CAMPBELL, CALIF. —Video Clarity announced that Fox Networks has installed a ClearView 4K video quality analyzer in its network engineering and operations lab in Los Angeles. The lab is using the analyzer to test the quality of new encoding products and technologies for processing 4K video formats — namely 3840 x 2160 — at various frame rates to determine how to develop Fox’s 4K broadcast workflow in a way that ensures quality for the customer.
“Because the industry is in the beginning stages of 4K right now, our workflow is a work in progress, so it’s very critical that we can test the quality of the video in different scenarios to decide on the best products and methods for our broadcast chain,” said Yves Montane, director of research and development engineering for Fox Network Engineering and Operations. “Video Clarity’s ClearView 4K analyzer is the only tool available that lets us compare the original 4K content side by side with the encoded content. That full comparison is a critical test for figuring out the true viability of a given solution, and it’s something we simply couldn’t do before.”
The ClearView 4K video quality analyzer combines high-rate playback and side-by-side analysis with perceptual video quality measurements in a single solution. In a typical lab scenario, Fox takes a 4K file from the camera, encodes it, and runs it through the ClearView 4K analyzer to compare the quality of the encoded/decoded content to the original 4K video. During the test, Fox looks at the comparative numbers coming out of the analyzer and then tries different bit rates on the encoding side to see how the numbers improve. The ClearView analyzer's full-reference video quality measurements have been the most valuable for Fox because the system has several industry-accepted tests for video quality, and thus these initial tests are what Fox relies on most. Fox uses both the video quality measurements in ClearView and its own judgments using the system’s side-by-side playback features to create an opinion of the encoding quality and decide if an improvement setting, such as a higher or lower bit rate, is required to optimize it.
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