In Broadcast - March 2018 - 55

55

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 8 - Issue 3 | March 2018

Toward A Better
Quality of Experience
The quality of the content received is dependent on many more links
in the chain, Contributing Editor, Kevin Hilton examines how the
Quality of Experience is monitored...

B

roadcasters have always looked to
ensure a high technical standard
for programmes and subsequent
transmissions all the way to the
viewer's television. These days, with
more channels and a wider diversity of
platforms to receive video, a distinction
is made between the broadcast chain
and the final output set in the home.
Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality
of Experience (QoE) cover some of the
same ground but the latter category
takes the critical business of monitoring
and analysis beyond the professional
realm and on to consumer devices.
"The difference is that QoE has to
tell the broadcaster what the end
user experiences and do that in an
automated and reportable manner,"
comments Alexandre Gianni, Presales
Engineer at Witbe. The French
company specialises in QoE monitoring
and used 'Robots' to automate the
process along the delivery chain.
These proprietary apps are used
in Witbe's main product, Galaxy,
and work in conjunction with
the Hub. This in turn is divided
into the Maestro centralised
management unit, which deals
with the information from the
various Robots, and the Central
System, where data from the
Robots is stored.
Information from the Hub is sent
to the Customer's Cockpit, where
functions are assigned and the data
examined. The Cockpit comprises the
Workbench, made up of the Script
Writer
drag-and-drop
interface
for creating scenarios to deal with
problems, the Campaign Scheduler to
instigate solutions and the Remote Eye
Controller for troubleshooting in realtime; and the Portal, which contains
Analytics and the Dashboard display,
both operating in real-time.
Gianni says the Galaxy Robots are
able to connect to an OTT service
through a Web server or link directly
to video or a web browser. "Problems
could be at the set-top box or further
up the network," he says. "They could

also be in an app or the final
delivery but we can narrow down
to identify where in the chain the
issue lies."
During
February
Witbe
launched the Video On-The-Go
Robot at Mobile World Congress
in Barcelona and then showed
it at BVE in London. As the
name suggests, this is designed
specifically for monitoring video
on devices such as smartphones
and tablets, following on from the
introduction last year of the Mobile
App Robots in Witbe Suite 6.0. The
new system allows service operators to
monitor networks from a special van,
which is on the move much in the same
way as the end-users. "Mobile service
providers need to check their output
as the user perceives it," says Gianni.
"Which is another example of QoE as
opposed to QoS."

Telestream iQ Inspector

End User Experience
Kenneth
Haren,
Solutions
Marketing
Manager
at
Telestream, confirms
the remit of QoE,
defining it as "typically Kenneth Haren,
a measurement of the Telestream
video quality in the end user playback
experience". Telestream produces two
systems designed to check and analyse
media as it travels from its source to
the playback process. Haren describes
iQ Inspector as a probe tool which
analyses video quality both before
and after encoding in real-time. This
is applied to both linear and adaptive
bit rate (ABR) streaming networks
and includes support for non-

Video Clarity RTM3.0

reference mean opinion score (MOS)
indexing, used for identifying quality
degradation.
Telestream's other QoE product is
the VidCheck range. This is used to test
file-based media during production to
ensure that finished material is at the
specified quality before it enters the
distribution chain. Haren observes that
the delivery format influences how
measurements are carried out: "Often
in DTT each 'channel' is a single
programme within a transport
stream. ABR and streaming
deliverables
will
typically
have between seven and 12
qualitatively distinct variants that
require measurement. Because
these variants often include
wildly varied encoding rates and
resolutions, it's not uncommon
for a single programme to have
different
measurements
within
the ABR package, complicating the
analytics and adding the need for
continuous real-time monitoring of
all the programme variants that the
audience may be viewing. So it is
necessary to be able to scale across
traditional linear and OTT delivery
pipelines."
Bridge Technologies' offering
in this field is Objective
QoE, based on the VB288
server-based
content

InMedia
extraction system. This uses virtual
videowall displays so that operators
can verify large numbers of HD
channels simultaneously from any
location. Objective QoE can be used
in conjunction with any of Bridge
Technologies'
other
monitoring
systems and run alongside the
company's QoS monitors.
Simen
K
Frostad,
Chairman,
Bridge Technologies says emerging
technologies are having a direct
impact on broadcast operations in
general and these need to be taken
into consideration, particularly
where QoE is concerned. "The
challenge for us as an industry
in this era of IP-ification is
to continue to develop our
understanding of how IP works
and how it can be used to best
advantage," he says. "For
many, its benefits are clear
and nowhere is that more true
than in what it enables us to
achieve in maximising our customers'
satisfaction."
Like Telestream, Video Clarity has
two products for QoE: ClearView, used
by operators and manufacturers to
record, automatically align source
and downstream processed video and
apply tests that inform final decisions
on quality; and Real-Time Monitor
(RTM), which takes the reference
model of testing video quality and
automatically aligns two video-audio
feeds for comparisons in real-time.
Adam Schadle, VP at Video Clarity,
comments that the broadcast market
now wants to "do as much as possible
with software" but that the ability to
testing video quality accurately still
needs a full reference model. "In this
way users have the benefit of a video
recording, playback and comparison
function with uncompressed video at
high resolutions,"
he says. "These
features
are
not
necessarily
possible
without
purpose
built
hardware for most
critical evaluations
Adam Schadle,
of quality."
Video Clarity

Bridge Technologies VB288
http://www.inbroadcast.com http://videoclarity.com/video-quality-measurement-solutions/ http://www.telestream.net/iq/overview.htm
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