IBC 2013: Bridge Technologies to show new VB288 Content Extraction System
Bridge Technologies will highlight the new VB288 Content Extraction System at IBC as part of its Objective QoE launch. A server-based system for confidence verification and monitoring of QoE, with virtual videowalls that can be accessed and viewed from any location, the VB288 is based on Objective QoE criteria that give a true indication of quality of experience using metrics appropriate to broadcast and digital media delivery.
Objective QoE eschews the approach taken by the previous generation of QoE systems based on criteria derived from telephony, such as MOS (Mean Opinion Scores) and arbitrary values such as ‘bluriness’. Instead, Objective QoE provides a more accurate and informative monitoring service by evaluating a range of key errors that occur in media delivery, including audio silence, colour freezes, colour black, and freeze frames, to detect failures affecting quality of experience.
At the heart of the Objective QoE system, the VB288 delivers visual content extraction, status displays and alerts to a virtual videowall display that can be viewed through any browser. Running on a standard high-specification server, the VB288 can power displays of large numbers HD H.264 channels in multiple browser windows. Accessible from any location, the system provides a highly effective validation tool that is easily adaptable to any monitoring strategy, and readily usable by busy engineers on the move.
“The old approach to QoE monitoring was misleading and of limited value because the criteria used to evaluate quality of experience were not appropriate to visual media delivery and didn’t deliver clear decision-making support to monitoring staff,” says Simen Frostad, chairman of Bridge Technologies. “QoE is about real customer experience, and unless a tool uses the right criteria to evaluate that in a broadcast or visual media context, it can’t provide effective data. Objective QoE is a rational reinvention of quality of experience monitoring for our industry.”
Content extraction can also be implemented on individual Bridgetech probes or groups of probes with the new content extraction software option included in version 5.0 of the Bridge Technologies system software, which enables additional probe-based QoE monitoring of local terrestrial and unencrypted satellite services.
Quality of Experience monitoring with Objective QoE can be incorporated into any Bridge Technologies monitoring infrastructure, running in tandem with the system’s sophisticated QoS (Quality of Service) monitoring capabilities, using Bridge Technologies’ advanced graphical environment for instantly-intelligible displays of data and status.
Objective QoE and the new VB288 will be shown in multi-monitor videowall configuration at IBC 2013, giving live content extraction and status verification of television services at the show.