84 TVBEurope QC Forum
Raphael Samad Emotion Systems
In other business, total throughput and processing cost may take priority and the fact that auto-QC can be easily scaled and run 24/7 may negate the need for faster-than-realtime. The concatenation of processes may also be important – can the auto QC process run on a growing fi le that is still being ingested or transcoded? Mehring: Generally speaking, faster-than- realtime is desirable. But by using a system such as Snell’s Momentum, you can have parallel processes within an automated workfl ow. This means that additional processes can be started at the same time when material turnaround is tight and potential system bottlenecks need to be overcome. Nunney: Realtime and faster-than-realtime QC are both useful in their own way, depending on the process and situation relating to the chain of essence production. A faster-than- real-time check may be expedient just as a ‘tape spot check’ had been used in the past. Better to fi nd that sequence with the photosensitive epilepsy sequence and edit or auto correct it before it produces dire effects on unsuspecting public. Samad: Mostly. An important element of QC systems is the infrastructure around them. If systems are going to have to process large quantities of fi les, often in parallel, faster-than- realtime, then the fi les are going to have to be moved and copied within them, quickly and effi ciently – disk speeds, speed of I/O and network speeds really come into consideration. However, achieving this is very worthwhile as it will help to satisfy the ever-growing hunger for content. Schadle: Faster-than-realtime operation is always benefi cial due to today’s increased workloads. Greater quantities of fi les and content will continue to drive the need for faster testing routines. In the initial step of perceptual
video quality testing, the applied metrics are sometimes able to provide up to realtime speeds for testing. However, this capability is currently vendor – and technology – dependent.
When it comes to QC, video is usually the primary consideration, but does audio receive the same attention?
Begent: In the past, no, but there is increasing importance for audio levels and loudness to meet the US CALM and EBU R128 requirements. Files also increasingly carry multiple languages and different audio track and channel confi gurations which need to be QC checked.d. Davenport: Audio processing requires signifi cantly less horsepower than video and, as a result, is often the lesser in design considerations. However, in terms of actual QC testing, and particularly for regulatory, absolute and objective measurements, audio is often subjected to more testing than video. As a result of the implementation of auto QC, subjective evaluation of audio quality may have declined and, by its nature, this is likely to have a signifi cant impact on the viewing experience. Mehring: When performing audio QC, the quality of the audio itself is paramount, but many organisations overlook the importance of multiple language management. Specifi cally, audio QC systems need to be able to detect if the languages are in the correct place and tag language for use further down the line in the media factory. To address this challenge, we built Momentum specifi cally to auto QC while adding audio languages or captions, seamlessly. Nunney: Audio should no longer be the second class citizen it has been in the past. Sound is
an intrinsic part of the overall experience, and with loudness and the problems of synchronisation, it’s a hot topic and just as important as the video component. Automatic correction of these parameters is what’s aimed for. Samad: Audio is now receiving a lot of attention due to the issue of loudness compliance. Add to this
the fact that many media fi les contain multiple audio tracks for multi-lingual requirements, stereo, surround sound and Dolby E. Therefore, it is now fairly common for the audio content to be larger than the video content. Also, audiences are now very demanding – when a fi le is perfect, all that is noticed is the video. However, the slightest problem with any of the audio draws a huge amount of audience complaint. Singhal: More and more customers are paying closer attention to audio fi delity and QC issues. However, the set of critical audio related issues are smaller compared to video. With the ongoing adoption of R128 recommendations across various parts of the world, Audio Loudness, along with Peaks and Loudness range, has indeed become an important consideration. Westlake: Yes. Audio needs to receive the same amount of attention as video, because bad audio is often the fi rst thing that viewers complain about.
Has the increase in second screen activity aff ected QC processes?
Samad: Yes, most defi nitely. From an audio point of view, the content that has to be delivered to second screen systems is very different to that of conventional television. Therefore, it would need to be measured and adjusted with a second screen audience in mind. Schadle: Yes. This is an interesting area from a quality control perspective. At fi rst, the second screen was thought to be a less important path to test – due to revenue limitations – or in operations where the second screen is not the main revenue driver. This attitude is changing as
www.tvbeurope.com September 2014
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