Solekai DV-TIDE™ - a PC-Based Cable Headend Simulator
DV‐TIDE (Digital Video Test, Integrate, Develop, Evolve) is a PC‐based platform to simulate a cable headend to test, integrate, develop, and evolve software in cable devices. Cable headends are designed as production systems to deliver television programming and associated data to a very large number of cable devices on a cable network.
Headends are not designed to meet the needs of engineering testing. As a platform, DV‐TIDE has advantages over a production cable headend including:
- DV‐TIDE is much less expensive and is portable
- DV‐TIDE addresses boundary and error conditions that cannot be tested with a production headend
- DV‐TIDE is quickly configurable and can easily target individual test points for defect isolation
- DV‐TIDE is designed to repeat identical test conditions on demand
- DV‐TIDE can be used to automate a series of tests and collect results
Applications of DV-TIDE™
Solekai designed the DV‐TIDE platform tool specifically to enable engineers to rigorously improve quality earlier in the development life cycle, thereby reducing overall test time and time to market.
In today’s open STB environment, and with the emergence of complex interactive services, DV‐TIDE can help alleviate resource constraints over production headend equipment and encourage the focus of headend testing on what the headend was designed for: the live network. There is no replacing that necessity, but with a new testing methodology targeted at unleashing developers to produce clean, verified work on all levels (units, modules, and integrated systems), the DV‐TIDE can help ensure high quality while shaving time off of the acceptance process.
With this new methodology, operators can reduce qualification and integration investments and deliver robust devices to their customers faster.