SSIMWAVE to Compare Video Quality of Broadcast and OTT Streams for Sunday’s Big Game

SSIMWAVE, an IMAX company, will show which video providers bring their ‘A Game” to this Sunday’s pro football championship game when its Emmy Award-winning technology compares the video quality of more than a half-dozen broadcast and OTT streams of this Sunday’s game.

SSIMWAVE will use its patented technology to measure every second and every frame of the United States (FOX) and Canadian (CTV and TSN) broadcasts of The Big Game, as well as five streaming services. Using technology that replicates the human visual system, SSIMWAVE will check for video impairments, latency, and other issues that can impact the fan experience in the home and on the go.

SSIMWAVE’s SSIMPLUS is the most accurate perceptual video quality metric, with >90% correlation with how human viewers would rate the quality of what’s on the screen. This tech enables streaming providers to deliver optimal viewing experiences at the lowest possible cost. On Sunday SSIMWAVE will generate a 0-100 “report card” for each service that highlights:

• Fan viewing experience scores for the entire broadcast of the game;
• Maximum and minimum per-second viewer experience scores that show the variability of the video quality throughout the game;
• Measurement of latency, or delay from live to the action on the screen; and
• Video quality of the halftime show and ads.

SSIMWAVE also will highlight and illustrate via screen captures key video issues that frustrate fans, including technical impairments such as interlacing, macroblocking, banding, etc. SSIMWAVE will measure content at multiple geographic locations on Feb. 12, providing insights into best-case scenarios and real-world subscriber conditions. Results will be announced on Monday, Feb. 13 and can be requested here.

“While the same game production is used by most providers, what viewers see can vary widely because of the resources that each provider dedicates to video delivery,” says Dr. Abdul Rehman, CEO of SSIMWAVE. “Our experience in benchmarking streamed pro football games has been that video quality has averaged in the ‘good’ range of 60-79, although it can dip into the low 30s at specific moments during the games. Our hope is that every provider will ‘bring it’ on Sunday.”

In the nine months since it launched live sports video benchmarking, SSIMWAVE has measured more than 200 events on more than 15 streaming services across eight sports: Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, Formula 1 racing, the USTA in tennis, the PGA Tour and soccer, including the FIFA World Cup 2022 and English Premier League. In all, SSIMWAVE monitors and optimizes more than 2.8 billion viewing hours of live video per year across more than 6,000 live channels, helping to elevate video experiences for more than 150 million viewers.