Voice Audio

Quality Quality
Testing Testing

PEVQ™ –
Perceptual Evaluation of Video
Quality
Testing
Data
Quality
Testing
Video Quality stan
NEW:
VQEG approved
da rd iz atio
for
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OPTICOM Product Line:
PEVQ is an accurate, reliable and fast video OPTICOM, the leading provider of signal based Voice Quality Testing
quality measure. It provides mean opinion score perceptual measurement technology for voice, PSQM ITU-T P.861
(MOS) estimates of the video quality degrada- audio and video, offers its new easy to use PESQ ITU-T P.862
tion occurring through a network, e.g. in mobile PEVQ testing technology as an OEM solution. 3SQM ITU-T P.563
and IP-based networks. PEVQ can be ideally Lab users can choose between the PEXQ soft- ECHO
applied to test video telephony, video confer- ware suite and the PEVQ analyzer hardware. Audio Quality Testing
encing, video streaming, and IPTV applications. PEVQ evaluates the quality of multimedia (QCIF, PEAQ ITU-T BS.1387
The degraded video signal output from a net- CIF, VGA), SD and HD video formats based on Video Quality Testing
work is analyzed by comparison to the undis- perceptual measurement, reliably, objectively PEVQ
torted reference video signal on a perceptual and fast. Network Quality Testing
basis. Based on the approach to model the VQmon
PEVQ is based on the earlier PVQM technology
human visual system, PEVQ can detect anom-
developed by KPN Research and new develop-
alies in the video signal and quantify them by a
ments of OPTICOM.
multitude of key performance indicators (KPIs).

Principle
PEVQ is a full reference, intrusive measurement algorithm for video quality. Key Features:
Its basic structure is shown in the figure below.
• Accurate, reliable and
Reference Signal
fast objective analysis of
perceived video quality
• Full reference based end-
to-end quality analysis
Temporal indicators PEVQ Score
Distortion
indicator
• Outputs MOS score
time

}
Temporal
and spatial Perceptual integration that correlates well
Impaired Signal difference Y Indicators
alignment
(Y, Cr, Cb)
Distortion for cause with subjective MOS
Cr classifi- analysis
cation
Cb • Additional KPIs for
detailed analysis
• Measurement of multime-
dia (QCIF, CIF, VGA), SD
time and HD video quality
• Available as DLL/Library,
Windows™ software and
The algorithm can be divided up into four sepa- This indicator is important as it takes into
PEVQ analyzer hardware
rate blocks. The first block – pre-processing account that in frame series with low activity
stage – is responsible for the spatial and tem- the perception of details is much higher than in • Applications: IPTV,
poral alignment of the reference and the frame series with quick motion. streaming video, 3G,
impaired signal. This process ensures that only video telephony
The third block in the figure classifies the previ-
corresponding frames are compared to each
ously calculated indicators and detects certain • Performance verified and
other.
types of distortions. recommended for stan-
The second block calculates the perceptual dif- dardization by the Video
Finally, in the fourth block all the appropriate
ference of the aligned signals. Perceptual Quality Experts Group
indicators according to the detected distortions
means that only those differences are taken (www.vqeg.org) 2008
are aggregated, forming the final result - the
into account which are actually perceived by a
mean opinion score (MOS). The MOS value
human viewer. Furthermore the activity of the
describes the video quality on a range from 1
motion in the reference signal provides another
for very bad quality, to 5 for excellent quality.
indicator representing the temporal information.
PEXQ™, 3SQM™, PEAQ™, PEVQ™, PEDQ™ and the OPTICOM logo are registered trademarks of OPTICOM GmbH; PESQ™ is a registered trademark of OPTICOM
GmbH and Psytechnics Ltd.; the 'Single-sided Speech Quality Measure' and 'The Perceptual Quality Experts' are trademarks of OPTICOM GmbH.
This information may be subject to change. All other brand and product names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks
of their respective owners. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2008 OPTICOM GmbH - www.opticom.de
Besides the final quality score additional indica- Future releases will be further optimized in
tors are provided at the output of the algorithm computational performance and prediction accu-
for further cause analysis. racy for high definition video.
About OPTICOM
This approach to video quality estimation OPTICOM’s PEVQ is one of the two top-ranked
includes the effects of both packet level impair- models in the 2008 Video Quality Experts Group OPTICOM GmbH is the lead-
ments (loss, jitter) and signal related impair- (VQEG) multimedia evaluation and approved for ing vendor for voice, audio
ments such as blockiness, jerkiness, blur and standardization. and video quality measure-
distortions caused by coding processes. ment technology and OEM
products for mobile and IP
based network testing. With
Specifications PSQM, PESQ, PEAQ and
P.563, the pioneers in percep-
tual quality testing have been
PEVQ - Perceptual Evaluation of Video Quality providing by now four interna-
tional world-class standards
for voice and audio quality
Functionality Input measurement since the foun-
dation of OPTICOM as a spin-
• Perceptual Evaluation of Video Quality- • Raw YUV, AVI Files with RGB24, YUV444, off from Fraunhofer’s MP3
PEVQ, with mapping to MOS scale YUV422 or YUV420 data, 25 and 30 fps development team in 1995.
(1 bad, … 5 excellent quality) After the great success with
• 6 to 20 seconds in length
• Analysis of multimedia, SD and HD video PESQ - the International
formats Standard for voice quality
testing, the experts from
Output Germany now also source
PEVQ, the new industry stan-
dard to measure a perceptual
PEVQ MOS Blur video quality KPI for stream-
The PEVQ MOS value lies within a range from is a distortion characterized by reduced sharp- ing, conferencing and mes-
1 (bad) to 5 (excellent). The PEVQ MOS is based ness of contour edges and spatial detail. saging applications.
on a multitude of perceptually motivated param- OPTICOM’s proven OEM tech-
Blockiness
eters. nology can be found in most
is often the result of a low bit rate coding that
Distortion indicators uses a block matching algorithm for the motion state-of-the-art products of
For a more detailed analysis the perceptual estimation and a coarse quantization for the leading T&M vendors, see
level of distortion in the luminance, chromi- image blocks. also www.pevq.org
nance and temporal domain are provided. OPTICOM GmbH is a privately
Frame Skips and Freezes held company located in
Delay are temporal artefacts occurring in video trans- Erlangen, Germany.
The min, max and mean delay of each frame of missions caused by e.g. overloaded networks.
the test signal related to the reference signal,
Effective Frame Rate
Sales Contacts:
as well as delay vs. time.
Down-sampling of a video signal on a frame by OPTICOM GmbH
Brightness frame basis often results in loss of information Nägelsbachstraße 38
The brightness of the reference and degraded which often leads to the degradation of the 91052 Erlangen, GERMANY
signal. video signal. The effective frame rate is an Phone: +49-91 31 / 5 30 20 - 0
indicator quantifying the severeness of such Fax: +49-91 31 / 5 30 20 - 20
Contrast
a process. [email protected]
The contrast of the distorted and the reference
www.opticom.de
sequence. Temporal Activity and Spatial Complexity
Temporal activity and spatial complexity indica- North America:
PSNR
tors quantify the amount of activity/movement
To allow for a coarse analysis of distortions in Telchemy Inc.
and spatial detail in the video content. These
different domains the PSNR is provided for the Phone +1-770-614-6944
indicators are derived from ITU-T recommenda-
Y, Cb and Cr components separately.
tion P.910. JDSU - Acterna U.S.
Jerkiness Phone +1-301 353 1560 2850
describes the smoothness of a video playback
Europe, Latin America,
which is often impaired by down-sampling, cod-
Middle East & Africa,
ing processes and perturbed transmissions.
Asia Pacific, CIS Countries:
JDSU - Acterna
Complexity Platforms Germany GmbH
Phone: +49-7121 86 2222
• PEVQ is widely optimized and is capable of • Windows
processing QCIF streams faster than real- Through our distributor net-
• Linux
time on a 3GHz Pentium 4 machine. work, we are represented in
more than 80 countries. To find
your local sales office, please
contact [email protected]

PEXQ™, 3SQM™, PEAQ™, PEVQ™, PEDQ™ and the OPTICOM logo are registered trademarks of OPTICOM GmbH; PESQ™ is a registered trademark of OPTICOM
GmbH and Psytechnics Ltd.; the 'Single-sided Speech Quality Measure' and 'The Perceptual Quality Experts' are trademarks of OPTICOM GmbH.
This information may be subject to change. All other brand and product names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks
of their respective owners. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2008 OPTICOM GmbH - www.opticom.de