OTT Testing: Streaming Testing Approach for Quality Content

The Changing Trends of The Media Landscape

Did you know that half a second delay can cause you a 20% drop in traffic? That’s what Google found out about the importance of speed, the user experience, and user satisfaction.
This is the New Media Age. A world without Netflix is similar to a world without electricity – The stone age in a digital world. Traditional media is transforming and we are stepping into a world of OTT.

Visual Summary

What is Media Testing and why is it so Important

An over-the-top (OTT) media service is a streaming media service offered directly to digital viewers via the internet bypassing traditional platforms of cable, broadcast, and satellite television. 

Users want access to high-quality streaming at any device, any place, any time, and any location. Your service/product is judged by the user. OTT takes the user-centric approach by ensuring a seamless viewing experience through multi-device, multi-browser capability leading to an awesome user experience.

According to a report by Allied Market Research, the global OTT market size was valued at $121.61 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach $1,039.03 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 29.4% from 2020 to 2027.

Challenges of Media Testing

In today’s digitized world, there is content on streaming devices. One major challenge of testing the streaming applications is creating an automated and scalable testing platform that includes a holistic approach due to the multiple stakeholders that are involved: broadcasters, content providers, and service providers.  

Based on the preference, the user can view and also download the content that includes movies and TV services, and is delivered directly over the internet to connected devices such as PCs, tablets, smartphones, and consoles. These multimedia devices contain several technologies like audio, video, and wireless protocols. Various factors like Streaming statistics, buffering, latency, Network, etc. also need to be considered to create a flawless streaming experience.

Netflix, Youtube, Amazon, etc provide seamless streaming of many web series, movies, etc. However, it is dependent on factors like:

1. Where the content is running (region)
2. What STB (Set-Top Box) setup is available

If the STB is of good quality, then whether it supports the right streaming settings (Video and Audio) that it can stream quality media i.e. (all quality video with proper Audio). In case the streaming settings are not good, there will be Audio and Video Packet loss, giving a bad experience to a user who is using the application.

TV devices that include but are not limited to Roku, FireTV stick, Xbox, Android, and Apple TV create additional testing complexity like:

• Cross-platform, cross-browser Compatibility issues: Different platforms and browsers can bring in different design issues. You need to ensure flawless content steaming across all platforms and browsers.  
• Resolution issues: Users can use the streaming platform from any kind of device. TV has a particular resolution and freezes while Smart TVs do not support pixel CSS. Hence, you need to ensure there are no resolution issues.
• Network Issues involving freezing app issues, etc.
• Some platforms like Roku do not provide emulators and some existing emulators of platforms do not support testing of all necessary functionalities such as video streaming or network checking

A Holistic Approach to Media Testing

With such a steep increase in the production and consumption of streaming content, various issues walk hand-in-hand while working on an OTT platform.

Hence, it is of utmost importance to have an effective QA testing strategy for your OTT platform that covers various scenarios and major functionalities across the network, infrastructure, and application components including:

1. Application basic functionality working like launching, search, menu options, links verification, recommendations, etc.
2. Playback scenarios like Play, Pause, Forward, etc.
3. Audio, Video performance metrics scenarios like lip sync, Buffering, Latency, Resolution (high definition, Standard definition, low, etc.) for different categories like Audio, Video, News, Gaming, Lifestyle applications.

Media Testing KPIs/Real video Performance Metrics

With radical shifts in the media and communications industry and this being a highly-fragmented market, organizations need to focus on the three important indicators that elevate customer experience to another level.

Webomates Cloud-Based Testing Strategy: Putting Your OTT Platform to the Test

Webomates cloud-based QA strategy ensures test coverage for the entire OTT pipeline. The state-of-the-art Media Testing services span Audio Testing, Video Testing, Over the Top (OTT), and STB testing.

Apart from the conventional feature/functional testing for OTT services, these 7 focus areas are considered while devising a comprehensive OTT Testing strategy. Each area enhances user experience with our intelligent automation and Next-Gen Media testing solutions.

What do We Test?

1. Graphics, UI, and UX testing – Is the User Interface simple and consistent across devices?
2. Usability Testing – Is the app experience flawless from the end-user perspective
3. Stream Testing – Is the content that is being delivered robust enough?
4. Interoperability – Is the content multi-browser, multi Platform, and multi-device compatible? 
5. Security – Is the content secure to stream on different devices with security and DRM flags enabled?
6. Network – How does the service behave in low bandwidth, high bandwidth, network latency conditions? 
7. Load and Performance Testing – How does your OTT network server react when it takes the load of millions of stream requests from around the globe?

Key Advantages

Conclusion

With upcoming technological advancements in achieving higher bandwidth networks like 4G and 5G, one can only expect the OTT Video streaming world to explode with on-demand video consumption.

Howard Homonoff said in Forbes: “To succeed in this brave new video world, you need an alchemy of attractive content, an appealing user experience, the opportunity for personalization, and integration of data and technology, and some early credibility in the existing business ecosystem.”

Considering these challenges and user expectations, Webomates provides an end-to-end streaming platform to test all your streaming needs. When defects are identified at an earlier stage, there is reduced development and issue resolution overhead resulting in faster time-to-market and quality content delivery. 

We believe in delivering the streaming products with care and in being a trusted partner in transforming the digital experience and giving users a great escapade experience.

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Tags: OTT Testing, video Testing