Enhance picture quality with testing

High-definition (HD) creates a new quality-of-experience. This is determined by a number of factors; most importantly picture and sound quality. Test and measurement is all about producing and managing quality. We have to accept that quality is not a process of fixing something at the end of production, but has to be worked on right from start and at every step in the chain.

While the quality of analogue and full bandwidth digital video can be characterised indirectly by measuring the distortions of static test signals, compressed TV systems pose a far more difficult challenge. Picture quality in a compressed system can change dynamically based on a combination of data rate, picture complexity and encoding algorithm employed. The static nature of test signals does not provide the true characterisation of picture quality. A test scene with natural content and motion can be used, with human viewers reporting the results, but this method of evaluating the capabilities of a compressed video system is inefficient. The Tektronix Picture Quality Analyser PQA500 provides a fast, practical, repeatable and objective measurement alternative to subjective evaluation of picture quality.

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