• Broadcasters – For checking audio and video after encoding, at ingest, after editing, after transcoding, and before playout for terrestrial, satellite, cable, internet, and video-on-demand content
• Archiving – For checking integrity before and after archiving
• Content Providers – For checking postproduction and aggregated content has been correctly encoded and conforms to the required quality and format

Quality control of file-based video that may be ingested from different sources and encoded at different bit rates, formats, and compression standards for SD/HD, VOD, and IPTV delivery presents considerable operational challenges. File-based video must be quality checked for:

• Correct Encoding Syntax: At the digital level the audio and video must be correctly encoded without errors in accordance with the compression standard, so that it plays out correctly at the customer’s STB/playout device
• Correct Encoding Parameters: The audio and video bit rates, GOP structure, video color-space, color depth, frame size, frame rate, aspect ratio, and quantization levels must be correct
• Correct Baseband and Quality Levels: The analog parameters of signal levels, luma, chroma, gamut, and quality levels of black frames, video quality (blockiness), loss of audio, audio clipping, and video and audio playtime

Manual inspection can playout, watch, and listen but is subjective and cannot look inside the encoding to check that the correct syntax and parameters have been used.

Cerify solves all these problems, and can be easily integrated with Automation and Asset Management systems using the CeriTalk API.

Cerify SW is a fully compatible software-only version of the Cerify 200 which is the world’s first and leading automated system for checking/verifying file-based video content prior to delivery or use.

The XML-based test templates can be exchanged between Cerify systems, and applied as the definition of the required test standards between suppliers and broadcasters to establish Service Level Agreements and reduce costly churn (rework of content).

The Cerify Developer Community (CDC) of companies working together on integrated solutions is expanding rapidly and is featured on the Tektronix website.