Sports

NPAW's Gary Hunsberger on Streaming Analytics, AI

Published

8 months ago

April 25, 2025

NPAW's Gary Hunsberger on Streaming Analytics, AI

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In this interview with Streaming Media contributing editor Jan Ozer, Gary Hunsberger, general manager of U.S. operations at NPAW (Nice People At Work), outlines the company’s approach to end-to-end quality monitoring, actionable data, and monetization support. Hunsberger, who joined NPAW seven weeks before NAB 2025, shares how the company differentiates itself in a crowded analytics market, discusses future AI integration plans, and previews growth initiatives in the U.S. and Canada.

With a presence spanning small houses of worship to global media platforms, NPAW delivers streaming analytics from the network probe level through to the end-user session, all within a single, customizable interface. Hunsberger explains how the platform helps customers retain subscribers, optimize CDN usage, anticipate churn, and make sense of overwhelming amounts of quality-related data—all while laying the groundwork for a greater North American footprint.

Below is a lightly edited version of the conversation.

From Bitmovin to NPAW

Jan Ozer: I’m sitting in the Nice People at Work booth with Gary Hunsberger, who’s going to talk about the products and services offered by NPAW. Thanks for joining me, Gary.

Gary Hunsberger: Nice to be here, Jan.

Jan Ozer: So, give us a few seconds on what you’ve been doing. Where’d you come from?

Gary Hunsberger: About seven weeks ago, I joined NPAW—formerly from Bitmovin—and I’m now the general manager for the U.S. and Canada.

Target customers and differentiation

Jan Ozer: We’re in your booth at NAB. What’s the big message here? Who are the companies you’re trying to reach, and how do you differentiate your products and services for those targets?

Gary Hunsberger: It’s any customer delivering streams to end users who wants to ensure a good customer experience. That could be anyone from small churches to the large organizations we all deal with.

Jan Ozer: Small churches? Is that really a market you serve?

Gary Hunsberger: We have customers that serve that market.

Jan Ozer: It’s a crowded market with several solutions. What’s different about NPAW?

Gary Hunsberger: What we’re doing from a network probe and network monitoring perspective—very early in the content lifecycle all the way out to the individual user session—is monitoring the stream throughout that entire process. Bringing that into a single window, or a single pane if you will, is something we’re doing that’s very unique.

Making data actionable

Jan Ozer: Maintaining quality is pretty complicated. There’s the merger of QoS and QoE. Describe your solution; what happens if I have a problem? How do you solve it before I even know it’s there?

Gary Hunsberger: That’s really where it’s at: making sure the data is there, but also that it’s actionable. Your teams need to get to that data quickly, understand the root cause of what caused an alarm or what’s going on with a CDN, and be able to act quickly.

We allow you to tailor the events that get triggered in a very granular way to suit your organization’s needs—and make that an easy process. We support customers with training and modeling, and in dashboard setup. The dashboards are highly customizable, and it’s important to have a simplified view when you need it. If you’re a network operator who just needs a simple view, customization is key—and we do that.

Live event support and root cause resolution

Jan Ozer: If I’m a live event producer, what am I watching during the show from a quality perspective?

Gary Hunsberger: It starts with your internal network. Then it’s the health of the CDN. When something goes wrong, how do you crack that open and figure out the root cause?

Issues usually show up on the player, and it’s guilty until proven innocent. It’s imperative that you can understand if it’s a DRM license server that’s not working correctly, or if you’ve got CDN caching issues. You must be able to quickly open that up and troubleshoot it.

Customer success stories and expansion strategy

Jan Ozer: What are your big plans for NPAW in the U.S.? I assume you’re here to increase presence, revenue, and profitability.

Gary Hunsberger: It’s an underserved market for us. We’ve got some very big names—lighthouse customers—but overall, it’s pretty underserved. I’m looking forward to perhaps putting out a U.S. office in New York, being closer to our customers, supporting them better, understanding their unique needs in this market, and growing the business that way.

Filtering the noise

Jan Ozer: One of the biggest problems in this business is that there’s almost too much information. You get so much data that you don’t know what to do with it. What’s NPAW’s solution?

Gary Hunsberger: That definitely happens. You can set a large number of filters and get a lot of errors. What we’re doing is putting an AI intelligence agent across the entire workflow—that’s going to help customers more quickly understand what’s causing those errors. We call it Sentinel.

Sentinel will make recommendations and allow customers, through a process of elimination and more training, to get to the root causes more quickly.

Jan Ozer: Who does the training?

Gary Hunsberger: We take care of that. We’re very strong in professional services—handholding customers, helping them set up dashboards. This is something that’s very new to a lot of customers, so we’ll be heavily involved in assisting them.

AI now and later

Jan Ozer: Where else are you seeing AI touch your products in the next 12 to 24 months?

Gary Hunsberger: This is a lot of work. I think we’re just going to get really good at this for now—and then we’ll see where it goes.

Helping customers monetise

Jan Ozer: We’ve been hearing “monetization” over and over. How does your product help customers monetise?

Gary Hunsberger: It’s about retention. Churn is an ongoing challenge for many of our customers. That gets to the heart of making sure the end user is having a good experience with their subscription or with the stream they’re watching.

We’re enabling customers to use the data we’re gathering to ensure that quality of experience is a good one. When it’s not, we help customers understand why and allow them to be more proactive.

For example, I had a meeting here with our friends over at Cleeng. They’re involved in subscription management. They can tell you how many customers churned last month—but they can’t tell you why.

When you couple a solution like Cleeng with what we gather, we can tell customers, “Everyone who churned last month was on Android.” That gives you actionable data. Let’s go take a look at our Android implementation and find out why that might be. Then we can be more proactive.

Jan Ozer: I want to prevent churn. How do you help me do that?

Gary Hunsberger: As you’re monitoring and tracking these issues, you can anticipate future problems. If you know you’ve had an issue with a DRM license server, that allows you to get ahead of it.

Maybe you reach out to those remaining Android customers, give them a free month, or just let them know you’re working on it. That proactive outreach can help keep them from churning.

Optimising multi-CDN delivery

Jan Ozer: What about multi-CDN? It’s something we hear about a lot. How are you helping customers implement that?

Gary Hunsberger: That’s really important. It speaks to cost. We all know there’s significant cost in distributing content.

Sometimes customers choose a CDN based on performance but don’t understand that there might be a more cost-effective CDN they could be using at any given time. Being able to monitor the performance of those CDNs—and switch actively, even mid-stream—is going to be a huge benefit.

Adoption rates and competitive differentiation

Jan Ozer: Looking at publishers in particular, how many of them currently have a QoS solution in place? Is it 100%? 50%?

Gary Hunsberger: What I’m seeing is that it’s about 100% in all cases. But when they take a look at the portfolio we’ve got and the holistic view we can give them, the lights go on.

Jan Ozer: What are the table-stakes features that differentiate you from other providers?

Gary Hunsberger: It’s that holistic view. There are a lot of siloed implementations out there. It’s important to be able to share and view data across the entire workflow.

If you’ve got data in one silo and data in another, you can’t share that. Organizations need to be able to share information amongst themselves.

Zype Streaming Platform Partners with NPAW to Add Full Analytics Suite

Zype, an all-in-one video management and distribution platform, and NPAW, a leading provider of AI-driven video analytics solutions, have partnered to offer streaming businesses an all-in-one solution for optimizing content delivery, increasing user engagement, measuring quality of experience (QoE) and ultimately, driving revenue and customer satisfaction.

19 Dec 2024

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Nebraska volleyball faces Texas A&M in regional final on Channel 8

Published

10 minutes ago

December 13, 2025

Your Sports Nation

Nebraska Vs Kansas Courtesy Photo — Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – The undefeated Nebraska volleyball team is looking to punch its ticket to Kansas City with a win over Texas A&M on Sunday.

The Huskers face off against No. 6 Texas A&M on Channel 8. That game begins at 2 p.m.

Texas A&M is coming off a five-set win over Louisville, Husker head coach Dani Busboom Kelly’s former team.

Shortly after that match, Nebraska swept Kansas in a dominant performance inside a sold-out John Cook Arena.

The Huskers are now onto their 34th regional final in program history. That is the most regional final appearances in NCAA history.

Nebraska gets another postseason game at the Bob Devaney Center. The Huskers have won 90 home matches in the NCAA Tournament.

Only four schools nationally have 90 or more victories in the tournament.

Nebraska and Texas A&M have faced off 39 times, most recently in 2010 when the Huskers swept the Aggies on the road.

Nebraska has won 32 of those matchups.

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Tracking undefeated women’s volleyball teams in 2025

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27 minutes ago

December 13, 2025

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We are tracking all remaining undefeated teams in DI women’s volleyball for the 2025 season. Only Nebraska is left standing after Texas fell to Texas A&M in a five-setter on Friday, Oct. 31.

Since 1981, there have been only four programs — five teams — to finish a season undefeated and win a national title: Penn State (2008, 2009), Southern California (2003), Nebraska (2000) and Long Beach State (1998).

READ MORE: Every undefeated national champion in college volleyball history

Penn State holds the longest win streak in DI women’s volleyball history with 109 match victories from 2007-10, with the Nittany Lions winning four consecutive titles (2007 through 2010). The 2009 title team is the most recent undefeated champion.

Will there be another team to etch its name into history this season? Follow along here:

Undefeated DI women’s volleyball teams in 2025

Rankings are from the AVCA:

No. 1 Nebraska (33-0): The Huskers’ extend their win-streak to 33 after most recently sweeping Kansas on Friday, Dec. 12 in the regional semifinal of the NCAA tournament. Next: vs. Texas A&M (NCAA Tournament)

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Steinbrecher Named ECAC Coach of the Year, Louisell Named First Team

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2 hours ago

December 13, 2025

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DANBURY, Conn. – James Madison volleyball Head Coach Lauren Steinbrecher was named the Eastern College Athletic Conference Coach of the Year while Kennedy Louisell took home First Team honors, the organization announced on Friday.

Steinbrecher – also named the Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year – led JMU to a Sun Belt regular-season championship in 2025, finishing 22-9 and 13-3 in league play. The Dukes led the conference in kills (1,695), assists (1,594), and hitting percentage (.255) along with ranking seventh nationally with 325.5 blocks (2.58 per set).

Louisell added to her list of accolades, as the junior was also named to the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) All-East Region team on Dec. 9. The 2025 Sun Belt Player of the Year set JMU Division I single-season school records in kills (605) and kills per set (4.80), along with the single-match record for kills (38), doing so against Georgia Southern on Oct. 25.

After bringing in eight new players following an 11-16 record in 2024, Steinbrecher and the Dukes rebounded from a 2-4 start to the 2025 campaign by ratting off 13 straight wins from Sept. 27 to Nov. 13 – tied for the third longest winning streak in program history.

ECAC Major Awards

Player of the Year: Korrin Burns – Saint Francis University, Sr., OH

Libero of the Year: Jessie Golden – Brown University, Sr., L

Rookie of the Year: Ava Poinsett – Yale University, Fr., OH

Coach of the Year: Lauren Steinbrecher, James Madison

ECAC Division I Women’s Volleyball All-ECAC First Team*

TaKenya Stafford – Coppin State, Rs-Sr., OH

Kiannisha Santiago – Rider University, Sr., OPP

Korrin Burns – Saint Francis University, Sr., OH

Kennedy Louisell – James Madison University, Jr., OH

Izadora Stedile – Hofstra University, Sr., OH

Alexandra Sappia – Saint Francis University, Rs-Sr., S

Jessie Golden – Brown University, Sr., L

ECAC Division I Women’s Volleyball All-ECAC Second Team

Kali Moore – Stony Brook University, Sr., OH

Arianna Ugolini – Bryant University, Sr., OH

Maya Walker – Fairfield University, Sr., MB

Ava Poinsett – Yale University, Fr., OH

Sydney Draper – Princeton University, Jr., S

Coco Figueroa – Coppin State, Jr., L

ABOUT THE ECAC

The ECAC (Eastern College Athletic Conference) is an eighty-five-year-old organization with well over 200 member schools across all three NCAA Divisions – I, II and III. The ECAC exists to enhance the experience of student-athletes participating in intercollegiate athletics and provides great value for universities and colleges by sponsoring championships, leagues, bowl games, tournaments and other competitions throughout the Northeast.

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Jane Hays Named Associate Head Coach of Georgetown Volleyball

Published

2 hours ago

December 13, 2025

Your Sports Nation

WASHINGTON – The Georgetown University volleyball has named Jane Hays as the Associate Head Coach, as announced by Head Coach AJ Bonetti on Friday morning.

“The decision to name Jane Hays as Associate Head Coach was an easy one. She has earned this through exceptional performance, unparalleled strategic input and her leadership both on the court and in the locker room. She is a vital piece of our coaching structure, and I look forward to continuing our partnership as we continue to build Georgetown Volleyball into the program we all know it can become; one competing for BIG EAST Championships!” – Head Coach AJ Bonetti

Hays joined the Georgetown volleyball staff in April 2023 and has served as Assistant Coach/Recruiting Coordinator. She has been instrumental in the program’s rise, helping the Hoyas achieve their highest BIG EAST finish since 2018 and securing wins over multiple RPI Top-75 opponents. As the program’s recruiting coordinator, she led the effort to sign Georgetown’s highest-ranked class in school history, with the 2027 class earning a No. 45 national ranking.

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Huskers Cruise Into Regional Final – University of Nebraska

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2 hours ago

December 13, 2025

Your Sports Nation

LINCOLN, Neb. – The No. 1 Nebraska volleyball team cruised into the NCAA Regional Finals with a 25-12, 25-11, 25-12 sweep of No. 16 Kansas on Friday night in front of a crowd of 8,800 at John Cook Arena at the Bob Devaney Sports Center.

The Huskers (33-0) were dominant from start to finish, never trailing in the match. NU hit .450 – its third-highest attack percentage of the year – and stifled the Jayhawks (24-11) to a season-low .029 hitting percentage. Nebraska also out-blocked Kansas, 10-1, out-dug the Jayhawks 48-30 and had six services aces and only three errors while KU had one ace and six errors.

Nebraska’s middles were dominant, combining for 21 kills on 28 error-free swings (.750 attack percentage) while adding eight blocks. Rebekah Allick had nine kills on nine swings to hit 1.000, and she added three blocks. Andi Jackson also had nine kills on .600 hitting with five blocks. Manaia Ogbechie produced three kills on four swings in the third set.

Harper Murray added seven kills and had a match-high 10 digs. Bergen Reilly dished out 30 assists while Olivia Mauch had a season-high three aces.

Three players led Kansas with six kills.

Set 1: NU got off to a 4-0 start on Choboy’s serve with a kill by Allick and two blocks by Jackson, one with Adriano and one with Murray. After Kansas got on the board, NU scored a 6-0 run with Mauch serving a pair of aces to go up 10-1. Jackson’s fourth block – with Reilly – and a kill by the junior middle blocker made it 13-3 Big Red. The Jayhawks scored three in a row to cut it to 13-6, but four kills by Allick put NU ahead 18-7. Landfair set Allick for her sixth kill on six swings, and a solo block by the senior middle blocker made it 21-8. Jackson and Landfair tacked on kills for a 25-12 win.

Set 2: Adriano had an early kill and an ace, and Murray and Jackson each posted a kill and a block together as the Huskers built a 7-3 lead. KU pulled within 9-7, but a Murray kill started a 5-0 run with Allick providing two kills and a block with Adriano. The lead grew to 10 at 19-9 after a block by Allick and Adriano and a kill by Murray. An Adriano kill made it 20-9, and Jackson and Murray teamed up for a block and a 22-11 lead. The Huskers closed out a 25-11 win on a Choboy ace.

Set 3: Sigler had two kills, and Landfair and Jackson pounded away for a 9-4 NU lead. Landfair tacked on another kill before one by Manaia Ogbechie put NU ahead 13-6. Ogbechie, Murray and Jackson added kills, and Murray served an ace to help the Huskers go up 20-9. NU went on to finish the sweep, 25-12.

Up Next: Nebraska will take on No. 6 Texas A&M in Sunday’s NCAA Regional Final at 2 p.m. on ABC. The Aggies beat No. 9 Louisville, 3-2 in a reverse sweep, in the first match on Friday.

Nebraska Post-Match Notes

With the win, Nebraska advanced to an NCAA Regional Final for the 34th time in program history. The Huskers’ 34 regional final appearances are the most in NCAA history. Nebraska has made an NCAA Regional Final in 13 of the past 14 seasons.
The Huskers played their 175th NCAA Tournament match tonight. Nebraska and Stanford are the only two programs to play 175 NCAA Tournament matches.
With the win, Nebraska improved to 137-38 all-time in the NCAA Tournament. The Huskers rank second in NCAA history in postseason wins and winning percentage (.783).
The win was Nebraska’s 33rd consecutive victory. The Huskers are 33-0 this season, marking the third straight season Nebraska has won 33 matches. The 33 wins tie for the second-most victories in a season by a Husker team in the NCAA era (1981-present).
Nebraska improved to 34-7 all-time in NCAA Regional Semifinal matches, including a 17-1 record in matches played in Lincoln.
The Huskers improved to 90-7 all-time in home NCAA Tournament matches, including a 35-2 record at the Devaney Center.
Nebraska has won 90 home matches in the NCAA Tournament while only four other schools have 90 or more total victories in the NCAA Tournament.
NU has won 29 consecutive home matches in the NCAA Tournament, a school record.
Overall, Nebraska has won 63 consecutive home matches dating back to Dec. 1, 2022. That ties for the fifth-longest streak in NCAA Division I history and ties for the second-longest streak in Husker history.
With the win, Nebraska improved to 13-0 against ranked opponents this season. The 13 victories against ranked opponents are tied for second in school history, one shy of the school record (14 in 1998).
Nebraska won the first two sets and is now 106-2 all-time in the NCAA Tournament when taking a 2-0 lead.
Nebraska was the first to 20 points in each of the three sets. The Huskers are now 95-0 this season in sets when reaching 20 points first.
The Huskers held Kansas to fewer than 15 points in all three sets. That marked the second time this season that Nebraska has held its opponents to fewer than 15 points in every set, with both occurrences coming against top-25 teams (also against No. 25 Penn State on Nov. 28).
Nebraska won the first set, 25-12. That marked the Huskers’ 46th consecutive set won at home this season. That is a school record for consecutive sets won at home in one season, eclipsing the 45 consecutive home sets won by the 2004 team.
Overall, Nebraska has now won 48 consecutive sets at home which ties for the second-longest streak in school history, trailing only the 52 consecutive home sets won spanning the 2001-02 seasons.
Nebraska stuffed four of Kansas’ first 11 swings of the night, recording four blocks in the first eight rallies. The Huskers had as many blocks in the match’s first 15 rallies (5) as they did in their second-round sweep of Kansas State last Saturday.
Fueled by the block, Nebraska won 13 of the first 16 rallies of the match to take a 13-3 lead.
Nebraska finished with 10 blocks in the match, tying for its highest block total in 13 matches.
The Huskers hit .450 in the match, its third-highest attack percentage this season. Two of Nebraska’s three matches this season hitting .450 or better have come in the NCAA Tournament.
Nebraska has now hit above .400 in nine matches this season, the most in a single season in the rally-scoring era (2001-present).
The Huskers played three middle blockers in the match in Rebekah Allick, Andi Jackson and Manaia Ogbechie. The middles combined for 21 kills on 28 error-free swings. Allick had a kill on each of her nine swings.
Allick also had three blocks in the match, increasing her career total to 539 blocks and moving into 10th place on Nebraska’s all-time blocks list.
Harper Murray had seven kills in the match, increasing her career total to 1,156. She passed Lexi Sun and moved into 10th place on Nebraska’s career kills list in the rally-scoring era.
Olivia Mauch had a season-high three aces in the match.
Nebraska limited Kansas to a season-low .029 attack percentage. The Jayhawks’ previous low was a .104 hitting percentage against Kansas State on Oct. 24.
The Huskers have held 15 opponents under a .100 hitting percentage this season.
Kansas did not have a block until the 31st rally of the third set. The Jayhawks finished with one block, marking the third time this season a Husker opponent has totaled only one block.

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Kentucky Faces ‘Balanced’ Creighton in Regional Final on Saturday – UK Athletics

Published

2 hours ago

December 13, 2025

Your Sports Nation

When the Kentucky volleyball team takes the floor in Saturday’s regional final (5 p.m. ET, ESPN2), UK junior Molly Berezowitz will see some familiar faces across the net.

Berezowitz, who transferred to Kentucky this season from Marquette, has faced Creighton five times during her college career and knows the Blue Jays well.

“When I was at (Marquette), they were our biggest rivals, so we played them last year like three times,” Berezowitz said. “So, I kind of wanted to play them because obviously it’s different this year. They have a good offense and they have a lot of experience. I think it’s going to be a challenging game.”

Berezowitz knows that Creighton is a very experienced team.

“I feel like those girls have been there forever,” Berezowitz said. “I’ve played them like three years in a row. I think they have a lot of competitive maturity and I know we do as well. They’re a really good team, they’re always fun to play and they’re nice girls.”

UK head coach Craig Skinner knows that Creighton is much more than just stars Ava Martin and Kiara Reinhardt.

“Looking forward to playing Creighton. Obviously, a team that’s had a lot of success this year and presents lots of challenges with their offense and the way they play,” Skinner said. “It’s going to be exciting. Very balanced team. Everyone talks about Ava Martin and Reinhardt but with (Jaya) Johnson behind the setter and (Eloise) Brandewie, who played at Ohio State. They have a group that is very experienced, very mature in the way they compete. They’re not going to give us a whole lot of points.”

UK sophomore middle blocker Kennedy Washington believes that she and the team have a formula for success on Saturday.

“Just playing to our standard, spreading the offense and really defending,” Washington said. “Last night, we did a really good job of blocking and holding their star players to a lower hitting percentage.”

Berezowitz knows that it will take a team effort to beat a talented team like Creighton.

“Just using all 14 players, and we’re going to need everyone tomorrow,” Berezowitz said. “I think it’s important to just treat it like every other game we’ve played.”

Skinner believes that serving will be crucial on Saturday. How important is it?

“Very. It was very important last night against Cal Poly and then, because of the diversity that Creighton throws at you with their offense, it will be important again,” Skinner said. “We’re going to have to find the right spots to hit in the right rotations.”

Saturday’s match between two talented teams should be fun to watch. And the winner will advance to next week’s Final Four in Kansas City.

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