Preparing training materials for a specialized technical topic - IPTV on-demand services

The Challenge

I am not sure about you but reading on a specialized technical topic is always a challenge. The information available to you is always of a very dry nature.  In most technical documents that I have read, it is difficult to absorb the information from the documents because of the way the content is organized and described. Unlike fictions where the book author (s) can keep you engrossed with their way of story telling, there is no equivalent story telling in technical documentations. They do inform you about facts but due to their dry nature, most engineers find that learning by just reading the documents will incur a high learning curve.

If reading on a specialized technical topic is a challenge, preparing the training materials for such a topic is a bigger challenge. When I was tasked to present training on an area in IPTV i.e. On Demand services (e.g. VOD), I have to sit back and think of a strategy on how to do the story telling.  Non-fiction story telling to a group of highly skilled engineers is a different ball game from writing a fiction where you have the luxury of introducing interesting characters, a plot with twists and turns and besides enchanting your readers with exotic sceneries, you can add into the story line the emotional factors to stimulate the interest of your readers.

Putting myself into an engineer shoes, I scanned through the documentation and painted the documents all over with a yellow highlighter.  Looking at the highlighted keywords, I thought to myself: "Hmm, keywords may help a scholarly engineer to memorize the information but he will not be able to develop the necessary skills to apply his new found knowledge.” Realizing that my effort is not enough to conduct an effective training presentation, I asked myself some self-probing questions

• Who are my audiences?
• Why would the trainees attend this training?
• Which of the facts are more important to the trainees?
• Can the trainees apply the information learned to real life scenarios?

With these targeted goals in mind, I now looked at the information at a different angle.  This time, I re-scanned through the documentation using an "objective approach".

Metadata – 1st class citizen

“Metadata” was the first to put her hands up to get my attention. She told me that she deserved first place in the class of must know information. I agreed with her that she is definitely a first class citizen for solutions architects, presales engineers and system integration engineers. I remembered during my first encounter with OTT technologies where I was the solutions architect for a large greenfield project in Singapore, I was working furiously with my peers from Atlanta to work shop on the design. To address the client business requirements, we were exploring how to use the metadata standards (we were using CableLabs VOD Content Specification 1.1) to translate the requirements to design artifacts.

For the solutions architects, they must

• Acquaint themselves on the differences between the standards (CableLabs VOD Content Specification 1.1, CableLabs VOD Content Specification 3.0, Microsoft TV 2.0 Metadata),

• Identify types of information that categorized the various VOD contents,

• Know which piece of metadata information can be changed at various phase.

For the SI engineers, they need to have a deeper knowledge on metadata so that they can

• Perform normalization of various metadata to a common metadata format,
• Migrate between different versions of metadata standards.

I conclude that Metadata is definitely the first class citizen in the world of VOD.

Standards galore

To provide On Demand service is a complex process. There are many standards involved. One of the objectives for the resulting training project is to make aware to solutions architects of the numerous industrial standards that are adopted in various phases of the process.

Standards for On Demand service

Metadata

 Metadata standards describe the various formats that we used to encapsulate the information of a content. From the standards, we know where we store the descriptive information of a content (e.g. the title, the artists, the ratings, and the summary of a video) and the business information (e.g. the licensing window, the contract agreement, the provider id).

I have already hinted that Metadata is a first class citizen in the VOD world. The motivation to be skillful in applying the knowledge metadata is many. One example on why metadata is important to the Solutions Architect is that he may in a situation where he needs to plan to upgrade an existing VOD system  when they are transitioning from CableLabs 1.1 to CableLabs 3.0. Another example is that he has to work out the impacts on a swap-out project when the company takes over a competitor’s solution at a client; a solution that needs to handle different metadata format from several content providers.

Encryption

Encryption standards define the various algorithms used to secure VOD content and transmission. We will learn why Data Encryption Standard (DES) is not employed in modern systems to secure our data. We will also learn about the differences between AES (Advanced Encryption standard), DES and Triple-DES. With this knowledge, the Solutions Architect will know the basis of how to select the best encoder that matches the service provider infrastructure.

Transmission

For VOD transmission, the transmission standards affect three key technologies namely

• Satellite
• Microwave
• IP

“Why would I need to know about transmission standards?” asked the Solution Architect. The short answer is that he needs to know the details so he can spec out the most suitable equipment and client infrastructure with his network engineers to handle the transmission requirements. For example, without knowing the difference between the IF (Intermediate Frequency) modulator and L-Band modulator, the Solution Architect will not be able to decide on which modulator will meet the requirements of the client infrastructure. 

Compression

There are two different compression standards that are relevant to On Demand service namely video compression standard and audio compression standard. By exploring the standards and techniques, the trainee can build up a good background knowledge on MPEG (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4) and various Dolby standards. He can then apply his background concepts during the transcoding stage of MPEG to other device formats (e.g. AVI, FLV or 3GP) and/or Dolby Digital to AAC.  One of my other training objectives is to ensure the Solutions Architect is made aware of the different requirements (e.g. storage capacity and performance) when he needs to design his solution to support SD (Standard Definition) and HD (High Definition) video offerings.

Distribution

For the distribution from a content distribution system to a CMS (Content Management System), CableLabs ADI 1.1 is the most widely adopted standard used. It defines not only the language but it also provides the structure and method for the distribution of the content. Knowing the limitations of the standard will equip the presales engineer and/or Solutions Architect to provide the right expectation to the client and design the appropriate solution to meet the client needs. As an example, ADI 1.1 does not allow the updating of a content once it has been ingested into the CMS. By knowing the standard, the Solution Architect can work with SI to design an efficient work around solution to “update” the content.

Content Management System (CMS)

CMS

CMS deserves a chapter on her own for the significant amount of contributions to provide a reliable On Demand service.  As this is the first of a series of technical training in the subject of IPTV, I prepared my training materials in this topic as an introductory level; a must have stepping stone towards becoming competent to IPTV. I described the key responsibilities of a CMS, the processing in each of the steps and highlighted the important concepts in CMS.

Last words

After I have designed the key topics for this project, I started to create the assessments questions cross referencing them to the objectives that I have identified. Again, I used Adobe Captivate quizzing engine to perform my data entry on my quiz. For the finishing touch, I reviewed the content, the flow structure and the assessments to ensure that I have developed the right content that covers the identified objectives.

In summary, preparing the content for a technical training is always a challenge. At least I know I have developed a good process and put in my best effort to design the content that will address the objectives of the trainees. The real reward will be when I receive feedback and stories from my trainees on how they have put into good use of their new found knowledge and skills.