Tektronix launches monitoring for ABR video

Video monitoring specialist Tektronix has launched Sentry digital content monitoring, which is designed to enable cable operators to ensure the quality of live and on-demand services delivered using adaptive streaming through the identification and diagnosis of video and audio quality issues that can impact viewers’ quality of experience (QoE).

Sentry provides what Tektronix describes as Perceptual Video Quality (PVQ) analysis on video streams encoded in the H.264 codec used for adaptive streaming.  According to Tektronix, PVQ enables Sentry to identify video artifacts that are due to over-compression, which commonly occurs with motion-intensive programmes like sports and action movies.

In an ABR streaming environment, Sentry examines H.264 video streams immediately after they have been transcoded from MPEG-2 and just prior to them being fragmented and encrypted. According to Tektronix, transcoding can introduce QoE-impacting video errors that are virtually undetectable after encryption.
Simultaneously with the H.264 monitoring, Sentry examines the accompanying audio programmes encoded in the AAC codec predominantly used in adaptive streaming.