Stb-tester’s cloud-based portal centralizes your test results and dashboards. It allows remote testing and live monitoring from anywhere in the world — your devices can be spread across multiple network locations, and your test team can be remote too.

The Stb-tester cloud platform is the result of a year’s work on a new client/server architecture and new node hardware, based on customer requirements and feedback. It enables new use-cases such as remote testing and monitoring, or testing real consumer network conditions from a variety of locations.

The Stb-tester platform consists of:

• A cloud-based portal, which provides the user interface and stores your test results; and
• One or more Stb-tester nodes — physical hardware that sits next to your “devices under test” (DUTs). An Stb-tester node captures video from your DUT, and executes your automated test scripts.
  • The Stb-tester HDMI Node captures video via HDMI for testing a Set-Top Box, Roku, Apple TV, PlayStation 4, XBox One, or similar devices.

The Stb-tester cloud platform has seen tremendous adoption since we released it in April 2017. Our largest customers have upgraded to the new cloud platform and have expanded their test farms. We have also acquired dozens of new customers across 3 continents, including large deployments in France and Belgium.

Designed to scale

The Stb-tester platform was designed with scalability in mind. Tests are executed on the Stb-tester nodes, allowing low latency and easy horizontal scaling to many devices.

The Stb-tester nodes are small and draw around 16W at full load, so you can fit several nodes, plus your set-top boxes, on a single rack shelf.

The test results from all your devices are aggregated in the portal, where you can quickly filter to compare results across different devices and software versions.

Simple, fair pricing

Our pricing is a yearly license fee per Stb-tester node (1 node = 1 simultaneous device-under-test). It is cheap to start with a single node, and you can scale up by adding more nodes. Significant discounts apply for large test farms.

Compared to our previous product, our pricing has changed to a rolling license model, which significantly reduces the up-front cost in the first year (total cost of ownership over 3 years is about the same as our previous pricing model). The minimum license period is 1 year. There are no cancellation charges if you choose not to renew.

Customers who prefer an up-front capital expenditure can buy a 5-year license at a discount. A separate “Enterprise” pricing model is available for test farms of 100 units or more.

Easy to set up and manage

Just connect your Stb-tester node to the network and to the device-under-test, and you’re ready to go. From any web browser you can see live video from the device, control it manually, and run automated tests.

The Stb-tester node only needs outbound access to the Stb-tester portal. You don’t need to open holes in your firewall.

All the configuration of the test-farm is centralized. The Stb-tester nodes are stateless, so you can swap hardware in or out easily. Furthermore, we manage the storage, backups, monitoring, and software updates automatically.

Our hardware is rock solid — you can run soak tests for days or weeks without having to worry about the stability of your video-capture hardware, drivers, or anything else.

All this makes the Stb-tester platform ideal for teams to “self serve” without needing a dedicated sysadmin or test infrastructure team.

Secure

Our platform was built with security as a core feature. Your portal and test-results database are hosted in a private AWS instance per customer — they are not multi-tenant. Test artifacts (logs, screenshots, and videos) are stored securely in S3. Traffic is secured with industry standard HTTPS encryption, authenticated with client certificates (the nodes) or OAuth (the human users). All test artifacts are encrypted at rest.

Access control is enforced per user, with the ability to grant read, write, or admin access. Currently we support GitHub’s single sign-on for user account management.

The Stb-tester cloud platform is trusted by large operators and OEMs, including Dish, Telstra, Walmart, and Sony.

Modern tooling

The Stb-tester platform integrates with the development tools you are already using: GitHub for source control, pull requests and code review; Jenkins and Bamboo for Continuous Integration; IDEs such as PyCharm and Visual Studio Code for test-development. We also provide a REST API to enable you to develop custom integrations.

Additional integrations will be provided out-of-the-box based on customer demand.

Backwards compatible

The new hardware is 100% compatible with test scripts written for our previous product. Backwards compatibility is one of our core company values.

Request a demo!

To request a demo, please contact sales@stb-tester.com.