How Inditronics Expanded TV Measurement to 100 Million New Viewers at Record Efficiency

KESHAV SHINDE
Feb 24, 2024
2 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

India has 200 million TV viewing households with diversified demographics in each of 36 states. Statistically, 55,000 HHs (in-tab) needed to be measured and monitored to have maximum coverage of such a large population.

Challenge 1:

Cost optimization of People Meter and Field Maintenance.Solution: New Rugged Low Cost Meter Development

● Inditronics developed the world's most affordable People Meter with additional features &

functionality that helps field maintenance.

● We enable efficient and secure over-the-air updates for both people Meters and accessories, ensuring that devices always have the latest software and features.

● Meter built to withstand harsh environmental conditions, a durable and robust design that

ensures reliable operation in various demographics, including remote areas and challenging

weather conditions.

● Analog and digital boards with modular approach kept separate for easier repairs and turn around time.

● Multiple alarms, alerts and notifications with indicators to help diagnose Meter condition on

field and from back office.

Challenge 2:

Porting & Optimizing Meter Software for New Low Cost Meter’s andMigrating Older Meter’s with New Meter Software for software uniformity.

Solution:

Software Porting and Microservices Architecture with Newer FunctionalitiesPorting & Optimizing Meter Software for New Low-Cost Meter’s:

● Hardware Constraints: written adaptive software for as per the processing power, memory, andstorage of the new low-cost Meters.

● Use of multiple optimization Techniques:○ Code refactoring/architecting for efficient use of CPU and memory & Use of lightweightprotocols for communication & data format to reduce overhead.○

Deprecated unnecessary service’s and events○ Addition of Power-saving routines for battery optimizations & low consumption.

○ Modular Architecture: Developed a modular software approach for scalability and easierupdates for the future.

○ Security Enhancements: Implement high end security protocols (e.g., AES encryption) toensure data integrity without burdening the processor.

Migrating Older Meter’s with New Meter Software for Software Uniformity :

● We did Hardware and software reverse engineering and re-architecting for migration & porting.

● Compatibility Layers: In software added compatibility layers to adapt with older hardware drivers to work with the new software.

● Backward Compatibility : We make sure the new software works with legacy communication protocols and hardware interfaces.

● Data Integrity: Preserve historical data during migration while ensuring smooth data handoff between old and new systems.

● Automated Migration Process: Created an automated process set up for rolling/migration out windows to Linux software updates to minimise human error and downtime.

● Software Maintenance: Keeping the Software Development & Production platform seperate for easier maintenance, updates, and troubleshooting across all Meters.

● Security Updates: Standardize the security protocols, Data formats across old and new Meters for consistent security protection.