Method of and System for Measuring Quality of Audio and Video Bit Stream Transmissions over a Transmission Chain

Simple SummaryContent extracted from patent full text and abstract with AI.

This invention describes a method and system for measuring the quality of audio and video streams as they are transmitted through a network (such as IPTV). The system employs simple packet loss detectors placed at various points in the transmission chain to record which data packets are lost. The lost packet information is sent to a central monitoring unit that holds a stored, error-free version of the original stream. By simulating how the stream was degraded using the lost packet data, the central system can calculate a quality score (e.g., Mean Opinion Score, MOS) for specific points in the network and for individual users. The invention supports a variety of quality assessment models while minimizing measurement device complexity and cost.

Use CasesContent extracted from patent full text and abstract with AI.

• Monitoring and maintaining quality of IPTV and streaming services to ensure good user experience.
• Network operators diagnosing and troubleshooting audio/video transmission problems at specific user endpoints or network nodes.
• Automatic quality assurance for digital video and audio content delivery in telecom and broadcast networks.
• Real-time or scheduled performance reporting for service-level agreements (SLAs) in managed media delivery.
• Supporting adaptive streaming algorithms with accurate user-perceived quality metrics.
• Optimizing network resource allocation by identifying problem areas with objective measurements.

BenefitsContent extracted from patent full text and abstract with AI.

• Enables precise, user-specific audio/video quality assessment without needing complex hardware at every endpoint.
• Greatly reduces the cost and complexity of monitoring devices by only requiring simple packet loss detectors.
• Centralized quality analysis allows for highly sophisticated and computationally intensive quality models to be used.
• Supports multiple types of quality models (full-reference, reduced-reference, no-reference), improving flexibility and accuracy.
• Minimizes storage and computational needs at user devices by shifting the heavy processing to a central unit.
• Can provide near-real-time feedback and monitoring for many users simultaneously, scalable to large networks.
• Improves end-user quality of experience and helps providers quickly detect and fix streaming issues.

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Inventors & Applicants

Patent Abstract

The invention provides a method of and a system for measuring quality of audio and video stream transmissions over a transmission chain. The method comprises the steps of providing one or more measurement detectors along the transmission chain; detecting with the one or more measurement detectors the loss of packets at the one or more measurement point(s); determining the unique identifier for each detected lost packet; sending the list of lost packet identifiers to a central monitoring system; constructing, at the central monitoring system, from a stored error free stream and on the basis of the received lost packet identifiers, a simulated stream; and evaluating the simulated stream for deriving a quality score for the transmission along the transmission chain. An alternative embodiment of the invention uses a parametric description or reduced version of the stream stored in the central monitoring system, that is corrected or modified using the information received from the measurement detectors.