MediaMelon’s SmartSight analytics solution for over-the-top (OTT) video was selected by DaCast, the Streaming as a Service platform, to provide upgraded analytics capabilities about its live and VOD streaming solutions. By switching to the MediaMelon analytics solution, DaCast now provides its customers, which include Red Bull, ADP, and Nokia, the ability to dive deeper into their streaming infrastructure. Features include collecting real-time actionable data down to the session level, offering multi-channel alerts, providing content and subscriber insights, and configurable dashboards. Data can be easily viewed in real-time and saved for further analysis.

“After making the decision to replace our in-house developed analytics capabilities with a third-party solution, we made sure to explore the options very carefully,” said Stephane Roulland, CEO at DaCast. “We were very impressed with MediaMelon’s fully featured solution and their ability to supply information in real-time, as this addressed a real challenge we were having with support of live sporting events. Until we implemented MediaMelon, we were reliant on log data being provided by our CDN partner to verify usage. The previous delay in time-sensitive information was unacceptable for us and our clients.”

Ultra-Detailed Viewer Analytics Presented with an Easy-to-Read User Interface

One of the most powerful features of the new DaCast video analytics dashboard is the ability to track viewership information in more detail than ever before, allowing broadcasters to gain an in-depth understanding of every session. DaCast’s previous solution offered limited analytics with a 2-hour delay. After an extensive search and trial period, the MediaMelon-based solution was deployed in 2018. DaCast rolled out a new user interface (UI) to present the ultra-detailed viewer MediaMelon-provided analytics. For the first time, DaCast and its clients can get detailed information for each stream such as:

·        Data consumption by video or live channel, city, device type, domain, as well as overall data consumption over time
·        Average time watching for each video or live channel, city, and device type
·        Average number of concurrent playback sessions for any given time interval, video or live channel, city, and device type
·        Plays and viewers both over time and per country
·        Automated alerts based on performance or operational thresholds

DaCast’s Real-Time Video Analytics UI Powered by MediaMelon’s SmartSight Analytics

“Data is important. However, without applying human intelligence, data is just numbers on a screen,” continued Roulland. “Analytics for DaCast live streams provide data while live broadcasts are in progress. We are offering this to all of our clients, while many video platforms don’t include this feature at all, on any plan level.”

To empower their customers with actionable intelligence, DaCast decided to use SmartSight’s rich and flexible set of application program interfaces (APIs) to offer advanced services to their clients. With this level of detail, broadcasters are now able to analyze, manage, and substantially improve the performance of their streaming solution.

For those monitoring live channels currently broadcasting, the DaCast’s UI data feeds populate with four types of valuable information provided by SmartSight:

·        Concurrent viewers displays the average number of concurrent playback sessions over time
·        New viewers helps to track the rate at which new viewers are accessing the live stream in real time
·        Data consumed provides a total view of the amount of bandwidth that being used by all of your viewers around the world
·        Data consumption by countries shows how much data is being used in all countries, and even cities, globally in real time

“SmartSight gives video service providers like DaCast a clear picture of how OTT TV services are viewed, both in terms of actual usage and streaming performance,” said Kumar Subramanian, CEO of MediaMelon. “MediaMelon video analytics helps service providers find actionable data in the heap of collected streaming and audience metrics, and pinpoint issues that require immediate attention.”

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