Tektronix looks to improve streaming quality

Sports content owners who stream games and other content over the Internet have a new (and portable) way to manage the quality of the service as Tektronix has introduced the Spectra2|VQM (Video Quality Measurement) monitoring solution.

The company says Spectra2|VQM helps users identify the causes of poor digital image quality, such as packet loss, delay or data corruption in the IP transport network. The portable monitoring solution supports multiple-level Quality of Service (QoS) scores and video industry standard, non-proprietary Forward Error Correction (FEC) analysis.

Currently the system monitors video streams transported over RTP and MPEG2-TS (transport stream) protocols. It can also measure multiple concurrent standard-definition (SD) video streams as well as high-definition (HD) video streams.
Spectra2|VQM supports both CoP-R3 and RFC 2733, the two main non-proprietary, video industry FEC analysis standards. Spectra2|VQM can perform and analyze FEC algorithms, a technique for improving the reliability of packet transmission over networks which do not provide guaranteed packet delivery.

At the core of the Spectra2|VQM video monitoring solution is the ability to detect specific problems. Correlation between the MOS and other factors that include packet loss, delay and jitter along with MPEG2-TS priority statistics, gives a technician the tools necessary to determine the problem. Integrated reporting analysis tools provide interactive views of all Spectra2|VQM video metrics. Video data capture and decode also ease trouble-shooting activity. Spectra2|VQM allows a technician to view the actual video in progress for a visual indicator of quality. Spectra2|VQM can also track metrics graphically in real time. Users can export statistics to a file or use the integrated online analysis tools to browse historical data.