Cheetah Technologies Unveils V-Factor SM-STB to Measure Video Quality Between Set-Top Box and TV

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Cheetah Technologies, LP today announced a new addition to its V-Factor Source Monitor line that extends the company's leadership in network performance and video quality management solutions all the way to the subscriber premises.

Cheetah's V-Factor SM-STB is designed to emulate a subscriber surfing channels and builds upon Cheetah's proven video analysis technology to objectively and accurately measure the video experience as delivered to the television.  In combination with headend V-Factor SM units, V-Factor SM-STB provides operators an ideal way of tracking and comparing the visual quality of any video service at multiple critical points in the network and at the TV set, ensuring consistent delivery of high-quality video to their subscribers' living room.

Cheetah Technologies will demonstrate V-Factor SM-STB and other industry-leading monitoring and management solutions at its booth (#2254) at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo October 20-22 in New Orleans.

"Operators' ability to see what the customer sees and to respond to issues in real time is a key factor in optimizing the video experience," said Jeremy Bennington, V-Factor General Manager and Vice President for Cheetah Technologies.  "VF-SM-STB puts the operator in the customer's shoes and ensures the highest quality video by monitoring service quality in a way that emulates everyday viewing behavior."  

Using the same algorithms as the proven V-Factor Source Monitor (VF-SM), V-Factor SM-STB can analyze decoded HD and SD video to detect any visual impairment, including blockiness, blur and jerkiness.  Impairments are reported as both a severity level and errored minutes, and the overall visual quality is reported as a mean opinion score (MOS) that has over 90% correlation with subjective testing by user groups and "Golden Eyes."  Data can be viewed instantaneously, averaged over a specified time, or correlated with other VF-SM and VF-SM-STB results in Cheetah's Q-Advisor SM element management system.  

V-Factor SM includes a streamlined web-based management interface that allows operators to provision and manage post-STB and IP-based source video monitoring sessions.  The interface also enables the creation of reports that can identify quality trends, patterns and issues through comprehensive graphical representations.

Cheetah's VF-SM analyzes multiple HD or SD video streams as they are received in a headend to benchmark, identify trends and poor quality events before an operator packages the video for distribution.  In addition to providing valuable objective monitoring data, VF-SM can automate tasks which previously relied solely on human observation, including qualification of video equipment or competitive analysis between existing video services.  

About Cheetah Technologies

With a long history in Network and Video Quality Management, Cheetah Technologies has raised the bar in status, performance and quality monitoring while pioneering new ground in IP service testing and performance analysis. Cheetah Technologies solutions allow network operators to more efficiently and cost effectively isolate and troubleshoot multi-layered problems that impact service quality.  Information about Cheetah's products and services can be found at www.cheetahtech.com.

Cheetah Technologies is a privately held company which is owned by the Pittsburgh based investment firms The Hawthorne Group and Rosetta Capital. The Hawthorne Group is an investment and management company with holdings in the communications, railroad, assisted living, soft drink bottling, and real estate businesses. Rosetta Capital focuses on acquiring operating businesses in service industries and niche manufacturing.

SOURCE Cheetah Technologies, LP