Scalable IPTV Quality Testing
This paper explains why the Media Delivery Index (MDI) is uniquely suited for gauging video quality under realistic scale. The first section describes the MDI and its applications.
The remainder of the paper introduces other video quality
measurements which can be used to provide complementary
information on video quality, although they are not suitable
for characterizing networking devices in highly scaled
scenarios.
Network equipment manufacturers and service providers are moving quickly to develop and deploy devices that fulfill the promise of delivering voice, video and data to customers over a converged IP infrastructure. These services, collectively referred to as Triple Play, are the pillars of a new business model for service providers attempting to mitigate the effect of ever-shrinking voice revenues. Video is the key component to service providers’ growth, as it enables them to compete with cable MSOs that already have video, data and VoIP offerings. IPTV revenues are expected to increase by 179% per year, reaching $44.3B worldwide by 2009 [Infonetics Research, IPTV Equipment and Services Market Outlook, November 10, 2005]. The existing network infrastructure supports a best effort model that is suited to many data applications, but is poorly adapted to demanding voice and video applications. Voice and video (IPTV and video-on-demand) have stringent Quality of Service (QoS) requirements, and meeting these requirements is a key success factor for service providers as they strive to build customer loyalty. Indeed, customers’ Quality of Experience (QoE) is the key value upon which service providers must differentiate themselves: the delivery of video over IP is a nascent and highly competitive area, and for customers to truly embrace IP video, and the broader Triple Play offering, it must meet or exceed their QoE expectations. In order to ensure this high quality, equipment must be rigorously tested to ensure that it can bear hundreds of video channels destined for thousands of subscribers. Naturally, this testing must include simultaneous measurements on all video streams passing through a device or system, to guarantee that the viewing experience of all subscribers is acceptable at all times.
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Network Services 
