In today’s data-based, IP broadcast world, the days of technicians in white coats bench-testing cameras and microphones using specialized test and measurement (T&M) devices such as oscilloscopes, signal generators and spectrum analyzers would appear to be very much in the past. This is increasingly the case due to a major adoption of software for both setting up and troubleshooting equipment and, perhaps more significantly, monitoring channel output for quality control (QC) and regulatory compliance.

The two areas remain very distinct but not entirely separate, with T&M playing a role in compliance through specific test equipment and techniques. “As broadcasters migrate to IP-based environments, HDR workflows, UHD/8K and cloud operations, packet loss, jitter and PTP [precision time protocol] timing become both a T&M and a QC concern,” says Kevin Salvidge, sales engineering and technical marketing manager at Leader Electronics of Europe.

“Software-based solutions are establishing themselves in cloud-native QC platforms and are widely used in file-based and OTT workflows,” he says. “The adoption of ST 2110 has seen the introduction of software-based waveform and vectorscope monitors, but there are still a number of features only hardware solutions can provide, including latency and PTP timing. Because of this, most broadcasters today are looking for a hybrid approach.”

Achieving the Same Goal Regardless
Even though software is offering new ways of doing established jobs, it is not changing how broadcasters approach T&M and QC, as Matthew Driscoll, vice president of product management at Telestream, observes: “The team looking at camera shading and SRT [Secure Reliable Transport]/Zixi delivery to a cloud workflow are very different than the folks doing the QC on what is streamed to a subscriber. The fact that things are migrating to software, the cloud or hybrid workflows doesn’t matter in the sense that you’re doing the same jobs, just in a different location.”

Driscoll’s colleague Ravi McArthur, product manager for Telestream’s Qualify automated QC-in-the-cloud system, says the aim is to allow users to work where they want to be, rather than dictating how to use the technology. This has resulted in Qualify now being made available for on-prem operation.

“In the cloud, you effectively get infinite horizontal scaling, which is a big bonus for people with vast and wide media supply chains,” he says. “But sometimes, depending on the kind of resolutions and bit rates people are dealing with, they want their software on-prem near high-speed storage so they can process files as quickly as possible.”

In the view of Ashish Basu, executive vice president of worldwide sales and business development at Interra Systems, the situation has “changed for good,” with software and cloud now “almost everywhere” in T&M and QC.

“Broadcasters are saying they’re increasing the level of automation in checking audio-video quality as much as they can,” he says. “But that is not necessarily aligned with the compliance side. Some of the most advanced broadcasting organizations may have no interest in looking at captioning QC because it’s not mandated in their specific geographic region. We see that variation, but otherwise broadcasters are still interested in delivering pristine content.”

Increasing Complexity
What is clear is that the way broadcasters are approaching T&M and QC is driven by new distribution and platform technologies, Triveni Digital President and CEO Mark Simpson says.

“A key trend is the increasing diversity and complexity of the service being delivered,” he says. “ATSC 3.0 is a more complex standard than what came before, not only in the technical underpinnings but also because more services are being deployed. It is something we feel should have a more integrated, comprehensive approach rather than a lot of different subsystems.”

On the compliance side, Mediaproxy has been completely software-based since it was founded in 2001. “There are virtually no hardware solutions used for QC and compliance anymore,” CEO Erik Otto says. “There’s probably still a lot of hardware involved in T&M, but I’m sure they will have to change as well.”

Even so, Otto adds, there may still be a requirement for dedicated physical devices when it comes to detecting faults such as jitter. “When you deal with packets of data, you need to detect jitter properly for correct synchronization of audio and video streams,” he explains. “To do that you need a clock, so technically, a piece of hardware to give the necessary accuracy.”

The Impact of AI
While a physical timepiece might appear to be irreplaceable, even this area could eventually follow the software trend due to that inevitable game-changer, artificial intelligence (AI). “With AI being everywhere, we are putting it throughout many of our products where the idea of a clock seems like a skeuomorphism,” Telestream’s McArthur says. “We’re very focused on practical AI and are responding to customer requests for features including clock and slate reading, contextual analysis and object detection.”

Interra has been working with AI and machine learning for three to four years, says Ashish Basu, and has incorporated both into many of its products. “We use them in areas like video signal quality or degradation measurements,” he says. “However, we do not say we are an AI company or that we produce AI products. But there is space where AI can make a significant difference for our customers.”

Triveni has had early versions of AI in its products from the beginning because they were rules-based, Simpson says: “AI is a kind of rules-driven technology and it’s getting more sophisticated. Over time, we’ll see an increasing use of AI techniques—for example, our monitoring system with quality scoring for the feeds based on a number of observations.”

Otto has a different take on how AI could possibly change T&M, or, ultimately, the need for it: “Problems with satellite links, 4/5G, internet connections with terrestrial transmitters and networks in general can’t be controlled or predicted,” he says. “Technically, everything else—software and hardware—is in everyone’s control. Because AI is probably better at producing better code and outcomes, it could, in the long term, shrink the need for T&M.”

THATCHAM, U.K.—Test & Measurement solutions provider Leader Electronics of Europe, has announced that it will showcase both Leader and Phabrix instruments at this year’s IBC Show, which takes place at RAI Amsterdam from 13-16 September (Stand 10.C01). 

During the show, the company will be presenting a comprehensive range of its latest and most popular test & measurement (T&M) solutions that cater to every stage of the manufacturing and broadcast production chain – from in-house video technology development to broadcast QC, on-set live production and post-production.

Martin Mulligan, COO, Leader Electronics of Europe, commented that “The continuing increase in the number of broadcast environments employing both SDI and IP underlines the validity of our commitment to providing T&M solutions that are truly ‘hybrid-capable’. We expect many IBC visitors will be looking to review their T&M capabilities in 2024-25 as the pace of IP adoption intensifies, and we look forward to demonstrating why our technology can provide everything they need to support new and legacy workflows. Adding to this, we can’t wait to add another major product innovation into our line up; stay tuned for more details on its release in the run up to IBC 2024!”

Solutions relating to hybrid IP/SDI generation, monitoring and analysis include: 

• The Leader LT4670 1U full-rack width ‘True Hybrid’ SDI/IP synchronous test generator will be demonstrated at IBC. Its standard toolset includes Genlocked black burst signals, tri-level sync pulse generation, and dual PTP generation, a stay-in-sync function for use in the event of an error in the incoming genlock signal, slow-lock stabilization when returning to genlock from stay-in-sync, 48 kHz word-clock signal output synchronized to incoming video; plus synchronous control between devices (L-SYNC).
• Phabrix’s advanced QxL rasterizer will also be on show. QxL is fully 10G/25G IP enabled as standard, with support for generation and analysis of JT-NM TR 1001-1:2018, ST 2110-20 (video), up to four 2110-30 (PCM) and 2110-31 (AES3 transport) audio and a 2110-40 ANC media flow, all with 2022-7 Seamless IP Protection Switching (SIPS) and AMWA NMOS IS-04 discovery and IS-05 device connection management. 
• Alongside the QxL will be Phabrix’s renowned handheld instrument, Sx TAG. An ideal line checking tool for testing ST 2110 and ST 2022-6 streams, Sx TAG provides support for SMPTE ST 2110-20/30/40 encapsulation/decapsulation with ST 2059 PTP, SDP and NMOS as well as SMPTE ST 2022-6 encapsulation/ decapsulation.

Advanced generation, analysis and monitoring tools for broadcast QC and MCR solutions include:  

• Phabrix’s QxP portable waveform monitor offers 12G-SDI and 25G-IP monitoring in a fully portable, lightweight 3RU form factor. With its combined waveform monitor, generator and analyzer toolsets, and integral V-mount or Gold-mount battery plate, QxP is designed for all workflows whether SD, HD, UHD, EUHD, SDR, HDR, SDI or IP, conventional or remote production. 
• Phabrix’s Rx Series will also be demonstrated. Ideal for fast 2K/3G/HD/SD fault diagnosis, the Rx rasterizers offer up to 4 channel generation, analysis and monitoring, all displayed via an ultra-flexible display layout, offering up to 16 instruments on show simultaneously.

Flexible test & measurement for on-set, post and live production:

• Leader’s brand-new ZEN-W Series will be making its IBC Show debut, comprised of the ‘True Hybrid’ simultaneous IP & SDI, LV5600W waveform monitor and LV7600W rasterizer. Each incorporates a Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) interface, allowing secure remote control and monitoring from a web-connected desktop or laptop computer.
• Leader will also be demonstrating a host of brand-new updates for its complete ZEN Series of rasterizers and waveform monitors, including HDR/SDR/HDR conversion via 3D LUT file import, SDR Full Range Display and the addition of ARRI, RED and SONY camera tools to the Leader Cinezone real-time false color exposure display.

Instruments for 12G-SDI and product engineering environments include: 

• Renowned for ‘in-house’ product development and technology manufacturing environments, Phabrix’s advanced Qx and QxL rasterizers offer up to 12G-SDI and 25G IP analysis and monitoring. The Qx Series’ fast 12G/6G/3G/HD-SDI physical layer testing toolset instantly highlights SMPTE compliance issues. Its advanced SDI-STRESS option will also be demonstrated, suitable for stress testing SDI interfaces up to 12G.
• Phabrix’s SxE handheld instrument offers generation, analysis and monitoring toolsets with advanced Physical Layer Analysis, ideal for SMPTE compliance evaluation.

Solutions for live cloud production are also available. Using AWS Direct Connect, traditional Picture, Waveform and vectorscope analysis tools are available to productions utilizing the cloud. With support for CDI, NDI & SRT, along with the traditional Quality of Experience analysis tools, production and engineering staff can also analyze Quality of Service, with Ancillary Data, Flow Tables and Path delay analysis on either computer, tablet or smartphones.

More information is available at https://leaderphabrix.com/

Of all the new technologies offered to film and TV production in the last decade or two, HDR probably received the warmest immediate reception. While single-camera production has been an early adopter, the demands of producing legacy formats side by side—and in real time—has made HDR slower to grow into multicamera work.

Kevin Salvidge, Sales Engineering and Technical Marketing Manager at Leader/Phabrix referred to a recent EBU session on the subject, noting the complexities involved. “They are concerned that this is appearing too complicated, and that’s preventing HDR [from] becoming mainstream—the knowledge and the power is in the hands of a few people,” he said. “If you’ve got one of those people on your production, bingo, the world’s your oyster. If not, how do you do this?”

The answer, Salvidge goes on, will involve both new equipment and new techniques, but decisions made now are likely to be foundational. “We are currently defining the workflows for the next twenty years,” he said. “The workflows that now seem to be universally adopted are a single master production. The vision mixer is cutting UHD, wide color gamut HDR, so any sources that are not 4K, wide color gamut, high dynamic range are upconverted. That’s close to the workflow the BBC used for the coronation.”

Little Room for Error
As a supplier of test-and-measurement equipment, Phabrix might not ordinarily expect to be involved in that sort of signal processing. Salvidge describes a process of convergence: “The HDR supervisor is the only person who sees HDR Images, and is having to compare both of them. The camera will also output HDR and this is normally where a conversion product sits. And if you’ve got a production, let’s say the FIFA world cup final, with 42 cameras, that’s a lot of kit, a lot of potential to go wrong.”

With Leader and Phabrix now under the same umbrella, some efficiencies have been realized, Salvidge adds. “What we’ve done with the Leader product is the ability for a LUT to be loaded into the waveform monitor, so now you remove that conversion product,” Salvidge says. “You switch on the LUT and you can see the picture, waveform, vectorscope, and the CIE color chart, and the beauty of that is the same LUT is being applied on the output of the truck as well.”

That kind of technical consolidation helps everyone, though Salvidge tells us that the concerns of vision engineering for HDR has also provoked some changes in tools, too.

“The Leader and Phabrix products, in the old days, used to display one analysis tool, or a quad split with four of them,” Salvidge says. “If you’re doing HDR, you need the picture, the waveform, the vector, the CIE chart, and you may be monitoring other parameters as well. You need to have more than four tools.

“So now you’ve got this customizable layout, on both products, which allows you to save it for a particular operation you’re doing,” he added. “We have a lot of freelance people who walk around with their setup on a flash key.”

There will, however, always be considerations which are creative, and harder to characterize on a test-and-measurement display, as Salvidge points out. “They’ve changed the way they shoot. Originally they’d focus on, say, a skier. You have very skilled camera operators, three or 4 km away. They’ll pick up a stick man doing almost 100 kph and they’d have a fairly wide shot. The guys who did the HDR testing said 90% of the screen was white, but you now see them frame the shot so you get the forest in the side… it changed the way they thought about the production, how they framed the shot.”

‘We’re the Plumbers’
With HDR likely to coexist with conventional pictures for the foreseeable future, trucks will be producing two separate outputs—but production has long demanded different outputs for different distributors.

Ralph Bachofen, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Triveni says his company deals less with the picture content and more with the way it’s moved around.

“I’ll differentiate between quality of service and quality of experience,” Bachofen begins. “We’re focussing on the transport layer. We do monitor the experience, we look at black frames, but… we’re focussing on the signaling aspects of it. We’re the plumbers.”

Distribution to vastly different platforms can make things even more complicated, as Bachofen explains. “A lot of people do a number of streams or production environments for different formats. You have very country-specific encoding requirements. How do I hand off these requirements to my main broadcast? How do I hand it off to my channel partners? You see a lot of encoding going on, a lot of activity in this field.”

The move toward IP, Bachofen reflects, makes for a lot of rationalization, with entirely new features as well as new maintenance demands.

“Can you make a box that does all of it?” Bachofen muses. “The answer’s yes—our StreamScopes handle multiple simultaneous stream inputs. You don’t want a box per stream, you want a single box that does multiple ingest.

“We have a large engineering staff who work on these requirements, and it’s not just video,” he adds. “There’s the vast requirement you get for security patches on the OS. The minute you put a device on an intranet, their IT departments require you to have the latest and greatest security patches.”

That unity of purpose can stretch the definition of test and measurement to provide an overview of an entire operation, a market need Triveni addressed at the 2024 NAB Show with the launch of Station Manager.

“Say, at 3 a.m., you want to do some datacasting… you add this in the Station Manager and you want to push this down to individual devices,” Bachofen said. “We look at whether this is a valid configuration. We help the engineering staff in each station to ensure they have valid configurations of the whole broadcast chain.”

Customer Feedback
Interra Systems is another QA provider that focuses on monitoring the entire production chain as well. The range of issues that can arise are more numerous than ever, particularly when it comes to HDR.

“Working with UHD, HDR files involves managing multiple aspects, including resolution, wide color gamut, high dynamic range, and frame rates,” the company wrote in a recent blog. “Each of these factors can contribute to different quality issues. Potential problems could manifest as blurriness, digital ghosting, color banding, and tone mapping. These issues may arise from mishandling wide color gamut, HDR metadata, or improper frame rate adjustments. It is crucial to adopt tools to address these conditions and ensure a smooth transition between HD and UHD content.

Many media workflows involve up-converting 1080p HD content to 4K UHD and processing both standard dynamic range (SDR) and HDR outputs. However, mix-and-match scenarios introduce their own set of problems,” the company said. “Upscaling the resolution can introduce artifacts like blurriness, digital ghosting, etc. Likewise, frame rate up-conversion can lead to temporal artifacts for e.g., motion jerks. Upscaling the dynamic range and color can lead to color banding.

Most of these new features are already part of Interra’s BATON file QC solution, according to Interra.

“First and foremost, we have ensured that we have complete format support right from capture to delivery. This includes capture and distribution formats like TIFF, SonyRaw, DPX, ProRES, AVC, HEVC etc. On the QC side, we have already added support for Color Banding, Digital Ghosting, Aliasing, Motion Jerk, measurement of Light Levels for HDR and more. Feedback from the customers is key here.”

The technology for supplying that chain with HDR material, meanwhile, requires technology which is still growing in maturity. Charlie Dunn, senior vice president and general manager of Test & Measurement at Telestream, describes some new solutions to the vision engineering challenges of HDR.

As Dunn puts it, “a vectorscope in HDR space isn’t that useful. What’s more useful is a CIE chart [color space], but that’s a 1930s thing, and it’s not that great for determining if you're out of bounds. We’ve made a number of innovations—we’ve pitched a couple of papers at SMPTE, and we’re working on that toolset.”

Bringing the long-established competence of experienced people into such a new discipline requires some lateral thinking Dunn adds.

“People are so used to looking at a waveform and vectorscope to shade the camera. So, we’ve given them additional tools—one of them is a false color map. You can look at the greens on the pitch, the white lines, the reds of a jersey, so you can make sure they’re in bounds. If they’re not, they turn to a cyan or some unnatural color, so the operator can check the colors are right.”

The complexities of HDR have sometimes led to a degree of engineering conservatism, often with the result that color is limited to a range that’s actually somewhat less than could ideally be achieved.

“People are really interested in whether the CIE chart is going outside the P3 color space,” Dunn muses. “But that’s based on displays of 10 years ago. I have a feeling that’ll go by the wayside. I don’t see a lot of people doing that—I think it’s a problem they currently have and is not something they’ll constrain themselves to going forward.”

With that in mind, Dunn says, Telestream has sought advice from people who do this on a daily basis.

“Someone like Sky has some tremendous engineers, and we’ve worked really closely with them on adjusting our tools,” Dunn said. “They have a really long roadmap for us of things they’d like to see. They're looking at it from the point of view of how can I make things easy for the operator. That’s how false color came about, that’s how the luma-qualified CIE charts came about. I’d say on a scale of 1-10, we’re probably at a three. There’s a lot of ground for us to cover.”

The transition that’s in progress, Dunn says, is not quite like those which have come before.

“A lot of people are doing things in different ways. In the transition to UHD, nobody really had to do anything differently. Going to HDR, especially for people using test and measurement gear, I think over the next five years the best methodologies will find their way to the top. How people build their facilities, what they make remote, what they decide to put in the cloud, on the basis of having experience. We worry about the screen area which is ten inches across—we worry about how much information we can display in a small space!”

“But it’s good for us,” Dunn concludes. “It means they need more test equipment!”

FORT LEE, NJ—Leader Instruments plans to showcase three new additions to the feature set of its ZEN range of test and measurement tools at the 2024 NAB Show, April 14-17 in Las Vegas. 

Leader’s ZEN Series comprises the LV5600 UHD/HD/SD SDI/IP waveform monitor and LV7600 equivalent rasterizer, LV5300A portable 12G/3G/HD/SD-SDI waveform monitor with eye-pattern and jitter measurement, plus the LV5350 waveform monitor and the LV7300 rasterizer. Top of the ZEN range is the LV5600 which provides all the facilities needed to monitor UHD/HD/SD SDI as well as video-over-IP signals seamlessly in a true-hybrid operating environment. 

Housed in a half-rack width 3U desktop chassis with a touchscreen front panel display and discrete physical buttons, the LV5600 includes test pattern generation, eye-pattern display, closed-caption monitoring, CIE color chart, high dynamic range measurement, focus assist, adjustable screen layout, tally interface, 4K/UHD operation, 25 gigabit/s IP input and 12G-SDI interfaces. SMPTE 2022-6, SMPTE 2022-7 and SMPTE 2110-10, 20, 22, 30, 31 and 40 protocols are all supported. ZEN Series instruments can be expanded or upgraded easily as new firmware becomes available.

New 3D LUT import for HDR to SDR and SDR to HDR conversion
New for the Leader ZEN Series is an integral bidirectional conversion tool which allows HDR content to be viewed in SDR and vice versa. Processing is based on the desired 3D color lookup table which can be imported via plug-in USB memory. 

The new 3D LUT capabilities will simplify live production workflows by integrating HDR/SDR conversion for applications such as camera shading and HDR supervision. On-set DITs will be able to integrate 3D LUTs instead of relying on external LUT boxes. Postproduction colorists can view the 3D LUTs for OTT and OTA deliverables prior to creating the final master.

New SDR ‘Full Range’ display
SDR Full Range is becoming a popular workflow style for digital cinematography and television drama production, not least in Hollywood. SDR as normally transmitted by broadcast television channels encompasses luminance code value levels 64 to 940 (Narrow / Legal Range) of the 1024 maximum which can be accommodated in a 10 bit digital stream. 

SDR Full Range encompasses code value levels 4 to 1019, allowing higher dynamic range to be delivered without requiring the adoption of full HDR at any point in the signal flow from initial production to home viewing. Leader’s ZEN Series already provides the tools necessary for SDR and HDR test and measurement. 

This new feature extends SDR Full Range support to display black error, CIE, gamut error, histogram, level error, audio/video timing offset, noise level, test signals, vector and waveform. Also fully supported for SDR Full Range are CINELITE and CINEZONE, five-bar, frame capture (DPX, TIFF) and image quality adjustment.

New ARRI and RED camera tools added to Leader CINEZONE
Leader is adding support for ARRI and RED cameras to its industry-proven CINEZONE real-time false colour exposure display. These new facilities are an expansion of the CINEZONE/CINELITE toolset which comes as standard on all Leader ZEN Series models. CINELITE is a built-in light meter that gives on-set production and postproduction facilities the ability to analyze a single pixel or small area of the image in either luminance, RGB, code values or f-stops. CINEZONE overlays false colors on the image. 

It colors the strong and weak areas of brightness on the picture display so an operator can judge the luminance conditions of the entire screen. This helps confirm that a camera is reproducing what is expected. The ARRI (User-A) and RED (User-R) features replicate the false color display tools that were previously only visible on the ARRI or RED cameras so they can be viewed by production staff without interfering with the camera setup and operation. Both CINEZONE and CINELITE can be displayed simultaneously on all Leader ZEN Series products.

Leader will be in Booth C5521 in the Central Hall of the LVCC. 

THATCHAM, U.K.—Test and measurement provider Phabrix, a Leader Company, has announced that its distributor, Logic Media Solutions, has sold multiple Phabrix Qx rasterizers, Leader LV5600 waveform monitors and LV7600 rasterizers to TVN Live Production. 

Headquartered in Hanover, Germany, TVN is one of Europe’s leading providers of mobile television services, working on high-profile productions including soccer tournaments and music festivals for more than 35 years. The company is also in demand as a supplier and partner in the development and introduction of innovative technical solutions.

The adoption of Ultra-High Definition (HDR) and High Dynamic Range (HDR) production workflows provided the impetus for TVN’s latest investment in T&M and monitoring equipment, the companies said. 

“With the beginning of the era of UHD and HDR, it was an easy decision to choose Phabrix instruments for our technical positions, and Leader instruments for our operator positions” said TVN CEO Markus Osthaus, adding that the two brands’ products fulfilled the company’s requirements for “user-friendly and flexible measurement devices for professional broadcast use”.

Working closely with Christophe Bingemer, managing director of Phabrix/Leader reseller Logic Media Solutions, TVN decided upon an investment comprising Phabrix Qx rasterizers, Leader LV5600 waveform monitors and LV7600 rasterizers. 

The Qx rasterizer brings together all the advanced tools required for transitioning to the next generation of video formats. Designed for HD/3G/6G/12-SDI and IP ST 2110/2022-7/2022-6 environments, as well as 4K/UHD production and advanced HDR analysis, the instrument set includes tools for rapid fault diagnosis, compliance monitoring and product development. 

Also supporting both new and legacy workflows, the Leader LV5600 is a ‘True Hybrid’ waveform monitor compatible with 4K/HD/SD-SDI signals and UHD/HD/SD IP signals, the company said. 

The LV7600 rasterizer offers the same capabilities as the flagship LV5600 but in a low-profile 19 inch 1U form-factor for easy rack or desk mounting. Engineering-related features include test pattern generation, eye pattern display, closed-caption monitoring, CIE chroma chart, HDR measurement, focus assist, customizable screen layout, tally interface and 4K/UHD operation as well as 10G/25G IP input and 12G-SDI interfaces.

Osthaus said that the new Phabrix and Leader equipment has already been deployed during its commitments to multiple tournaments: “TVN applies Phabrix/Leader measurement equipment at all Bundesliga matches, as well as UEFA tournaments such as Champions League, Europa League and Conference League – thus always providing the best picture quality and signal quality for our customers.”

As to the future, further investments in Leader group products are evidently a possibility. “When we plan and set up new studios or OB vans, the Phabrix/Leader products have become part of our standard equipment,” noted Osthaus, adding that the brands have “always been at the cutting edge of technology, and usually ahead of the competition in terms of innovation.”

“It is always gratifying to hear that a company with such a prestigious track-record as TVN Live Production has put its trust in Phabrix and Leader T&M and monitoring equipment for its work on hugely important productions like Bundesliga and the UEFA Champions League,” Masayoshi Ishihara, managing director, Leader Europe said. “With expectations rising ever-higher in the era of UHD and HDR production, TVN can depend upon the versatility and robust performance of the Qx rasterizers and LV5600 monitors to ensure that its customers – and their viewers – experience the best possible quality every time.”

With the advent of UHD workflows, ensuring a premium viewing experience for audiences has never been more important. This, coupled with the break-neck speed with which content creation and distribution technology is advancing, means media professionals are now facing both obstacles and exciting opportunities at the same time. 

This article delves into the challenges of an end-to-end UHD workflow and how they can be overcome with advanced QC solutions.

Video Quality Issues in UHD Workflows
UHD, including HDR, offers a premium and immersive experience to viewers.  However, as is the case with any new technology, it comes with its own set of challenges regarding adoption. Creating an end-to-end workflow that captures, edits, and transcodes in UHD may not be financially or operationally feasible for many content creators, especially those in their first few years of business. Therefore, such creators may resort to upconverting the resolution, framerate, dynamic range, bit depth, and color gamut of their content. 

However, if these aspects are not handled properly, the result could be a host of video quality issues, including blurriness, digital ghosting, color banding, and tone mapping. Furthermore, upconverting from HD to UHD, or poor UHD capture, may result in blurriness at the edges, as these processes may not be capable of maintaining sharpness in these areas. Therefore, blur detection is a critical requirement.

Likewise, frame rates much higher than 30 fps are required to achieve the natural feel of temporal variation on bigger and wider UHD screens. During the capture of large spatial data at a high temporal rate — 48 fps, 60 fps, or 120 fps — visual issues such as motion-blur, ghosting, grains, and dead/stuck pixels may occur. 

Furthermore, during the journey through transcoding, upconversion, and editing, perceptual temporal issues like motion jerks and flickering may also be introduced. It’s important that such quality issues are discovered before content is delivered to end-users, while corrective action can be taken to fix them.

Another challenging aspect of UHD content is the wide color gamut (WCG) specification (e.g., ITU-R BT. 2020, DCI-P3), which extends the range of colors beyond the standard color gamut. It is this extended range that provides the true, in-depth colors that make UHD scenes look more realistic on a big screen. 

During the transformation of content through editing, transcoding, and tone-mapping, the very fine and smooth variations of the content colors can be disturbed, leading to the formation of bands that are quite evident on wide screens. This color banding can ruin the overall viewing experience.

Furthermore, unlike SDR content, where display quality can be predicted by analyzing the loss resulting from compression, HDR content is much more complex. Due to the non-linear relationship between the decoded and displayed data, this perceived video quality analysis becomes much more cumbersome.

Again, this depends on the type of transfer characteristics that have been fixed while creating the HDR content, which involves the automated or manual process of defining the contrast at various scenes. The content needs to be specified with the average and maximum light levels (nits or cd/m2). For the analysis system, it is important to measure these light levels whenever there is any kind of transformation — such as editing or transcoding — of the originally toned content. 

A primary factor affecting HDR viewing performance is interoperability between the video and the display. When a legacy SDR display is used to view a picture created in a color palette with a WCG, contouring — rendering smooth gradient areas as a series of distinct bands — can be an issue if the conversion is not handled carefully. It can be caused by bit depth loss, which is a global issue, or by incorrect region-based tone mapping, a local problem. These conversions need to be appropriately handled in order to maintain a rich viewing experience. 

In addition, while guidelines for photosensitive epilepsy (PSE) have been long defined for SDR content, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and National Association for Commercial Broadcasters for Japan (NABJ) have now updated the guidelines for HDR content as well. This needs to be included as an additional component in the analysis of UHD content. 

The Need for Advanced QC Solutions
To address the above issues, media professionals must employ advanced QC solutions tailored to the UHD landscape. Such solutions must have comprehensive format support from capture to delivery, including ProRES, DNxHR, TIFF, SonyRAW, DPX, EXR, AVC, and HEVC.

Different metadata checks for parameters like resolution, bit depth, frame rate, WCG, and HDR transfer characteristics are also required for ensuring the quality of UHD packages. In the case of HDR, additional checks are available for parameters like MaxCLL, MaxFALL, and white point chromaticity. Due to bigger file sizes, there is also a potential issue of file corruption while transferring UHD content. Therefore, checking MD5 or SHA1 checksums may be important for certain workflows.

Owing to higher processing speeds, and increased hardware and storage requirements, multiple media organizations have shifted their UHD workflows to the cloud. For this reason, it’s imperative that a QC solution have both stable and optimized support for different cloud platforms like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. This will ensure seamless integration with various workflows.

As UHD becomes widespread, it is critical that providers deliver content in pristine quality to match viewers’ ever-increasing expectations. It is important that such content is free from different artifacts, has consistent quality, and meets UHD specifications. This can be achieved with advanced QC solutions tailored specifically for the UHD landscape. 

Such solutions, with comprehensive format support, metadata checks, and cloud integration capabilities, ensure that content retains its quality throughout its lifecycle, from capture to delivery — ensuring a premium viewing experience for audiences.

Over the years, the cost of good television equipment has bucked the general inflationary trend. For example, you can buy a camera and lens today that is far better than a camera and lens from 20 years ago, and today’s gear will cost just 50% or less of what the camera would have cost you in 2003.

When using that camera back in the day, you probably wanted to view its output on a waveform monitor to get the exposure right. Today’s camera is likely to have a waveform display capability built in that can be called up anytime to check the exposure. So today’s production equipment not only often costs less than ever, it does more than ever.

Of course, video networks are far more complex today, and this complexity means that test and measurement/quality control equipment today has to do much more at the network level than was needed for the simpler networks two decades ago. Much of today’s network-level test gear is evolving with new measurement and analysis techniques, as the video streaming environment gets more complicated and demanding over time.

“As delivery systems have become more complex, the demand for versatile and advanced digital monitoring and analysis solutions has increased,” said Anupama Anantharaman, vice president for product management at Interra Systems. “As a result, single-purpose monitoring gear has taken a backseat to more adaptable multifunctional tools. These tools leverage the power of new content creation and delivery standards—and computer networks—to provide comprehensive monitoring capabilities that cover various aspects of stream analysis and signal evaluation.”

The Impact of ST 2110
Signals that conform to the SMPTE ST 2110 standard have multiple components (video, audio and ancillary data) each transmitted as separate streams. An IP-based stream monitor can analyze, evaluate and route these streams and extract the metadata based on the user’s workflow, providing full flexibility.

“Software-based tools used on an IP network can efficiently extract and analyze this metadata, allowing broadcasters to monitor and verify critical information such as format, timing and identification,” Anantharaman said. “In the context of video, waveform monitors can sometimes fail to detect problems due to human error. However, by using IP-based probes, operators can automate the process of stream verification for today’s vast amount of content.”

Human error notwithstanding, standalone testing and QC devices still have value in many operations and workflows.

“Although the underlying infrastructure of how media is transported has changed, the overall tasks that need to be accomplished by operators and engineers are still fundamentally the same,” said Don Kianian, solutions marketing manager for Telestream. “The workload has increased and the need to manage these workflows efficiently is paramount. 

“Traditional, familiar waveform monitoring tools are still extremely useful to monitor and measure video and audio signals,” he added. “They may also be complemented by other software tools (such as quality control solutions) that can automatically QC content and alert users to media that does not meet spec.”

Telestream serves both OTT and broadcasters, and Kianian said the company is seeing a shift in how the two are evolving.

“We’re certainly seeing OTA adopting more and more OTT technologies and solutions [e.g., cloud workflows, remote collaboration, AI/ML] as part of a broadcaster/content provider’s overall strategy to reach broader audiences and go toe-to-toe with the increasing number of content providers in the market,” he said. “I expect this tug-of-war to continue well into this year and beyond.”

Upgrade to ATSC 3.0
Traditional broadcasters are in the early phases of a soft transition to the ATSC 3.0 standard, which is much more IP-friendly than the outgoing ATSC 1.0. What does this mean with respect to test and measurement equipment, and what lies ahead?

“As the transition to ATSC 3.0 heats up in the United States, we are seeing increased interest in test and measurement equipment,” said Ralph Bachofen, vice president of sales and marketing at Triveni Digital. “The transition to ATSC 3.0 is an opportunity for broadcasters to upgrade their T&M suite.

“With the latest T&M equipment, broadcasters can ensure outstanding-quality NextGen TV services, better understand the new standard, and simultaneously deliver ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 transmissions during the simulcast phase.”

Bachofen explained that single-purpose test gear is still in use, but it has an easily understood limiting factor.

“Single-purpose gear is still in use, especially in the RF realm,” he said. “The trend is to adopt multipurpose systems for service quality assurance and enterprise-wide monitoring. Single-purpose gear is much more expensive than having a solution from one vendor that can monitor multiple demarcation points at the same time.”

The sheer volume of production today means that more test, measurement and quality control gear than ever is needed. And yes, that means devices such as waveform monitors.

“The demands of operational television businesses are largely unchanged in that content has to meet in-house delivery standards as well as regulatory requirements,” said Prinyar Boon, product manager at Phabrix. “This remains the case regardless of how it’s been carried: file, streamed, broadcast, compressed, uncompressed, SDI, IP, MT2TS and so on.”

New Signal Types
Although production facilities need to measure and confirm the quality of signals, the relatively recent (and ongoing) industry transition from SDI to ST 2110 means new test gear is needed for the new signal types, according to Boon.

“To complicate the picture, many of these facilities will use both SDI- and IP-based systems,” Boon said. “We’ve been deeply involved for many years with the development of workflows for live HDR production, and measurement tools for ST 2110 systems using precision time protocol (PTP), while also retaining traditional SDI-based toolsets. 

“So yes, we’d agree very much that the era of standalone gear is over, and without doubt the long-term trend is to have operational and production tools evolve into on-prem and off-prem cloud-based systems.”

In the days when broadcast OTA was the only game in town, broadcasters could rely on knowing that the signal was properly received on a monitor TV in the studio. If the picture/sound were good on that TV, then all viewers were receiving a quality signal.

In the OTT world, it is much more difficult for a program provider to check what the user experience is—especially when dozens of network operators (Comcast, Verizon, Cox, etc.) actually take the signal from the program provider and deliver it to the customer. Ensuring a quality experience in this environment is complicated… but not impossible.

“Because of the user-centric technology in modern video streaming, measuring the quality of the video transmission sent out doesn’t necessarily offer insight into the quality of the video received by the customer,” said Mathieu Planche, CEO of Witbe. “Furthermore, true video service performance is now defined by many more elements than just the image quality alone. User-centric video services need to be tested with user-centric monitoring technology.”

Location, Location, Location
In other words, sensors from the test system must be placed as close to the user as possible to make sure the network delivers the expected quality to the customer.

“Checking that a FAST channel is available on Comcast NOW TV cannot be verified through simple packet loss,” Planche said. “It involves complex interactions between backend systems, cloud-to-cloud integration, device operating systems, content providers, ad providers and various DRM stacks. OTT providers need user-centric monitoring technology to understand the true quality delivered to their end-users.”

This is where artificial intelligence (AI) could play an important role in monitoring networks and responding to failures faster than a human can react. In the meantime, change and growth is constant in the program delivery process.

“As the weight shifts further to online content and live streaming, having a solid grip on the entire chain becomes more important,” said Rajesh Patel, vice president for sales & solutions EMEA at Mediaproxy. “With an ever-increasing scale of sources, using software-based tools and APIs to optimize monitoring workflows will help reduce overall cost and enhance quality-of-service. 

“Teaming up with partners with solutions that straddle multiple disciplines is something to look at as old equipment becomes obsolete,” he continued. “This also includes shifting the thinking towards what the cloud can offer to handle specific pressure points.”

Patel sees that there is still a need for hardware-specific test equipment, even as change is coming.

“Despite the ever-growing availability of software-based tools, traditional hardware-based monitoring equipment is certainly still relevant in today’s monitoring chain,” he said. “This is especially still true for ST 2022-2 as well as for the emerging SDI replacement, ST 2110.” 

LAS VEGAS—Triveni Digital, the ATSC 3.0 Security Authority (A3SA), and Pearl TV today announced that Triveni's StreamScope XM Analyzer and Monitor are the industry's first test and measurement products to support NextGen TV decryption protocols.

Using the new decryption functionality on StreamScope XM, broadcasters can transmit encrypted content in the ATSC 3.0 environment to better understand who their subscribers are and monetize NextGen TV services, while ensuring outstanding content integrity, Triveni said. The effort is part of Pearl's FastTrack to NextGen TV program, to accelerate and streamline the path for adoption of NextGen TV technology. In addition, Triveni Digital and the A3SA security authority have agreed to a multi-year deal to enable the use of Triveni Digital's GuideBuilder XM broadcast chain and StreamScope XM products in their testing and certification services.

"Encryption is a key requirement for delivering ATSC 3.0 services," said Mark Simpson, president and CEO at Triveni Digital. "After a long collaboration with the A3SA security authority and under Pearl's FastTrack umbrella, we are excited to bring this important capability to the broadcast television market. Triveni Digital is a leader in the development and deployment of NextGen TV technology, and adding broadcast decryption to our industry-leading StreamScope XM product line will help to accelerate the monetization of ATSC 3.0 services. We appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with Pearl TV to develop leading-edge NextGen TV technology for broadcasters."

Triveni Digital's StreamScope XM offers a comprehensive suite of products for monitoring, analysis, and troubleshooting complex DTV content, now with broadcast decryption and continuous transport stream recording capabilities available. Triveni's GuideBuilder XM and Broadcast Gateway broadcast chain products are powering many NextGen TV deployments in the U.S. and internationally. Pearl has helped to create the security authority to develop protocols for securing ATSC 3.0 broadcast services leveraging the same tools that web-based content services use (i.e., IP-based encryption protocols, device certificates, and rights management technology) in conformance with the ATSC Security Standard for NextGen TV.

"As NextGen TV deployments grow in the U.S., protecting high-value television content is essential," said Anne Schelle, managing director of Pearl TV. "We're excited to join forces with Triveni Digital and help to ensure that ATSC 3.0 content, services, and information is well protected and secure."

Triveni Digital is demonstrating its StreamScope XM Analyzer and Monitor at the 2023 NAB Show, April 16-19 in Las Vegas at booth W3251 in the West Hall of the LVCC.

FORT LEE, N.J.—Leader Instruments Corporation has announced that it will demonstrate Leader and Phabrix products during the April 2023 NAB Show in a combined product display. 

The products on display at Central Hall booth C4920 in the Las Vegas Convention Center will focus on simultaneous and hybrid approaches to SDI and IP test and measurement. These technologies are designed to offer the versatility broadcasters need as they transit from SDI to IP, HD to UHD, SDR to HDR, onsite and cloud-connected virtual remote production, and volumetric production, the company said. 

Leader offers a complete IP solution ranging from the LT4610 and LT4611 PTP generators plus the award-winning ZEN Series LV5600 true hybrid IP/SDI waveform monitor and its LV7600 equivalent rasterizer to the LVB440 IP traffic analyzer. The LV5600 provides the same monitoring and measurement resources irrespective of whether the video signal is IP or SDI. That includes the ability to display and compare IP and SDI video sources simultaneously. They also give engineering staff the tools they need to monitor and analyze IP network activity, the company reported. 

The company explained that a key strength of many Leader and Phabrix products is their ability to operate on location under battery power as well as 110V/240V AC mains. The Leader LV5350 and LV5300A battery-operable waveform monitors will be demonstrated alongside the PHABRIX Sx TAG, QxL and QxP.

Leader's LV5600 is a mains-powered SDI/IP waveform monitor in a half-rack width 3U desktop chassis with a touchscreen front panel display. It provides all the facilities needed to monitor UHD/HD/SD SDI as well as video-over-IP signals seamlessly in a hybrid operating environment. Engineering-related features include test pattern generation, eye pattern display, closed-caption monitoring, CIE color chart, HDR measurement, focus assist, adjustable screen layout, tally interface, 4K/UHD operation, 25 gigabit/s IP input and 12G-SDI interfaces. SMPTE 2022-6, 2022-7 and 2110 protocols are all supported. The LV5600 also incorporates Leader's intuitive CINEZONE real-time false color exposure and CINELITE (built-in light meter) tools which are familiar to many content production staff.

During the show, Phabrix has also announced that it will be showcasing the Phabrix QxP.

The Phabrix QxP inherits the toolset and flexible architecture of the QxL rasterizer but in a 3U form factor with an integral high-contrast 1920 x 1200 7-inch multi-touch LCD screen and a V-Mount or G-Mount battery plate. It is ideal for workflows involving portable HD, UHD, SDR, HDR, SDI and IP, as well as conventional and remote productions. For real-time IP production, the QxP provides support for generation and analysis of HD/3G/UHD/EUHD 2110 payloads on generic SFP28/25GbE interfaces. The flexible architecture of the QxP offers in-field, engineering grade data view and ANC packet inspection tools together with optional upgrades for SDI-UHD/4K, 2110-UHD/4K 48-60p RGB (EUHD), PCAP, Dolby E decode, HDR, and AV test signal generation. A factory-fitted hardware option provides RTE™ 'Real-Time Eye' and jitter SDI analysis with the further option of a highly advanced SDI-STRESS toolset, the company said. 

THATCHAM, U.K.—Test and measurement specialist PHABRIX will feature the new QxP next-gen waveform monitor at the 2023 NAB Show, April 15-19, in Las Vegas.

With a flexible architecture, the QxP offers an integral 3U multi-touch LCD screen with V-Mount or G-mount battery plates for portability, the company said.

Designed for HD, UHD, SDR, HDR, SDI and IP workflows—whether remote or conventional, the unit combines waveform monitoring, generation and analysis toolsets to meet the requirements of hybrid production environments, it said.

The QxP offers a high-resolution image processing pipeline with support for deep color sources up to 12-bits, delivering all of the fine detail needed for camera shading or image grading.

Users can access a choice of overlay, stacked and parade display modes with the option of multi-colored, highlighted, green or monochrome traces. Nits scales and operation user-controlled nits markers are provided for SDR, HLG, PQ, S-Log3 and SR-live HDR formats. Rec 709 and Rec 2020 colorimetry is supported over the wide-range of YCbCr:422, RGB:444, SDI and SMPTE ST 2110 SD/HD/2K/UHD/4K/EUHD formats, it said.

For real-time IP production, the QxP provides support for generation and analysis of HD/3G/UHD/EUHD ST 2110 payloads on generic SFP28/25GbE interfaces. The unit's flexible architecture offers in-field engineering-grade data view and ANC packet inspection tools together with optional upgrades for SDI-UHD/4K, ST 2110-UHD/4K 48-60p RGB (EUHD), PCAP, Dolby E Decode, HDR and AV test signal generation. A factory-fitted hardware option provides RTE, Real Time Eye, and jitter SDI analysis with the option of a highly advanced SDI-STRESS toolset, the company said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

See PHABRIX in 2023 NAB booth C4920.

SYDNEY, Australia—NPC Media (NPCM) is a joint venture between two of Australia's largest commercial broadcasters, Seven Network (SWM) and Nine Network (NEC). From purpose-built operational facilities in Sydney, we distribute the digital terrestrial and OTT channels of both Seven and Nine, plus those of Southern Cross Austereo in regional Australia.

With so many channels to play out, we knew that monitoring and compliance logging was essential for the smooth running of NPCM. To do this effectively we selected technology from Australian developer Mediaproxy, including their LogServer logger-monitor system, which also provides multichannel recording and review capabilities, and the Monwall multiviewer. These are used for emission and off-air monitoring in a master control room designed to carry out a new style of inspecting output in the era of terrestrial-OTT hybrid broadcasting.

FINDING A NEW APPROACH

The design of the playout monitoring setup at NPCM had to encompass all metro, regional and local broadcast services, plus all OTT and streaming for Seven and Nine. Because of this we didn’t want to use the traditional techniques of operators sitting and looking at many monitors, partly because of subtle issues being lost in the multitude of small pictures (PIPS), and also because this method consumes large amounts of real estate.

The big step forward from previous traditional techniques used in MCRs is exception-based monitoring. This is based on interactive multiviewers, which allow operators in the control center to look at different parts of the distribution chain and troubleshoot using integrated software tools. Reacting quickly to complex problems is something only a human can do. To enable our staff to do this we give them a much simpler way of monitoring, without having to continually focus on large numbers of individual pictures.

If you see all green boxes in the display, that means everything is OK. Issues are highlighted in red and these feeds can be monitored as a picture and audio feed and investigated. We have worked closely with Mediaproxy to streamline the traditional MCR workflow. Monwall is now the main means of monitoring emission so instead of passively watching feeds on traditional multiviewers streaming a composite of channels to a remote display and using under-monitor tools to further analyze any incidents, operators can interact with the multiviewer itself and examine any problems in situ.

MORE EFFICIENT MONITORING

Everything runs on standard COTS equipment, with the capability for multiple SMPTE ST 2022-6 streams on one server. To further enhance the workflow and not involve reconfiguring when sources are switched to “protect,” input sources are controlled via the Ember+ protocol to set up virtual source end-points that can react dynamically to sources being played-out by the automation system. 

Using COTS hardware gives us a route to the cloud for high-end broadcasting; we're not there yet in terms of full public cloud playout due to bandwidths and latency, but we are effectively using our own private cloud for services.

As a result of such high levels of automation and effective fault detection, the main MCR at NPCM can be run with fewer operators managing more than 200 channels. We are testing other encoding formats—including HEVC—and we have an infrastructure that allows us to economically adopt new formats and technologies. 

We're still in the early days of IP network environments but with dark fiber we can increase bandwidths and launch digital services as necessary. With the infrastructure we have the impact is reduced and we know that we can expand our monitoring capability to meet demand. l

For more information visit www.mediaproxy.com.

GRASS VALLEY, Calif.—Part of AJA Video Systems’ success over the years can be attributed to our strong engineering ethic and attention to detail. We like to work closely with our customers to solve challenges that naturally occur in complex video environments. For us, PHABRIX Qx and QxL test and measurement equipment is a vital part of that process and we currently run 11 of their devices—seven in engineering and four for automated testing in manufacturing.

We probably work with 300-400 different video signal formats, a number that continues to grow as our customers innovate their workflows. To this end, having access to the broad range of signals that PHABRIX covers is extremely useful.

TESTING FOR SUCCESS

When I joined AJA seven years ago, one of the first things that stood out was the sheer amount of testing gear within the company. We’re a company that was founded—and is still run—by an engineer, and he appreciates allocating resources to the equipment budget for test gear. That's critical for development engineering to be successful.

PHABRIX is part of our testing kit and our involvement with PHABRIX Qx came about around 2018, when we also started to focus on 12G-SDI.

Although IP momentum is steadily building, 12G-SDI is popular among many in the broadcast industry, as it solves some of the most pressing challenges they face today. PHABRIX Qx has proven an enabler in validating and testing our complete line of 12G-SDI products, helping us to ensure they’re field-ready

We originally selected the Qx for its comprehensive toolset and 12G-SDI coverage—an offering considered to be well ahead of its competitors at the time. It has been an integral part of our setup ever since, and each department uses the technology in a unique way.

In engineering, it may be used for specific validation tests or to troubleshoot, while manufacturing testing uses it in a more automated way by writing a test script to drive the Qx to perform repetitive testing.

We largely use the Qx’s single link 12G-SDI and quad-link 3G-SDI interfaces. Beyond that, we’ve come to rely on the responsiveness of the PHABRIX team to help sort out any challenges we encounter. Given the scope of our products and the markets we serve—from television broadcasters to Hollywood content producers, ProAV, healthcare, and beyond—you can imagine those challenges are rather wide-ranging.

SUPPORTING MANY SIGNALS

If we were just developing products for television, we'd primarily test YCbCr 10-bit 50/59 fps signals, but since our products end up in so many different applications, we need to support a broad range of signals, raster sizes, frame rates, and color spaces. The Qx has been very helpful in those circumstances.

And while 12G-SDI has been a critical part of our success in recent years, we have also developed a number of well-regarded products in the evolving IP space. As a result, the last unit that we purchased from PHABRIX was an IP-enabled QxL.

The QxL is assisting us on the IP pathway, but the demand for 12G-SDI remains strong, and we will continue to grow our product portfolio to align with industry needs. In this respect, I’m sure we’re not too far off from another QxL investment. 

For more information visit www.phabrix.com.  

PHOENIX—The Phoenix Model Market Station, a collaboration of the Pearl Group’s members, several local stations in Phoenix, and broadcast networks, is making great progress in the development and testing of ATSC 3.0 with the help and participation of many in the industry.

The focus of the Model Station is on testing new business models and developing end-to-end systems as well as workflows required for broadcasters to take full advantage of the new ATSC 3.0’s added capabilities. The Model Station also provides an “open test bed” where ecosystem providers can work together in a practical setting to ensure their systems interoperate, which is a key aspect of preparing for commercialization of ATSC 3.0 in the USA.

MORE THAN JUST AN ANALYZER

Given the Project’s goals and the work process that involves so many participants as well as early ATSC 3.0 equipment, it was critical that we have robust test tools that support the ATSC 3.0 standard. To do this, we purchased the portable version of Triveni Digital’s StreamScope XM MT ATSC 3.0 stream analyzer. More than a comprehensive ATSC 3.0 analyzer, the system supports analysis and validation across the wide range of ATSC 3.0 standards, from the RF layers to the upper-level data structures, in a visual and intuitive way.

The XM MT supports ROUTE/MMTP decoding, advanced RF measurement, multiple PLPs, video rendering, intuitive data structure analysis and visualization features. The product can support multiple simultaneous inputs, and is designed to support the analysis needed at key system demarcation points in the transmission infrastructure. Those include ROUTE/MMTP, STLTP, and RF. While the ATSC 3.0 standard evolves and matures, Triveni Digital will provide future feature updates, including a rules-based monitoring capability.

We have used the StreamScope XM MT throughout the project, and it’s been instrumental in resolving key issues. After the initial broadcast chain was set up, it helped us debug downstream STLTP issues, for example. Since XM MT functions as an ATSC 3.0 receiver, when initial receivers were not available, the product helped us verify the service. At our recent plugfest and ATSC 3.0 technology conference, the XM MT helped validate pairwise integrations and track down any potential issues. A key aspect of the product is its support for work group analysis, with the full user interface available for multiple simultaneous remote users.

LAPTOP VERSION COMING SOON

At this stage of industry development, a robust, reliable and extensible analyzer is critical. There will be a continuing need for this technology throughout the life span of ATSC 3.0. While we purchased this product in a portable form, it is also available in rack mount packaging, and we understand Triveni Digital plans to make laptop versions available in the future. StreamScope XM MT is a featured analyzer that fulfills an essential role in getting and keeping ATSC 3.0 infrastructures running. Triveni Digital has indicated that a less-featured product, built on their comprehensive analysis engine, is also being developed.

We have found that Stream- Scope XM MT’s intuitive user interface, and comprehensive feature set enables users to quickly detect, isolate, and resolve issues. While inevitably different from the user interface in Triveni Digital’s StreamScope MT MPEG stream analyzer for ATSC 1.0, we have been happy to see that Triveni Digital has designed a user interface that makes a complex standard approachable. We also believe it would also be an excellent learning vehicle for engineers who need to get a hands-on and deep understanding of the ATSC 3.0 system and technology.

Dave Folsom is a consultant to the Pearl TV Group and the former CTO for Raycom Media. He can be reached atdave.folsom@pearltv.com.

For more information, visitwww.trivenidigital.comor call 609-936-3411.

For comprehensive coverage on ATSC 3.0, visit TV Technology's ATSC3 silo.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Rapid acceptance of IP video is driving many changes to traditional test and measurement equipment. There will always be the need for familiar quality control devices like waveform monitors and vectorscopes, but studios and content creators today also need the ability to examine the data they generate — and that data is increasingly distributed at blindingly fast speeds.

Couple that with the LCD/LED and microprocessor revolutions, and a lot of today’s test gear looks nothing like what was used 20 or 30 years ago. As dedicated video distribution facilities (think SDI) are replaced by IP networks, test gear manufacturers are sprinting to keep up with the new measurement realities — often coming up with innovations in the size, capabilities and performance of the latest test and measurement products.

“The test requirements for SDI systems are relatively well known and documented,” said Ian Valentine, business director for the video product line for Beaverton, Ore.-based Tektronix. “However, as the industry transitions to IP-based technologies, a whole series of new measurements is required to understand what is happening on the network during the transmission of packets containing video, audio and metadata. This includes packet loss, packet jitter, RTP sequence errors, and packet timestamp delay factors to mention a few.”

IP VIDEO TRANSPORT STANDARD

The recently developed SMPTE 2110 standard for IP transmission of professional video, audio and data is a big reason why there is a need for IP test gear in a television environment.

“There are a whole series of measurements around the timing of video, audio and data against PTP [precision time protocol] to keep the network synchronized,” Valentine said. “Timing is particularly important when dealing with the SMPTE 2110 standard where the video, audio and data essence is all sent in separate streams. Being able to test the integrity of the separate data paths is essential to ensuring that transmission reliability is maintained.”

With 12G-SDI and the latest high-speed Ethernet networks, even the most mundane basics have to be reconsidered. Take, for example, the BNC connector.

“As the industry transitions to IP-based technologies, a whole series of new measurements is required.” —Ian Valentine, Tektronix

“The BNC connector that the industry has used for more than 50 years is a spring-loaded bayonet — and using the real-time eye capabilities of the Phabrix Qx, you can see that this technology is right on the limit simply by touching and waggling the BNC connector and cable,” said Prinyar Boon, product manager for U.K.-based Phabrix. “Around 10mV signal amplitude variation is typically observed per connection. Return loss requires serious consideration and the extremely high rise and fall times specified can result in significant eye degradation with small changes in geometry. The good news is that correctly designed interfaces are very robust and reliable, and will operate at all SDI rates from SD through to 12G.”

‘DEVIL IS IN THE DETAIL’

BNC connectors are just the tip of the iceberg.

“At a very high level, going from 3G-SDI to 12G-SDI is the same, only faster — but the devil is in the detail,” Boon said. “However, the bandwidth change from 3 GHz to 12 GHz, or more typically 1.5 GHz to 12 GHz, means that 12G-SDI is much harder to implement. Components, printed circuit board material, stack buildup and physical layout all have to be remodeled, reselected and re-optimized. Even the bond wiring within an IC [integrated circuit] now has a significant impact on performance, and the latest generation of ICs are looking to use flip-chip technology to overcome this.”

Once the signal leaves the broadcaster’s facility and heads toward the viewer, IP distribution networks outside the studio are different in many ways from those inside.

“The main idea is to take a holistic view to analyzing the end-to-end content delivery chain, looking at the whole picture to determine the ‘cause-and-effect’ of any issues rather than simply isolated parameters here or there,” said Ted Korte, chief operating officer for Melbourne, Fla.-based Qligent. “Each method of content distribution — from ATSC 3.0 broadcasts to OTT delivery — has its own vital metrics, but it’s important to evaluate everything ranging from low-level quality-of-service metrics [which are very signal-specific] to humanly-perceivable QoE metrics.”

One popular way of television distribution has long been the cable TV industry, which has adopted hybrid-fiber/coax technology to deliver both traditional cable TV channels and broadband service. The standard for interleaving cable TV and bidirectional data on the same network is called DOCSIS (data-over-cable service interface specification), which is now up to DOCSIS 3.1 Full-Duplex.

[Read: NAB Show Product Review — Signal Processing & Analysis]

With cable networks supporting bandwidth from 0 Hz to 1.2 GHz, it is a tough job to test and validate their performance. Rohde & Schwarz is one company that has a test set that can be used to test and maintain performance on DOCSIS cable networks, going up to 1.8 GHz for downstream signals to the home.

WHAT’S IN THE FUTURE?

There is a lot going on with technology in the television industry, so what looks to be one of the trends for test and measurement gear in the next couple of years?

“From [our] perspective, ATSC 3.0 will gain momentum over that timeframe,” said Ralph Bachofen, vice president for sales and marketing at Princeton, N.J.-based Triveni Digital. “This, of course, will include HDR and other advanced technologies and protocols as part of the migration. This makes it critical using a flexible test and measurement solution that can adapt based on market changes and advanced applications.”

On the production side, it’s clear that 4K is the target standard for production and its associated test devices.

“We see a demand for UHD/4K 3G- and 12G-SDI based systems,” Boon said. “With the 2018 Winter Olympics, Royal Wedding and 2018 World Cup all being shot and now distributed live in UHD HDR, there is clear proof that the technology is viable. Simultaneously shooting live productions in both conventional standard dynamic range [ITU-R BT.709] and HDR [ITU-R BT.2100] with wide color gamut poses its own set of challenges. This is particularly true with a mix of SDR/709 and HDR/2100 sources, be they cameras, replay systems or graphics devices.”

Every part of the production chain will need to be monitored to maintain the pristine quality to which viewers have become accustomed.

“Successful production of HDR/WCG content requires the right tools and new measurement techniques,” Valentine said. “Camera setup, for example, is more crucial than in the past given the risk of creating issues (e.g., noise in dark areas) that can’t be fixed in post-production. New techniques are also required to monitor the various camera log formats and conversion to PQ (perceptual quantizer) or HLG (hybrid-log gamma). HDR/WCG content production is the future.”

This is just a quick look at the corner of the industry dedicated to test and measurement, but it demonstrates how new standards bring new methods to examine and maintain the quality of those standards.

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Quality video and audio happens accidentally without test and measurement equipment. With the right T&M gear, quality can be repeated until the viewing public takes that level of quality for granted.

Good engineers never take quality for granted, however. That’s why every year in April, manufacturers roll out the latest features in T&M gear that make signals easier to test and quality more repeatable than ever. And as pressure builds for a possible rollout of ATSC 3.0, test gear increasingly addresses the needs of that new standard.

IPTV AND TRANSPORT STREAM
AXON DIGITAL will showcase its Smart 90-series of transport stream monitoring and analysis solutions, which provide comprehensive information on signal status, enabling users to quickly identify problems, their cause and remedy.

DEKTEC will highlight StreamXpert, a transport stream monitoring and analysis system that is available in both full and “lite” versions. Either one provides real-time analysis, monitoring and recording of transport streams, with an easy-to-use interface

INTERRA SYSTEMS will showcase hybrid capabilities for its Baton QC solution. With a hybrid QC solution, operators can detect certain issues, such as lip sync, which automated QC solutions alone cannot detect.

Nevion Virtuoso TNS4200 media monitoring probe

NEVION will show its Virtuoso TNS4200 media monitoring probe, which simplifies error tracking and helps resolve issues faster to ensure higher uptimes. The unit monitors streams on both IP/Ethernet and DVB-ASI, and can continuously monitor a large number of streams.

QLIGENT will spotlight its Vision-ATSC-3, an end-to-end ATSC 3.0 signal path analysis system that correlates and analyzes multilayer data from seven points along the signal path from broadcast gateway input sources to the antenna RF output.

SENCORE will feature its CMA 1820 compressed media analyzer that allows designers, engineers, system integrators and network operators to quickly verify standards compliance, identify media interoperability issues and troubleshoot transmission issues.

TORQUE VIDEO SYSTEMS will highlight its DVMon XS, a palm-sized test tool for digital TV networks. Built on the same technology as the DVMon, the DVMon XS troubleshoots video transport stream issues quickly.

Triveni Digital StreamScope XM MT advanced monitoring and analysis system

TRIVENI DIGITAL will demonstrate its StreamScope XM MT advanced monitoring and analysis system, with support for ATSC 3.0 candidate standards, including ROUTE and MMTP encoding options. The company will also introduce a series of ATSC 3.0 starter kits designed to bring broadcasters up to speed with the new broadcast television standard. The starter kits encompass everything from file-based monitoring to live encoding and over-the-air transmission, leveraging Triveni’s GuideBuilder XM signaling and announcement generator and StreamScope XM MT.

VOLICON will be at the NAB Show with its Observer line of monitoring products, which can provide loudness and content monitoring. The system will maintain logs to provide proof of performance and QoS.

Blackmagic Design SmartScope Duo 4K

VIDEO & AUDIO
BLACKMAGIC DESIGN will highlight its SmartScope Duo 4K, a rackmount package of two 7-inch video displays that also provide waveform, vectorscope, RGB parade, YUV parade, histogram and audio phase monitoring with audio level indicators.

HENRY ENGINEERING will demonstrate its Systems Alert Monitor (SAM), which monitors the systems of a typical broadcast facility and provides visual, audible and e-mail indication if anything goes wrong or needs attention. When a fault is detected, SAM generates an alert text message that is displayed on a video monitor.

LEADER INSTRUMENTS will highlight new HDR features for its LV5490 4K waveform monitor and LV7390 4K upgradeable rasterizer.

MARSHALL ELECTRONICS will feature its V-SG4K-HDI 4K, a compact and portable digital test signal generator targeted at video engineers, system integrators/installers, video shooters and product designers. The unit can generate many combinations of displays and frame rates in the digital spectrum along with an array of audio signals.

OMNITEK will roll out its new Ultra XR, a UHD video waveform rasterizer that addresses the demanding requirements of extended resolution production QC and 4K post production grading.

PHABRIX will introduce a range of added features to its portable Qx test set, including waveform monitor, vectorscope, additional standards support, reference timing, pathological patterns (including 6G/12G), and an enhanced Dataview window plus audio monitoring with channel select for listening.

Tektronix WVM8200 4K HDR waveform monitor

TEKTRONIX will feature its WFM8200 4K HDR waveform monitor targeted at highend 4K production. The WFM8000 has graticules calibrated to 18 percent gray and 90 percent reflective white, as well as support for both SMPTE ST 2084 standard and Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) as per the ARIB ST B-67 standard.

TELESTREAM will show off its latest version of Vidchecker, a Windows software application that examines video and audio, eliminating the need to manually check conformance. It can then be used to correct levels.

VIDEO CLARITY will highlight its RTM quality monitoring solution, an automated, Quality-of-Experience monitor that measures the quality between two points. It does this after the decoder (STB) and measures the video quality, audio quality, audio or video delay, audio program loudness and VANC data accuracy.

IMAGINE COMMUNICATIONS will feature the Videotek TVM9150PKG multiformat video waveform monitor and audio signal analyzer. With its color LCD display, the TVM9150PKG can display and evaluate up to four input sources, in up to four formats, simultaneously.

RF
AVATEQ will feature its AVQ1020-ActiveCore RF layer monitoring receiver and signal analyzer that provides 24/7 transmitter signal quality monitoring.

ELECTRONICS RESEARCH INC. (ERI) will demonstrate its VDM Monitoring System, a multi-channel data acquisition system that displays, monitors, records and communicates vital information regarding broadcast system performance characteristics.

HITACHI-COMARK will feature its QoS-1000 3.0 RF layer monitoring receiver, a Quality-of-Service tool for transmitter RF signals. The small 1RU chassis and web-based GUI provides near real-time metrics and ATSC 3.0 capability is available via simple upgrade.

ROHDE & SCHWARZ will highlight its ETC compact TV analyzer, which offers a set of measurement functions for digital TV transmitter testing.

BEAVERTON, ORE.—Tektronix’s Aurora automated file-based quality control (QC) system has received a new set of features to boost its test and monitoring capabilities. Among the enhancements to the system are a Perceptual Video Quality measurement tool, support on the Amazon Web Services cloud, and support for AS-10 PAD Delivery Specification.

Aurora 6.1

The new PVQ technology that has been incorporated into the Aurora system comes from Tektronix’s Sentry family of video network monitors. Aurora can now analyze video content using a proprietary algorithm for detecting video compression artifacts that affect viewers’ experience. It also uses a format akin to a Mean Opinion Score for graphically plotting video quality.

With the Aurora system now being supported on the Amazon cloud, the system can offer scalable automated analysis of file-based video content ingested from different sources, encoded at different bitrates and formats, and using different compression standards for SD/HD, VOD or IPTV delivery. Aurora on Amazon cloud performs checks quality compliance, playability of audio and video at ingest, after encoding, after transcoding and before playout. Files are processed of AWS S3 storage and optimizes EC2 compute instance resources usage on the AWS Cloud.

Now offering support for AS-10 PAD, Aurora can test content delivered to French broadcasters for compliance. With AS-10 PAD support, as well as UK-DPP, Tektronix provides post-production professionals a way to test content the ensure delivery specifications of regions are met.

Tektronix will showcase the upgrades to its Aurora system during IBC 2016 in Amsterdam at stand 10.D41.

COLUMBIA, MD.—CableLabs subsidiary Kyrio recently acquires a TS8991 over-the-air performance test system from Rohde & Schwarz to test wireless devices for its customer base. With the new testing platform, Kyrio is able to measure transmit power and receiver sensitivity performance metrics like EIRP, TRP, EIS, TRS/TIS, co-existence, and intermediate channel sensitivities.

The ability to test OTA signals is important for standards organizations and network providers like Kyrio to predict real-world performance of a mobile wireless service, per R&S’ press release.

R&S is a provider of test and measurement, broadcast and media technology. It is headquartered in Munich, with regional offices in the U.S.

With the 2016 NAB Show behind us, questions about the show’s trends have died down. However, looking at the announced and delivered products for the test & measurement category, it’s clear where the industry is going: 4K, HEVC, ATSC 3.0 and increasing amounts of IPTV.

IPTV AND TRANSPORT STREAM
Axon featured its line of transport stream analyzers that includes the top-of-the-line Smart DVB 90-series. The Smart 90-series provides monitoring, analysis and display of transport stream integrity, and covers a range of features such as assessing the stream’s signaling parameters and EPG content.

Bridge Technologies highlighted its Timeline Data Analysis that stores all data collected through the monitoring system (and other sources if connected) for up to two years of operation, and allows engineers to play back through the historical data at any time in a multitrack timeline display similar to an NLE system.

DekTec has updated its StreamXpert 2.0 HEVC decoder and transport stream analysis system, which also supports analysis of MPEG-2 and AVC video. Available in a “Lite” version that can be easily upgraded to the full version, StreamXpert 2.0 provides real-time analysis, monitoring and recording of transport streams.

Interra showed its Orion-OTT content monitor that checks both VOD and live content for compliance inconsistencies, download errors, content quality and ABR package integrity. The system also monitors audio for CALM, ITU and EBU compliance.

MediaProxy updated its LogServer suite of logging and transport stream analysis products to include new advanced data monitoring panels in the Monwall IP multiviewer to facilitate real-time analysis and monitoring; advanced OTT monitoring at scale for HLS, SmoothStreaming and DASH sources/profiles; support for 4K/HEVC sources; and a new native mobile app for real-time broadcast stream monitoring supported on iOS/Windows Mobile and Android devices.

Nevion CP4400 transport stream processorNevion launched its CP4400 transport stream processor, which can check both transmitter feeds and regional DTT multiplexed signals. The CP4400 also supports deterministic re-multiplexing technology that can feed transmitters in single frequency networks using a pre-existing direct-to-home satellite system as a feed.

Qligent demonstrated its Vision cloud monitoring platform that provides detailed visibility into channel-sharing configurations, as well as bandwidth-challenged VHF and UHF channel scenarios. Vision lets broadcasters monitor, analyze and troubleshoot signal health and program quality throughout each step of the air chain.

Sencore showed its AG 9000 UHD HEVC monitoring decoder, which provides HEVC 4K decoding for monitoring real-time linear distribution video feeds. The AG 9000 card can be used in any Ross openGear frame, with up to 20 channels deployed in 2RU.

Tektronix SentryABRTektronix unveiled end-to-end adaptive bit-rate monitoring decryption and decode functionality for its Sentry ABR video quality monitoring platform. Sentry ABR can now view this encrypted digital rights management content to evaluate the actual viewing experience. The company also debuted its Prism hybrid SDI/IP media analysis platform, which diagnoses and correlates SDI and IP signal types and quickly identifies the root cause of the error, whether it is in the IP layer or in the content layer. In addition, Tektronix demo-ed its SPG8000A master sync and PTP grandmaster clock generator, with optional, field upgradeable PTP (IEEE 1588) support for both traditional SDI-based and IP-based media infrastructures. Lastly, Tek highlighted the latest extension to its MTS4000 and MTS4SAV3 test platforms to include comprehensive HEVC analysis tools and an enhanced closed caption analyzer for ensuring FCC compliance.

Torque Video showed its DVMon ASI MPEG transport stream monitor that has four ASI inputs in a 1RU chassis. The unit continually compares transport stream parameters and service attributes with what is actually being transmitted, flagging errors as they occur.

Triveni Digital showed off its new GuideBuilder XM ATSC 3.0 signaling and announcement generator, which creates the required on-air guide for ATSC broadcasting. The ATSC 3.0 version includes many new features, including allowing short video clips linked from the on-screen guide that can be used for previews and teasers.

Vidcheck debuted Vidchecker v7.0, which provides testing of video, audio and container parameters on four files simultaneously. Videchecker 7.0 can automatically correct typical errors, and provides confidence monitoring at the playout stage.

Volicon demonstrated how its Observer OTT ingests content from each point in the OTT pipeline to provide a look at how consumers experience streamed content and to speed isolation and resolution of quality issues for content viewed on various devices. Observer OTT-Cloud and OTT-Device are products for logging and monitoring streaming content to computers and mobile devices.

Nora Bradford (L) listens to Tony Dobrousky of DSC explain the company’s Screen Align display calibration tool.VIDEO
Cobalt Digital debuted the +T-Slate “trouble slate” feature as a standard part of its openGear 9960-TG2-REF1 dual-channel 3GSDI test generator and corresponding Blue Box Group BBG-1060 units. +T-Slate allows users to upload multiple custom full-screen graphics to use as full-raster output signals.

DSC Labs showed its interesting Screen Align display calibration tool that lets you precisely match your monitor to calibrated colors. Important for accurate color grading, Screen Align has a simple optical/ mechanical system to facilitate the match.

Robert Levato (L) of Leader explains a point on the company’s LV 5490 4K/HDR waveform monitor to Aaron Spense of Panedia in Australia.Leader Instruments rolled out the CineLite II test suite for a variety of the company’s test instruments, one of which was the new LV 5480. Using CineLite II, a 4K video image can be analyzed down to individual pixels for precise level and lighting adjustments. CineLite comes standard on Leader’s new LV 5480 SD/HD/3G SDI 4K-upgradeable multi-format waveform monitor it introduced at the show. Based on the LV 5490, the LV 5480 feature set includes waveform, vector and picture monitoring, an ancillary data viewer, data dump and four-channel timing display.

Omnitek rolled out the Ultra XR Advanced 4K/UHD waveform analyzer that targets colorists, post-production editors and other content creators preparing 4K/UHD material. The unit has a full-resolution monitor output, 4K waveform display, vectorscope, CIE color chart, pixel data display, audio PPMs, ANC packet analysis tools and interlink video timing analysis.

Phabrix introduced the Qx UHDTV1/4K and UHDTV2/8K generator/analyzers for monitoring and compliance of 4K and 8K video. Qx is available in two versions: one with RTE technology for physical layer analysis, and one without.

Video Clarity RTM 4KVideo Clarity released its RTM 4K, a 4Kcapable version of the company’s RTM real-time audio and video monitoring product. RTM 4K can input 4K video sources and compare them with encoded/decoded 4K video to test for video quality, audio quality, lip sync and loudness, and correlate results to accepted scales of human perception.

Imagine Communications featured the Videotek CMN-91-3GB multiformat signal analyzer with integral LCD, which tests signal quality across all DTV formats up to 3 Gbps and provides waveform, vector, gamut, timing and full-screen picture display.

RF
Narda showed its range of RF test instruments, including the SRM-3006 selective radiation meter that performs narrowband analysis of electromagnetic fields. The SRM-3006 can be used to verify compliance with the FCC’s “five-percent rule” that determines interference between two RF signals.

Rohde & Schwarz showcased a test setup for ATSC 3.0, with the BTC broadcast test center and the FSV signal and spectrum analyzer. The ATSC 3.0 signal generated by the BTC was demodulated by the spectrum analyzer and displayed live. As a reference signal generator, the BTC offers analysis functions and automated tests for audio, video and multimedia applications.

Promax spotlighted the HD Ranger 2 signal analyzer with its new seven-inch touchscreen for more intuitive operation. The HD Ranger 2 features a spectrum analyzer, constellation display, QAM monitoring, satellite signal analysis and transport stream monitoring.

The Tektronix MTS4EAV7 HEVC/AVC Video and Compressed Audio Analyzer PC-based software package provides deferred time analysis of encoded video and audio elementary streams.

PADUCAH, KY.—It doesn’t really matter what is broken these days, it’s either deemed disposable or worthy of repair. Certainly with broadcast and media facilities, viewer QoE (Quality of Experience) and budget bottom lines are equally important. Whether it’s at a transmitter site, in the field, in the studio, at the tech core, at the end of a CDN, or edit suite, there are always problems about to pop up.

When those problems occur, someone has to identify the problem, notify someone, or resolve the issue. At those times, guessing just won’t work. Fortunately, test and measurement manufacturers are pushing their technologies ahead, just as other manufacturers, and in some cases, a bit faster.

For SDI, 4K and real-time video test instruments vary from WFM/vector to rasterizers, as witnessed by the recent release of Leader’s LV 7390 four-channel 3G/HD/SDSDI multistandard rasterizer that can measure up to four SDI signals simultaneously, and is compatible with 3G-SDI, HD-SDI and SD-SDI. At the 2015 NAB Show, Leader also unveiled the FS 3102 analyzer, which can perform real-time checking of up to four HD-SDI or SD-SDI signal streams, and for 4K, Leader offers the 5490 waveform monitor.

INCREASING ARRAY OF FEATURES

Leader Instruments LV 7390 four-channel 3G/HD/SD-SDI multistandard rasterizer
Paul Robinson, chief technology officer for Tektronix said that for broadcasters and related media, SDI is still going strong. Many later model Tektronix SDI WFMs in the field have the backbone for 4K built in, they just require a few firmware upgrades to accept the quad link cabling, according to Robinson. “For quad-link, timing is critical for proper operation,” he said. For transmission, Tektronix offers the Sentry product line for QoE/QoS.

In addition to manufacturing monitors with built in WFM’s and audio metering, Marshall has recently introduced the Titan 4K Generator, which has been very well received, according to Devan Cress, director of broadcast sales AV for the El Segundo, Calif.-based company. “The unit is currently HDMI only, but SDI is coming as an option in Gen 2 [scheduled for October release], along with a larger preview screen.” Marshall is also adding IMD [in-monitor display] for their WFM feature, allowing both video and WFM/audio metering to be viewed at the same time on their monitors.

Triveni Digital is no stranger to IP and file-based workflows, according to Ralph Bachofen, vice president, sales and marketing for the Princeton Junction, N.J.-based provider of monitoring technology. “Triveni will be offering video over IP management tools,” he said, adding that IP will fit right in, not only with the next-generation ATSC 3.0 standard, but with bandwidths exceeding 10 Gbps, of particular interest to cable providers. For today though, test tools like the StreamScope with closed-caption compliance measurements are as popular as ever, and very scalable, according to Bachofen.

IMPACT ON THE VIEWING EXPERIENCE
Tektronix’s Robinson said while SDI is still going strong, IP is gaining traction. IP “is the new way of doing everything [and] will impact the viewing experience more than ever,” he said. While IP products don’t heavily populate Tektronix’s product line yet, Robinson says that the company has several prototypes around the world in “proof-of-concept” facilities. According to Robinson, products in the wing also include hybrid sync generators with baseband, tri-level, and PTP (Precision Time Protocol IEEE 1588-2002) for IP, and analyzers for SMPTE 2022. Recently, Tektronix introduced the Aurora QC and Hydra player, featuring faster throughput, scalability, and improved usability.

At this year’s NAB Show, Leader unveiled their FS 3103 software package which allows MXF audio/video media files to be processed faster than real time. According to Young, a combined system incorporating an FS 3102 and FS 3103 can process up to four files simultaneously. The FS 3102 and FS 3103 provide automatic checking and analysis of image characteristics.

When it comes to evaluating the output of encoders and transcoders, Adam Schadle, vice president of Video Clarity, a Campbell, Calif.-based developer of monitoring technology has a couple of questions for broadcasters: “How will multiple resolutions look, in different display types, after having been transcoded multiple times? And how can you know ahead of time?” Schadle points to the company’s recently re-engineered RTM Manager for the answer.

“Our new RTM Manager has a new way of taking measurements in real time, and a better way to evaluate,” he said. In short, according to Schadle, Video Clarity tools provide real-time evaluation of quality between competing encoders and providers, using the human perceptual test (QoE), along with averages of QoS scores and new log graphing tools for Clearview and RTM.

NEW YORK—Five years ago, TV Technology published an article on test and measurement, highlighting how manufacturers were helping broadcasters meet the challenges of the HD transition with new hardware that took large rack-based systems and reduced them to palm-sized appliances. Fast forward half a decade and hardware is no longer key, as manufacturers opt for new software-based solutions and drop traditional product lines.

“I have never seen so much change happening in such a short space of time,” said Ian Valentine, business director of video products at Tektronix in Beaverton, Ore. A long time media industry veteran, Valentine attributes the change to new enabling technologies provided by software. “The dynamics of our industry from a command perspective are changing; what you see happening is much more distributed and remote management,” Valentine adds.

MORE DISTRIBUTION CHAINS
From broadcast hubs remotely controlling station MCRs to large cable MSOs, content is delivered today via more varied delivery systems to a wider assortment of devices.

Companies are leveraging their software expertise to help manage an increasingly complex product distribution chain. For the major players in the program origination arena like NBCUniversal, Discovery, Fox, and multichannel OTT distributors such as Netflix and Hulu, it is becoming more difficult to manage video and audio quality over such vast distribution chains.

Adam Schadle, vice president for Video Clarity in Campbell, Calif., sees today’s monitoring needs as a combination of best practices. “The old school way of guaranteeing quality product was to have experienced engineers monitoring complicated hardware at the signal origination point, which we still advocate for,” he said, “but new technologies now help with the big job of managing multiple distribution channels all the way through to delivery.”

Rohde & Schwarz BMM-810 monitor

“Innovative use of advances in both hardware and software to solve real customer problems, like monitoring both traditional and streaming channels in the same system is key,” said Greg Kregoski, business development manager for Rohde & Schwarz USA. The German-based test and measurement company believes that it is important for video and content delivery methods to keep pace with IP technology in order to keep up with consumer demands. Tektronix, likewise, sees IP and new distribution chains the same way. “We as an industry have to be one step ahead of where our customer base is so we can be ready to help them get their product to market,” added Tektronix’ Valentine.

There is a new approach now to T&M and it encompasses not only new technology, but new methodologies to ensure product quality. Bob Mills, senior product manager for Imagine Communications in Dallas, envisions a more end-to-end approach with not only object but perceptive measuring being done.

“There needs to be a more cohesive and holistic look at the delivery chain,” Mills said, adding that he sees the need for both traditional qualitative measurements during production and origination to the more recent entrant of Quality of Experience (QoE) measurements via remote probes located throughout the chain.

All of these issues will have a major impact on broadcasters in the future. From dealing with new distribution chains like the cloud, to new formats such as 4K and HEVC, facilities will need to continually evolve their testing abilities in order to manage the quality of their offerings. With traditional test and measurement companies adapting to IP analysis and software-based monitoring companies adding more testing capabilities to their product lines, there are evolving routes to take, depending on what the broadcaster or originator sees as the best way to monitor the delivery of their product to the consumer.

Video Clarity’s RTM offers a side-by-side comparison of a master reference image to an image from any targeted resolution either in real time or a file-based environment.

DEFINING ‘QUALITY’

Due to the fact that program material is now often consumed in formats and sizes greatly differing from its original essence, new quality control standards are being developed to help provide guidance. Two of the newer terms are “perceptive measurement” and “Quality of Experience.” These are the efforts to compare a final product to an original. Video Clarity’s RTM and Clearview product lines allow a side-by-side comparison of a master reference image to an image from any targeted resolution either in real time or a file-based environment. This allows a subjective measurement of whether the product in its final form has the expected quality. “These products allow the user a look at the images side-by-side interactively for perceptive comparisons,” notes Kregoski.

Tektronix’s Valentine has seen a rapid shift from Quality of Service (QoS) concerns to Quality of Experience as well, especially for high-volume monitoring. His company offers solutions for both file-based and streaming measurement through its Cerify and Sentry platforms. These IP-based measurement tools are not only able to monitor up to 250 simultaneous channels, but can also tackle the analysis of adaptive bitrate streams.

Whether one is a satellite, cable or even multichannel broadcaster, the use of monitor walls is now commonplace in origination facilities. Once used to just keep track of all these channels, these systems are now tasked with providing guidance on signal quality. Rhode and Schwarz offers the BMM-810 monitoring solution, which is of special interest to broadcasters and OTT originators, as it allows them to decode multiple streams of broadcast signals and compressed streaming services in one device. This hybrid monitoring platform offers in-black, loss of video, and audio alarming, as well as integration into facility SNMP systems.

Tektronix Sentry

THE SIMPLIFIED INTERFACE

Whether monitoring 250 channels at once, or just four, vendors are keenly aware that there is a need for signal monitoring in more places. “People like the depth of test and measurement equipment, but don’t use all of its functionality every day, so they often have to refer to a huge manual to find the settings they need,” said Ralph Bachofen, vice president of sales for Triveni Digital in Princeton Junction, N.J. He notes that some multiviewer monitoring systems offer a “check engine light” functionality, which only lets the user know there is a problem, rather than what that problem is. “We provide alarming, but also a simplified user interface with plenty of detail,” said Bachofen. Triveni’s Streamscope RM40, which includes options for logging analytic and CALM data, also demonstrates ease of use by its app for mobile devices. For full-featured portability, Triveni offers the Streamscope Portal, a touchscreen tablet/laptop which takes the same MPEG file and stream monitoring capabilities onto a mobile platform for taking the test to where it’s needed.

Imagine’s Millis believes that there is value in digging down deep, but also in providing a broader overview and sampling. He believes “light and moderate” testing of video, audio, and lip sync to get a quick sense of programming quality is a key feature that customers are looking for. He sees the industry moving away from deep signal analysis to “a broader overview of a workflow from origination through all paths of distribution.”

Triveni Digital Streamscope Portal

CURRENT NEEDS VS. FUTURE REQUIREMENTS

Five years ago handheld test devices were “must have” items, but today, manufacturers like Imagine Communications have ended the life of some of these long-running product lines completely, in favor of software-based analysis and remote monitoring. The evolution of the industry itself continues with new standards such as ATSC 3.0 and HEVC playing a major role in choosing test and measurement equipment for broadcasters and OTT distributors alike. With the new generator of IP broadcasters such as Netflix, Google, and Verizon, who have both the ability and plans to deliver 4K media, the testing industry will have to continue to evolve their products for both industries.

One can only imagine five years from now which media industries and products will win out, and what level of sophistication and depth on analysis may be available. With talk of intelligent analysis and more automation, the products of 2019 will undoubtedly look a lot different from those of today.