Analysis and realization of IPTV service quality

Digital television (TV) service over Internet Protocol (IP) networks is becoming a crucial element in a network provider's portfolio. However, the limitations of the existing communication networks and the complexity of the service impose many operational, performance, and scalability barriers. Analytic discussion of service quality is non-trivial because of the system complexity as well as the subjective nature of video quality assessment. This paper provides an analysis of IP video service quality metrics with a primary focus on the need for correlation of viewer perception with network performance and operation. It gives a top-down impact analysis from the user's perspective and then categorizes a set of key quality indicators (KQIs). The paper further describes a computational model, called the video quality analyzer, which both verifies and augments the top-down analysis with a bottom-up experimental realization of the KQI definitions and a refinement of the theoretical results. The discussion addresses a set of techniques for measuring video quality with respect to network performance indicators, network configuration, digital video attributes, and video content. (C) 2008 Alcatel-Lucent.