in broadcast and streaming compliance logging. It monitors for loudness compliance, SCTE 35/104, closed captions/subtitles, multiple audio languages, NAVE, EAS, EPG, and provides metadata extraction. It supports every industry input, including newer protocols like ATSC 3.0 in the U.S., SMPTE ST 2110, NMOS, and online streaming formats such as HLS, MPEG-DASH, and SRT. All these inputs are seamlessly integrated into a single system and user interface.

Additionally, it integrates external metadata such as as-run logs and schedules, providing detailed discrepancy reports for complete accuracy and compliance.

Actus QA Compliance Logger extends beyond traditional compliance with enhanced QA alerts for audio and video issues, missing SCTE markers, loudness discrepancies, and absent metadata. Its interactive, software-based multiviewer eliminates the need for additional hardware.

Leveraging the Best AI Engines for Comprehensive Audio and Video Analysis

Actus AI Media Insight enhances our recording, monitoring, and clipping capabilities with advanced AI-based insights on the content, such as transcription, translation, summarization, highlights, ad detection, facial recognition, PG rating, and content decency, as a few examples. Customers can search for any spoken content, receive keyword alerts for relevant topics, and get summaries and highlights of programs in any language, all with a single mouse click. This drastically reduces time-consuming processes and manual work, delivering results with relevant information more quickly. The transcription capability also allows for easy export of clips with subtitles to social or VOD platforms, in any language.

Actus AI Media Insight is versatile and not limited to specific engines. Instead, it integrates the best available engines for each type of analysis, ensuring customers benefit from the most accurate results. This solution is available both as a cloud-based and on-premises option.

Showcasing at IBC 2024

Actus Digital is thrilled to bring our latest technologies to IBC 2024. The company’s Intelligent Monitoring suite includes: QA Compliance Logger for compliance logging/quality monitoring, Clip Factory Pro for advanced clipping and content repurposing, OTT StreamWatch for OTT Monitoring, and Actus RVM for remote post-STB monitoring.

The Intelligent Monitoring Platform is designed to be flexible, allowing each product to function as a standalone feature or be integrated with others, deployable on-premises, virtual machine (VM), or as a SaaS solution.

Join Actus Digital at IBC 2024

Visit Actus in  Booth 7.C21 during the IBC show to explore its solutions and celebrate the company’s 20th anniversary. Experience firsthand how Actus Digital can enhance your broadcasting operations with its unique suite of products.

Actus Digital CEO Sima Levy shares, “Our participation in IBC 2024 is not just about showcasing our products, but more so about meeting our customers and partners, getting their views on the industry, requirements, and feedback. This year, it will be even more special for us, as we celebrate two decades since the company’s founding and gained  1,300 installations all over the world. We could not be prouder.”

Actus Digital is exhibiting in Amsterdam at IBC 2024 in booth 7.C21 between September 13-16.

Background:

One of the largest Asian telecommunications conglomerates, offering an extensive range of services including fixed broadband, mobile telephony, digital services, and pay television, required a robust solution capable of integrating compliance logging with an automated Video-On-Demand (VOD) workflow within a single platform.

Challenges:  

The conglomerate aimed to achieve:

1. Comprehensive Compliance Monitoring: A turnkey IP/TS/SDI compliance logging and technical monitoring, including TS Analysis, TS Native recording and As Run integration from their playout system.
2. Scalability: Easily accommodate the expansion of channels and integration of additional sites.
3. Comply with regulatory requirements and beyond: Support all regulatory requirements such as loudness management, Closed Caption (CC)/subtitles monitoring, multiple audio tracks, SCTE monitoring, and technical alerts for audio/video/missing metadata issues (including SNMP traps). Additionally, advanced capabilities beyond compliance were needed, including advanced clipping and metadata options, ad detection, and a multiviewer with an interactive penalty box
4. Automatic VOD Workflow: The integrated solution needed to leverage compliance and native TS recording to quickly and efficiently create clips for their VOD platform.

Solution Implementation:

After evaluating various options, Magna Systems and Actus Digital were selected for the implementation of the Actus Digital monitoring system. Besides the Actus monitoring platform’s reliability, scalability, and excellent support, Actus was chosen for its solutions that go beyond compliance and technical monitoring. Through Actus Digital’s Rest API for advanced clipping and customized XML integration, the system facilitated quick, effective, and automatic clip creation, reducing manual work and accelerating content availability on the VOD platform. Utilizing the same platform for compliance logging, technical monitoring, and generating clips for the VOD platform proved to be cost-effective, benefited from integrated solutions, and provided a single point of contact for the conglomerate.

Outcome:

The solution was successfully deployed across two sites. Initially monitoring a total of 226 channels, with provisions to expand to additional sites and channels as required. Magna Systems played a pivotal role in the project, offering vital contributions through demonstrations, proof of concepts, gathering requirements, installation, configuration, and training. Consolidating all compliance requirements, technical monitoring, and automated clipping workflows for the VOD platform into an “all in one” monitoring platform proved to be cost-effective and eliminated the need for separate systems, showcasing the conglomerate’s commitment to efficiency and innovation.

BOSTON, MA — February 26, 2024 — Actus Digital, a cutting-edge broadcast monitoring and compliance solutions provider, has played a pivotal role in transforming the operations of WTCI, the public broadcaster based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Recognized for its innovative and reliable platform, Actus Digital has enabled WTCI to enhance its monitoring capabilities, ensuring the highest standards of compliance and content quality across its four channels.

WTCI joins dozens of PBS stations deploying Actus systems, as Actus has established itself as the U.S. value, feature, and support leader for quality assurance multiviewers and compliance logging systems.

Serving a vast audience across Tennessee, North Georgia, Alabama, and North Carolina, WTCI sought to upgrade its monitoring and compliance infrastructure to better serve its diverse viewer base and growing technical needs. Facing the limitations of manual monitoring methods and the inadequacies of a home-built system, WTCI turned to Actus Digital for an affordable solution that offered unparalleled functionality.

“We looked at two other brands, but Actus Digital was the only one that provided the affordability and the advanced features we needed for quality assurance, including real-time monitoring, automatic alerting, and comprehensive compliance,” stated Bryan Fuqua, WTCI SVP Technical Services.

Key features of the Actus platform that have proven invaluable to WTCI include its intuitive user interface, reliable monitoring and alerting, and the flexibility to customize settings for each broadcast channel. Fuqua continued, “The capabilities of Actus are perfect for WTCI. It’s been rock solid since the day we put it in. Actus gives our engineering team confidence even when we aren’t watching because we know our Actus system is always watching.”

The Actus solution at WTCI delivers sophisticated capabilities for satisfying underwriters and addressing viewer issues, with easy access to recorded content for review and analysis. “We can easily pull up programs that have already aired, check the captioning, audio/video, verify the airing of interstitials, and even export clips to demonstrate compliance,” Fuqua added.

This partnership between Actus Digital and WTCI is an example of Actus Digital’s role as a trusted provider of broadcast monitoring and compliance solutions to TV stations of any size.

In today’s fast-paced broadcast environment, staying compliant and efficient is not just a necessity but a critical component of success. This is where our advanced compliance logging solution comes into play, offering an integrated approach with SMPTE 2110 inputs, advanced clipping for social media, a comprehensive multiviewer, and a reliable backup option.

Client Overview:

Our client, Global News Network (GNN), is a leading international news broadcaster, renowned for its 24/7 coverage of global events. GNN strives to maintain the highest standards of broadcasting compliance while ensuring timely and effective content delivery across various platforms, including social media.

Challenge:

GNN faced multiple challenges in its broadcasting operations:

• Transitioning to an IP-based infrastructure with SMPTE 2110 compatibility

• Efficiently clipping and sharing broadcast content on social media platforms

• Monitoring multiple live feeds simultaneously for compliance and quality assurance

• Implementing a reliable backup system for uninterrupted operations

Solution:

They partnered with Actus!

Our comprehensive compliance logging solution meets GNN’s specific needs:

1. SMPTE 2110 Input Integration:

We upgraded GNN’s infrastructure to support SMPTE 2110 inputs, facilitating seamless integration with IP-based workflows and enhancing the quality and flexibility of media handling.

2. Advanced Clipping for Social Media:

We provided its Clip Factory PRO with advanced clipping tools specifically designed for fast-paced news environments.  This enabled GNN to quickly edit and publish key news segments to social media, thereby engaging a wider audience.

3. Multiviewer Capability:

We implemented a state-of-the-art browser based multiviewer system, allowing GNN’s operators to monitor multiple channels and feeds on a single dynamically configurable interface.  This significantly improved their ability to view their channels, manage their content, and ensure their compliance.

4. Robust Backup System:

We integrated a comprehensive backup solution which ensured the preservation and quick recovery of logged content.  This safeguarded GNN from data loss and system failures.

Results:

GNN experienced a transformative impact on its broadcasting operations:

• Enhanced operational efficiency and flexibility with the SMPTE ST 2110 standard.
• Increased social media engagement due to timely and relevant content sharing.
• Improved compliance monitoring with the multiviewer feature.
• A significant reduction in downtime and data loss risks due to the robust backup solution.

Conclusion:

Actus’ custom compliance logging solution not only addressed GNN’s immediate challenges, but also set a new standard in their broadcast operations. By embracing advanced technologies and integrative solutions, GNN reinforced its position as a leading news broadcaster, ready to adapt to the evolving media landscape.