Announcements about 4K continue to flow in at a steady pace, including TV set rollouts to consumers (like this one), set-top deployment news (here) and flashy 4K programming access to major sports events (here). But delivering 4K content to the home still represents a demanding transition for operators.
They need to ensure that encoders are doing the job correctly. Content must meet regulatory requirements. Quality of experience (QoE) has to be great for the subscriber who probably has high expectations after shelling out for a new TV.
“The transition to 4K workflows will happen over a period of years, but it’s not a question of if it will happen, but when. At the same time, ensuring compliance with FCC regulations has become more complex than ever as new requirements are added to the mix,” Charlie Dunn, GM, video product line at Tektronix, observes.
Tektronix announced today what it is calling “the industry’s first end-to-end HEVC test solutions that provide deep insights into 4K workflows and will enable broadcasters, cable operators and other service providers to make a seamless transition to 4K.” The new test and diagnostic tools will be shown at NAB, April 18-21 in Las Vegas.
The new extensions to the company’s MTS4000 and MTS4SAV3 test platforms, including comprehensive HEVC analysis tools and a closed caption analyzer for ensuring FCC compliance, will reportedly allow operators to transition to 4K at their convenience with minimal impact to workflow, infrastructure, staff and budget.
In addition to the new HEVC support for content distribution, Tektronix says it is also adding features to assist set-top manufacturers that need the ability to create custom 4K and HEVC transport streams to test 4K on STBs. Using the MTS4000, manufacturers can now create 4K transport streams from elementary streams and system information tables with custom parameters, Tektronix reports.
The MTS4000 provides transport streams analysis and interoperability testing, according to the company. “Its deep analysis of the transport streams, PES and elementary streams helps track down sources of picture anomalies and identify transport streams with syntax errors. Its ability to capture events for in depth troubleshooting is also critical to identifying the root cause of problems,” Tektronix says in a press release.
