Parametric assessment of video quality in content

Abstract

IP-based packet-switched networks have become one of the main content distribution platforms for emerging multimedia services such as IPTV, thanks to the rapidly growing bandwidth and exclusive inter-networking and interactivity features of IP-based networks. Meanwhile, high quality video content services are becoming particularly popular within content delivery networks (CDN). During content distribution, packets of encoded video streams can be delayed, corrupted or dropped due to network impairments in packet-switched networks. This leads to perceptual quality degradations of the delivered content at receiver. Although network impairments are rare in commercial managed networks, any distortion caused by impairments can be highly detrimental to end users' experience. Consequently the ability to meet customer expectations on video quality has become a critical service differentiator. Quality of Experience (QoE) that was merely recognised as a value-added service of traditional content distribution services is now one of the fundamental requirements and challenges of providing high quality video services. In order to maintain a high level of user experience throughout the life-cycle of a video service, a service quality measurement and management service must be established.