Cheetah to Measure Video Quality between Set-Top and TV

Cheetah Technologies' (www.cheetahtech.com) V-Factor SM^STB is designed to emulate a subscriber surfing channels and objectively and accurately measure the video experience as delivered to the TV set. In combination with headend V-Factor SM units, V-Factor SM^STB provides operators a way of tracking and comparing the visual quality of any video service at multiple points in the network and at the TV set.Cheetah will demonstrate V-Factor SM^STB and other monitoring and management solutions at its booth (2254) at the SCTE (www.scte.org) Cable-Tec Expo later this month.Using the same algorithms as the V-Factor Source Monitor (VF-SM), V-Factor SM^STB can analyze decoded HD and SD video to detect any visual impairment, including blockiness, blur and jerkiness. Impairments are reported as both a severity level and errored minutes, and the overall visual quality is reported as a mean opinion score (MOS). Data can be viewed instantaneously, averaged over a specified time, or correlated with other VF-SM and VF-S SM^STB results in Cheetah's Q-Advisor SM element management system.