The pre-evolutionary Cockpit
Before Min started working at Tiledmedia, the Cockpit was drastically different. The tool was generally complicated to use.
So, who is developing the Cockpit?
Min Huang is Tiledmedia’s frontend developer, who joined the company a little over a year ago. The most important part of her work is designing and creating our customer-facing tooling called the Cockpit.
What was the Cockpit like before Min took over?
The layout used to be quite cluttered and complicated. Users would have to undertake multiple steps to complete a task like scheduling a VoD encode or starting a live stream. Also, the Cockpit required a ten page manual to be understood and used correctly. All in all, there was a lot of improvement that needed to be done.
Time to change things up!
Min has made some radical changes to the Cockpit by focusing on user-friendliness, quality and efficiency. Now the Cockpit can easily be used by anyone.
Clarity and visuals are a game changer
Let’s start off with the layout. For one, it is a lot clearer and more aesthetically pleasing now. It is easier for users to understand the interface, especially now there are live graphs representing the information.
Another helpful new feature is that you can visually see the live footage that’s coming in. In case something goes wrong along the way, you’ll have the ability to see this right away.
Clear problem detection
The Cockpit also uses a traffic light system to signal any problems that may arise during a live stream. The Cockpit displays three stages of the encoding process: ingest, encode and egress. Any error reports are pushed to the Cockpit operator in real-time, so that anyone can act on it. If errors occur, it is easy to quickly restart the encoding platform. Additionally, you can immediately take down the platform once a live stream ends.
Every user can personalise the Cockpit
Users can easily personalise the Cockpit. Different charts are available for users and they can choose which ones are displayed, depending on their needs. Also, users can decide what theme they want and adjust the language. We’re one step closer to a user-friendly and efficient Cockpit.
Save time and make it easy
The new Cockpit is user-friendlier since Min has made it significantly easier for users to complete the steps they want to take. This saves a lot of time. No more complicated manuals; instead, Min has created simple instructions.
Access the Cockpit anywhere
Additionally, the Cockpit is now more flexible and can be used across devices. The Cockpit has been transferred to a web application so that it can be used from tablets as well. This allows users to operate the Cockpit from their preferred location and easily access the tool.
What are new challenges for Min?
The Cockpit allows users to control the transcoding of streams in the cloud. With our new solution, Mosaic Multiview, we enable an infinite number of video feeds to play on one screen. Since there can be numerous streams playing simultaneously, it is a whole new challenge to display this as organised as possible.
Seeing what Min has done over the past year, she will find a way to creatively tackle this issue. Users will be ensured of the easy to use Cockpit for Mosaic Multiview as well.
New Opportunities from these Challenges
Min herself wants to learn more about the backend side of the Cockpit. This is great considering that the Mosaic Multiview challenge will be mostly on the backend side as well.
So far, Min has made impressive improvements to the Cockpit. Even though the Cockpit is a great tool as it is now, Min will keep on updating it to make it even better.
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Stay tuned!