I N T E R N A T I O N A L N E W S WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 14 - NOV/DEC 2012 InTEST OmniTek Adds Picture Quality And Audio Quality Analysis When T&M equipment manufacturer OmniTek release V2.5 of their OTM and OTR waveform analysis software in the next few weeks, it will include both Picture Quality and PEAQ Audio Quality Analysis. Picture Quality and Audio Quality Analysis are of value everywhere signal degradation is an issue. This degradation comes as much from the compression techniques used to maximise the payload of a transmission line as from the physical properties of the transmission line itself. The compression algorithms used to minimise the data storage also introduce a level of image degradation. Assessment of the image quality helps ensure that the best use is made of the available resources. The OTM and OTR systems will compare in real-time a stored image or sequence against a reference copy of those images; a transmitted image or sequence against the original; and two transmitted video streams, taken for example from two points on a transmission line. 74 Differences in Picture Quality between the images are displayed both pictorially as difference images and through quantitative measurements. Alongside familiar measures such as macroblock count and peak signal-to-noise ratios (PSNR) are some important enhancements because these standard measures make no allowance for factors such as the effect of the brightness level on the viewer’s ability to perceive defects within an image. OmniTek addresses these additional factors by offering variants of the standard algorithms including an ‘edge-adjusted’ version of the PSNR that emphasises defects near object edges where they are more noticeable, and a lumaadjusted version of the macroblock calculation that de-emphasises very bright or very dark parts of the image where macroblocks are not so easily seen. Other special features include a user-defined overall measure of image degradation and logging picture quality parameters to disk for analysis outside of the OTM that look at the effect of the or OTR system. transmission path on picture quality. The new Picture Quality Analysis This is thanks to the new ‘In-Service’ facilities will seem very familiar AV Delay feature that takes all the information it needs to correlate to anyone who has used the company’s earlier ‘classic’ PQA motion and scene changes from system – and quite deliberately the video currently being broadcast. so. OmniTek has been at pains to Other new features include ensure that the assessment given support for 3G video formats and on the OTM and OTR systems will a set of meters that allow the user give identical results to those given to see at a glance which picture by the classic PQA system. quality parameters are going above Existing users are also offered the user-defined thresholds. ■ some important enhancements. In particular, where the VIDEO_DELAY option is installed, automatic alignment of the images will be available across all the analyses, not just for ‘Internal/ Top row left / right: PSNR Difference image / Picture Quality E x t e r n a l ’ and Audio PEAQ Status data; Bottom row Left / right: Picture comparisons Quality Charts / Picture Quality Metershttp://www.facebook.com/InBroadcast http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/?first=Phillip&last=Izzard&search=Go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0BC1Gqkc4E&feature=plcp http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/inbroadcast/id468652679?mt=8 http://www.twitter.com/inbroadcast http://WWW.INBROADCAST.COM http://www.omnitek.tv/ http://www.omnitek.tv/ http://www.omnitek.tv/