Tektronix, a provider of test, measurement and monitoring solutions, announced that Canadian telecommunications provider Videotron has picked the company’s Sentry digital content monitoring solution, which will help in ensuring optimal viewing experience for Videotron (News - Alert) subscribers.

Videotron, an integrated communications company engaged in cable television, interactive multimedia development, Internet access services, cable telephony and wireless telephone service.

Tektronix (News - Alert) facilitates video service providers to proactively identify, diagnose and repair picture and audio quality errors that degrade the television viewing experience. The company’s Sentry digital content monitoring solution monitors video quality and application carousels flawlessly. The solution can also identify and diagnose service-affecting errors before they reach the subscriber. Due to these capabilities, Videotron picked Sentry, after conducting an extensive evaluation of competing solutions.

“We chose the Tektronix Sentry offering to ensure continued delivery of programming with the exceptional picture and sound quality our subscribers have come to expect from Videotron,” said Alain Boissonnault, senior director of digital video development for Videotron. “As we expand our offerings with more HD programming and other advanced services, the chances for video and audio errors to occur grows, but with Sentry, we will be able to comprehensively monitor our content to catch and rectify errors quickly and with minimum fuss.”

Besides, the Sentry digital content monitoring solution uses advanced deep packet inspection technology to continually dive deep into all the video programs that are flowing through a network, in order to spot problems at the IP and MPEG layers. Consequently, no video or audio error is left undetected.

Another key factor in Videotron selecting Sentry is its unique tru2way monitoring capabilities. This simplifies data delivery considerably to set-top boxes via tru2way and other carousels.

According to a press release, Videotron has completed the testing of Sentry. With the completion of testing, Videotron will begin the initial deployments of Sentry in its master head-end in Montreal, this summer.

Company officials with Tektronix said that Sentry will be utilized by Videotron to monitor programs as they are aggregated at the head-end and prior to distribution to markets served by the master head-end.

With such a monitoring solution, Videotron will be now able to identify video and audio errors that are already within the programming as it is received at the headend, including those errors that are introduced when the programming is groomed, multiplexed, rate shaped and otherwise processed before being delivered to subscribers, says Tektronix.

“Videotron has a well-deserved reputation in the industry for both technical excellence and for its unswerving commitment to quality,” said Eric Conley, vice president, video network monitoring, Tektronix. “With the addition of Videotron, we continue to see the same rapid shift toward the Mixed Signals family of products from Tektronix in Canada that we have seen in the U.S., where nine of the 10 largest operators extensively use Tektronix monitoring solutions.”

The Sentry digital content monitoring solution is part of the recent acquisition of Mixed Signals Inc.

In the recent news, Tektronix’s Sentry won the Technology Marketing Corporation’s TMC’s (News - Alert) 2009 Communications Solutions Product of the Year Award for the second year running.