BOSTON—European media group DPG Media has deployed the AI-based Intelligent Monitoring Platform from Actus Digital for its regulatory compliance recording and monitoring as well as ad verification.
The media group, which has a major presence in Belgium, Netherlands and Denmark, began its search for a new monitoring and compliance system about a year ago during IBC 2022 in Amsterdam. Among its primary system requirements were a solution with a user interface that was easy-to-use as well as 24/7 support because of the media company’s global reach, Actus Digital said.
DPG Media selected the Actus Digital platform after an “exhaustive search,” said Stijn Mertens, team lead of broadcast playout for the media group.
“Many of the monitoring systems were full of features but complicated, which is fine for the engineering team, but not for other employees working with the platform every day,” said Mertens. “We wanted a system that would not only meet our requirements but provide the best results.
“With the Actus platform, the user interface is extremely intuitive. We were confident the transition for our staff would be smooth. And even though it’s easy-to-use, the platform is feature rich. Given Actus’ continuous development on the product, our capabilities will only expand.”
The Actus Digital platform relies on dual servers for redundancy, which was a major reduction in hardware for the media company when compared to its previous system. Another feather in the company’s hat was its willingness to provide necessary updates and continual software development, it said.
Actus developed customized SCTE integration for DPG, which needed to search within SCTE-104 and SCTE-35 tables. Actus created a customized, advanced filtering option for SCTE-104 and SCTE-35 messages for monitoring reporting and analysis.
“After talking to Actus about our need for SCTE reporting, they quickly agreed to add our requirements to their system,” said Martens. “We can now search more precisely and filter the data of the SCTE report.”
Actus development also enhances security. Previously, DPG had a single sign on (SSO) authentication process based on LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol). Actus implemented SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) authentication, which interfaces with DPG’s companywide SSO system, the company said.
The new system provides an MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) step, making the current integration much more secure than the previous LDAP-based integration. The DPG team are still able to manage users in the company's active directory, the company said.
“Now, we have highly secure connections, and it doesn't matter where the person is or what device they’re using,” said Mertens. “They can immediately be verified as an official DPG user. Adding new users or disabling employees who leave the company is a simple addition to or removal from our active directory. The directory update automatically rolls into the compliance system to either block or add access to the user.”
The Actus Intelligent Monitoring Platform enables each customer to select only the options it needs, while still benefiting from the centralization of monitoring from an all-in-one platform, the company said.
In addition to compliance recording/monitoring and SCTE-based dynamic ad insertion and verification, DPG Media’s new Actus system includes EPG (Electronic Program Guide) integration, browser-based multiviewer and loudness monitoring. The sale and implementation of the platform were closely supervised by Belgian A/V dealer DigiNet.
See Actus Digital at IBC 2023 Stand 7.B44.
More information is available on the company’s website.
