Telchemy Announces VQmon/HD - Breakthrough Performance Monitoring Technology for IPTV and HD Telepresence Services

Business Wire, Oct 23, 2007

Enables real time monitoring of encrypted/ scrambled IP Video streams

DULUTH, Ga. -- Telchemy Incorporated, the leading provider of VoIP and IP Video performance monitoring and analysis technology, today announced VQmon/HD, a breakthrough performance monitoring technology for High Definition IPTV and HD Telepresence services. VQmon/HD is unique in its ability to monitor the performance of scrambled or encrypted video streams, extracting key performance metrics including MOS scores, I, B, P frame statistics and information related to content.

VQmon/HD solves a number of key problems for IPTV Service Providers and Enterprise network managers:

* IPTV streams are usually encrypted to protect digital rights, which prevents most video quality algorithms from making accurate measurements. VQmon/HD is unique in its ability to measure the performance of encrypted IPTV and IP Videoconferencing streams at any point along the IP path and produce Video MOS scores and I/ B/ P frame statistics.

* The effect of packet loss can vary considerably, depending on the type of video frame that is impacted, hence simple packet loss based metrics can be wildly inaccurate. VQmon/HD computes a quality metric for each video frame and then combines these using a perceptual model to produce an estimated Video MOS, which properly represents the interaction of transmission impairments with video frame structure.

* Most video performance measurement algorithms are highly CPU intensive, requiring thousands of MIPS of processing power to analyze a single video stream. VQmon/HD is highly efficient and economic, typically requires less than 1 MIP of processing power, and can support the monitoring of large numbers of parallel IPTV streams. This allows VQmon/HD to be directly integrated into network equipment, test equipment and customer premise devices.

* IPTV services can suffer from frozen or lost video signals which currently requires service providers to visually monitor every channel. VQmon/HD can automatically detect a range of video content problems including frozen, blank or noisy video, even if the video stream is encrypted, and immediately alert service providers.

VQmon/HD gives service providers the ability to monitor IPTV and HD Telepresence services at any point in the network or on the customer premise, providing real time feedback on video quality and advanced diagnostic information.

This advanced software product analyzes IP, UDP, RTP, MPEG and H.264 transport protocols, H.261, H.263, H.264, MPEG 1, MPEG 2, VC1 video codecs and a wide range of audio codecs, accurately assessing the effects of lost packets, error propagation through the GoP structure, codec quantization level, frame rate and other key factors to product accurate Video MOS scores and a wealth of diagnostic information.

The TVQM metrics reported by VQmon/HD include:-

* Estimated perceptual quality MOS scores

* I, B and P frame statistics and GoP size

* High level content descriptors (motion, detail...)

* Detailed IP, RTP and MPEG Transport loss and jitter metrics

* Analysis of RTP, MPEG and H.264 Transport protocols

* Key TR 101 290 MPEG metrics

* Content related alerts (frozen, blank, noisy video)

VQmon/HD is provided as a software library that is simple to integrate into a wide range of IP Set Top Boxes/ Decoders, ONT's, IPTV test equipment, routers, head-end and videoconferencing systems, and will be shipping in November 2007.

About Telchemy

Telchemy,([R]) Incorporated is the global leader in Voice and Video over IP Performance Management Technology with its VQmon([R]) and SQmon([TM]) families of service quality monitoring and analysis software products, used by over 90 equipment vendors in over 100 product lines. Telchemy is the world's first company to provide Voice and Video IP performance management technology that considers the effects of time-varying network impairments and has led the development of VoIP performance management protocols within the industry. Founded in 1999, the company has products deployed worldwide and markets its technology through leading networking, test and management product companies. Visit: www.telchemy.com.