R&S^®DVQM Multichannel Video Quality Analyzer

Software

The DVQM functions are considerably enhanced by several software packages. The DTV NetView software comes with the DVQM for easy detection and clear display of the errors detected by the DVQM, as well as for easy configuration of all devices connected. The Quality Monitor, which also comes with the DVQM, allows continuous display and recording of the measurement results of an analyzer board and can conveniently be started from DTV NetView for individual analyzer boards. The Elementary Stream Analyzer allows in-depth analysis of an MPEG-2 video elementary stream monitored by an analyzer board (option DVQ-B1).

DTV NetView

One of the assets of DTV NetView is its high flexibility allowing it to be adapted to quite different monitoring system configurations. The adaptation is made with the aid of a special file reflecting the configuration of the monitoring system. Several DVQMs and DVQs can be integrated. DTV NetView also allows the integration of the DVRM and the DVMD; these are Rohde&Schwarz instruments for monitoring and analyzing of the transport stream syntax. After opening the configuration file via DTV NetView, all devices mentioned above are initialized and the structure read is displayed as a tree structure in the program window to provide a good overview of all the devices contained in the system. This tree structure also serves for selecting individual devices in order to start further programs (Quality Monitor or Stream Explorer), to configure these devices, or to display the status information for selected devices only. DTV NetView provides two different views, the Statistics and the Report view, for displaying the errors which have occurred. The Statistics view provides a quick overview of the current states of the programs monitored by the DVQ/DVQM. Symbolized LEDs indicate the status of each monitored parameter by a colour code. For a selected DVRM/DVDM, the Statistics view also shows how often each monitored parameter is out of the defined tolerances. A clear overview of the results of transport stream monitoring is thus obtained. The Report view shows a list of all events and errors. The information is read by all instruments integrated in the system and displayed according to time. Each entry in the list is provided with date and time. The instrument to which the entry refers is also shown. Any further information available, for example the program that has caused the error, is also displayed. The report can be continuously stored by DTV NetView in a file or a new file can automatically be selected for every day. Convenient and automated documentation of all events and errors is thus possible.

Quality Monitor

This software, which is also ideal for use with a DVQ, allows remote control of each analyzer board (DVQM-B2) in the same way as the DTV NetView software. In addition, it allows easy and continuous reading of the measured values: spatial and temporal activities, data rate and DVQL-W quality levels. The Quality Monitor can be installed on an external PC with MS Windows 95, 98 or NT 4.0 operating system. The connection to the DVQM is established via an RS-232-C or Ethernet interface. Using a compatible interchange format (CSV), the measured values can be continuously stored in a data memory and graphically displayed. An automatic, user-definable save function allows convenient storage of measurement results over any period of time.

Measured values displayed by Quality Monitor

Elementary Stream Analyzer

The Elementary Stream Analyzer is part of the Quality ExplorerTM DVQ-B1 software package and can be ordered as an option. The software option is enabled by a dongle at the parallel interface of the PC. The Elementary Stream Analyzer is installed on an external PC and connected to the analyzer board via the RS-232-C or Ethernet interface. It allows in-depth display, analysis and decoding of coded video data in MPEG-2 format down to the bit and byte level.

The following display modes are possible:

• Header and extension data at sequence, group and picture level
• Information at picture, slice and macroblock level
• Type, DC value and motion vectors per macroblock
• Macroblock statistics and decoding of each individual macroblock