Cheetah Technologies Announces V-Factor Stream Probe QAM LD; Most Advanced Three-Tuner QAM Monitoring Solution for Cable Industry

PITTSBURGH, March 29, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Cheetah Technologies, LP, a leader in network performance and video quality management solutions, today announced immediate availability of the cable industry's first three tuner video QAM monitoring solution, dramatically expanding accuracy and scalability to monitoring of digital video QoE with CableCard decryption.

The V-Factor® Stream Probe QAM LD uniquely combines a three-tuner QAM device with CableCard Decryption and Cheetah's V-Factor video quality monitoring technology including "Intelligent Decode" to enable cable system operators to verify video quality at the hub site just before the programs are transmitted to the home.  The V-Factor Stream Probe QAM LD (VF-SP QAM LD) enables operators to cost effectively scale QAM monitoring in the hub site of both commercial and residential video services.  

"With its dedicated three tuners and decryption capability, V-Factor Stream Probe QAM LD offers operators the unique ability to automate QoE monitoring in the cable plant," said Jeremy Bennington, Vice President & General Manager of Cheetah V-Factor. "In combination to V-Factor solutions in the headend, VF-Stream Probe QAM LD provides the visibility necessary for operators to decide when dispatching a technician is required, dramatically decreasing the cost of isolating and resolving quality issues."

VF-SP QAM LD maximizes monitoring coverage through a smart and flexible scheduling algorithm assigning the channel lineup across units and tuners, while ensuring that users retain control over tuner usage for troubleshooting purpose.  These results are then aggregated in Cheetah Q-Advisor and correlated amongst VF-SP QAM LD devices and IP-based V-Factor solutions, providing an end-to-end view of video quality of experience.  Cheetah Q-Advisor offers numerous ways for Network Operations Center (NOC) technicians to visualize the network and service status from status pages presenting events ranked according to their impact on subscribers, to geographical views or remote streaming to the NOC of the video received at the cable plant.

Cheetah's V-Factor portfolio featuring the V-Factor Stream Probe and the V-Factor Source Monitor are leading QoE solutions that not only monitor network QoS type metrics and impairments, but also video compression and visual quality using V-Factor's Human Vision System, allowing operators to detect and prioritize repair activities on what matters most to their subscribers and reduce the overall cost of delivering a superior video experience to end-users.

About Cheetah Technologies

With a long history in Network and Video Quality Management, Cheetah Technologies has raised the bar in status, performance and quality monitoring while pioneering new ground in IP service testing and performance analysis. Cheetah Technologies solutions allow network operators to more efficiently and cost effectively isolate and troubleshoot multi-layered problems that impact service quality.  Information about Cheetah's products and services can be found at www.cheetahtech.com.

Cheetah Technologies is a privately held company which is owned by the Pittsburgh based investment firms The Hawthorne Group and Rosetta Capital. The Hawthorne Group is an investment and management company with holdings in the communications, railroad, assisted living, soft drink bottling, and real estate businesses. Rosetta Capital focuses on acquiring operating businesses in service industries and niche manufacturing.

SOURCE Cheetah Technologies, LP