Real-Time Broadcast Analyzer

ATSC • DVB • ISDB – Real-Time Broadcast Analysis & SNMP based Monitoring

SAMcorder

SAMcorder provides comprehensive analysis features for real-time analysis of Digital TV and Mobile DTV broadcasts
The comprehensive SNMP based monitoring capabilities of SAMcorder allow to establish versatile monitoring solutions

At a Glance:

support of Digital TV standards
- ATSC • QAM
- DVB-T • DVB-T2 • DVB-S • DVB-S2 • DVB-C
- ISDB-T • ISDB-Tb
support of Mobile DTV standards
- ATSC-M/H
- DVB-H
- ISDB 1seg
input of DTV and MDTV multiplexes via
- RF • ASI • IP • File
several output interfaces, which can be used also simultaneously
- IP • ASI • File
support a wide range of common input/output interface hardware for RF and ASI
time controlled recording capabilities for whole TS and/or single program services
comprehensive analysis and monitoring on all technical layers
- RF
- MPEG acc. TR 101 290
- PID- and Program bitrate measurements
- EPG
- Subtitles / Closed Captions
- Teletext
- DSM-CC
- MHP / HbbTV
- Conditional Access
- Mobile TV specific layers (ATSC-M/H, DVB-H)
  - M/H ensemble layers: TPC, FIC for ATSC-M/H
  - FLUTE carousels, Electronic Service Guide (ESG), Mobile Emergency Alert Service (M-EAS)
  - all mobile specific SI tables
  - MPE (DVB-H)
  - IP, UDP, RTP, SDP, ESP
supporting various types of IP based output streamers
Transport Stream recorder
continuously, 24/7 monitoring of hundreds of parameters
individual threshold configuration of monitored parameters via GUI and/or SNMP
comprehensive data logging
SAMcorder is available in 3 different editions, the ATSC-, DVB- and ISDB edition

Live Input Digital TV / Mobile DTV

RF
Each ATSC/DVB/ISDB RF receiver for PCIe, PCI or USB interfaces can be used if a BDA driver is available for the device.
Note: ATSC-M/H Mobile DTV gets received via standard ATSC receiver, i.e. no special ATSC-M/H receiver hardware is necessary!

ASI
SAMcorder supports ASI input cards – PCIe or USB – from following suppliers:

Stream-Labs, DVEO, DekTec

IP
SAMcorder supports following IP protocols:

UDP (unicast and multicast)
TCP
RTP

SAMcorder - Real-Time Broadcast Analyzer

Program Navigation

SAMcorder analyses the received Transport Stream and lists all announced program services and their corresponding PIDs in a tree view.

Via simple double click on a program entry an appropriate IP streamer can be created.

RF Layer

On the RF layer SAMcorder provides simple signal checks:

Signal Present
Signal Locked
Signal Strength
Signal Quality

Note: For DVB broadcasts – DVB-T/-T2, DVB-S/-S2 and DVB-C – there is a dedicated application named SAMbuddy-RF which provides detailed RF measurements (RX level, BER, MER and many more), also including display of constellation diagram, read more…

MPEG Layer – TR 101 290 Monitoring

MPEG monitoring according ETSI TR 101 290 gets supported:

Prio1
Prio2
Prio3

PID Bitrate Measurement

Each particular PID of the multiplex gets listed in a tree view and additional information to an appropriate PID are displayed.

The Current Bitrate and the Average Bitrate for each particular PID are measured.

The Average Bitrate can monitored via SNMP.

Individual thresholds for upper and lower limit can be defined.

Program Bitrate Measurement

For each program the bitrate can be measured and monitored, i.e. the overall bitrate of all PIDs which belong the appropriate program.

Individual thresholds for upper and lower limit can be defined.

Electronic Program Guide

SAMcorder supports the analysis and monitoring of ATSC, DVB and ISDB EPGs.

list of all received EIT / ETT tables
each particular EIT / ETT table can be analysed up to the last bit
Current/Next Event monitoring
Program Preview monitoring
recognition of gaps in the time schedule
all events are listed in chronological order
short/extended descriptors can be displayed
multi-language support
support for compressed EPGs

DVB EPG

ISDB EPG with Japanese character set

ATSC EPG

Subtitle / Closed Captions

ATSC – Closed Captions (CCs)

support of CEA-608 / CEA-708 captions
support of CEA-608 XDS data
support of ANSI/SCTE captions
amount of received CC data
average CC rate
monitoring CC update
monitoring XDS data update
logging CC data
simultaneous processing of all CEA-608 channels and all CEA-708 services

DVB – Subtitles

monitoring subtitle update
monitoring subtitle announcement
comprehensive Subtitle analyzer
PES data analyzer
display of Subtitle image fragments

ISDB – Closed Captions (CCs)

monitoring CC update
multi-language support
display of CC data and the corresponding control data
PES data analyzer
CC data analyzer

ATSC Closed Captions

DVB Subtitle Analyzer

ISDB Closed Captions

Teletext

• monitoring Initial Page update
• monitoring number of pages
• monitoring page update per interval
• monitoring of single pages, e.g. newsflash pages
• comprehensive Teletext analyzer
• page update visualization
• Teletext page rendering
• collection of pages and sub-pages
• display of hidden pages

DSM-CC

• all DSM-CC carousels are listed in a tree view
• display of PMT annoucements
• monitoring DSI / DII message update
• monitoring of time since last carousel completion
• monitoring of time for carousel completion
• recognition of unknown modules
• recognition of module data errors
• display number of cycles and number of modules
• listing all download files
• integrated file viewer visualizes all files

MHP / HbbTV

• all MHP services are listed in a tree view
• monitoring AIT table update
• display number of AIT instances
• list all announced HTTP and DSM-CC applications
• monitoring application URL response
• time controlled check of URL accessibility
• monitoring of the application-object-carousel state

Conditional Access

• detection of encrypted DTV services
• support of up to two CI modules per tuner
• descrambling of several encrypted services
simultaneously (dependent on used CAM)
• Multi-Transponder descrambling
• streaming of descrambled A/V content for
visual confidence monitoringNote: descrambling of encrypted DTV services requires an appropriate tuner hardware, a CI module along with an appropriate CAM and a valid SmartCard

Transport Stream Recording

• the currently received Transport Stream can be recorded
• a time or size limit can be configured so that the recording stops automatically if the configured limit gets reached

Streaming

• SAMcorder supports various types of IP based output streamers:

complete multiplex (TS)
particular DTV programs out of the multiplex
particular PID(s) out of the multiplex
particular MDTV services (A/V, FLUTE, ESG, key streams …) out of the multiplex
particular Audio service out of the multiplex

• the number of simultaneous IP streamers is not limited
• data duplication, i.e. same data can be streamed to different destinations simultaneously
• streaming of descrambled services
• beside IP streaming to remote locations the data can also be streamed into a local file
• the file streaming can be configured regarding time and size

ATSC-M/H Live Input

decontis solution uses legacy ATSC RF receiver HW for analysis and monitoring of ATSC-M/H and ATSC portions of a broadcasts simultaneously
supported receivers, e.g.:

Hauppauge HVR-2250 – PCIe dual tuner card
Hauppauge HVR-2255 – PCIe dual tuner card
Hauppauge HVR-1955 – USB single tuner
Hauppauge HVR-1975 – USB single tuner
Hauppauge HVR-950Q – USB single tuner
Hauppauge HVR-850 – USB single tuner

• beside RF reception an ATSC + ATSC-M/H broadcast can also be received and monitored via IP, ASI or File input

Ensemble Layer

• Analysis and Monitoring for all ATSC-M/H Ensembles/Parades simultaneously
TPC

Continuity Count
Slot assignment

FIC

plausibility check
service announcements
transmission cross check (interaction with IP analysis)

M/H SI Tables

SMT, GAT, CIT, SLT, RRT, NRT-EAT

M/H Error Correction Algorithms

Slot Synchronization Error
BERaV (Viterbi)
RS corrected / uncorrected
M/H PID corrections
read more M/H Error Corrections …

IP – UDP – RTP – SDP – ESP Layers

• M/H specific IP Analysis and Monitoring for all IP services simultaneously
IP

announcement check
transmission monitoring

UDP

port announcement
IP/Port bitrate measurement

RTP

sequence counter check

SDP

support of SMT- and ESG-SDPs
cross-check SDP media entry / IP port

ESP – IPsec scrambled content

ESP-SPI check on IPsec scrambled content
ESP sequence counter check
ESP bitrate
descrambler status
plausibility check after descrambling

M-EAS Layer

• analysis and monitoring of Mobile Emergency Alert Service (M-EAS) data on M/H ensemble layer and IP layer
• SAMcorder de-multiplexes the M-EAS data and streams these to SAMflute application for further analysis and monitoring tasks
read more about M-EAS …

ESG Layer

• analysis and monitoring of Electronic Service Guide Data (ESG) on M/H ensemble layer and IP layer
• SAMcorder de-multiplexes the ESG data and streams these to SAMesg application for further analysis and monitoring tasks
read more about ESG analysis and monitoring …

FLUTE Layer

• analysis and monitoring of FLUTE data on M/H ensemble layer and IP layer
• SAMcorder de-multiplexes the FLUTE data and streams these to SAMflute application for further analysis and monitoring tasks
read more about FLUTE analysis …

Conditional Access Layer

• analysis and monitoring of encrypted IPsec data
• manual or automatic provision of Long Term Keys (LTK) for descrambling
• in case of automatic provision the SAMbuddy-CAS software establishes a secure channel to the Nagra Key Server and obtains the keys automatically
• in case of manual provision the user can configure the particular LTK for each program in a GUI
• if an LTK is available for a particular program then SAMcorder derives the appropriate Short Term Keys (STK) automatically from the TS and uses them for seamless descrambling of the mobile TV service
• all embedded mobile services can be descrambled simultaneously
• all descrambled services can be streamed e.g. to a mosaic wall for visual confidence monitoring

Key from CAS provider

manual Key Configuration

In following some applications and use cases are described in which SAMcorder can be used. In close interaction with other SW components of the decontis product portfolio high-end solutions for analysis, monitoring and measurement can be built.

Head-End & Field Monitoring of ATSC / DVB / ISDB broadcasts

for ATSC, DVB or ISDB monitoring or for various analysis solutions SAMcorder acts as central Input/Output Processor
the various input interfaces (RF, ASI, IP and File) allow to perform monitoring both in the Head-End and in the field
SAMcorder performs real-time error analysis and measurements on all technical layers
all SAMcorder measurements interact with the SAMager Agent software, which performs SNMP based monitoring of the entire multiplex and provides the measurement results via SNMP to the operator
SAMcorder also interacts with SAMitor who performs the visual monitoring of the Audio/Video content in a feature-rich video mosaic wall

Loudness Monitoring Probe

in a Loudness monitoring probe SAMcorder acts as de-multiplexer of the audio data from the received broadcast
SAMcorder delivers the raw audio data to the SAMloudio software which in turn performs the loudness measurement and monitoring
both applications interact with SAMager Agent software, which performs SNMP based monitoring

Program Distribution and Monitoring

SAMcorder receives a TS via DVB-S/-S2
the multiplex gets monitored
the received TS gets de-multiplexed and distributed to remote locations via IP

TS Analysis for Lab use

playback of a recorded Transport Stream or live reception via RF, ASI or IP
SAMcorder performs all analysis tasks in real-time, e.g. MPEG, EPG, PID/Program, Teletext, Subtitles, MHP …
SAMcorder de-multiplexes the TS and streams all relevant A/V portions to SAMitor for mosaic wall display
at any time SAMcorder can create snapshots from the TS which can then be analyzed in the SAMalyzer software up to the last bit