MPEG-4 HD interoperability tests show good results

Thursday 03 Nov 2011
A series of MPEG-4 HD video encoder and decoder interoperability tests involving equipment from six vendors has recorded a 98 percent pass rate.

The tests were conducted over a five-day period in October for the World Broadcasting Unions International Satellite Operations Group, WBU-ISOG.

Each participating vendor created 22 HD transport streams based on parameters set by WBU-ISOG. The transport streams were uploaded to a server and made available for downloading to all participants for internal vendor testing. Vendors then took their equipment to Telesat of Canada, which conducted formal tests.

A total of 588 video tests were conducted on 121 MPEG-4 high definition transport streams in all four HD formats. Of these, 581 recorded an unconditional pass.

Five of the seven failures were due to a single decoder. Four of the six vendors recorded a 100 percent pass rate.

The tests were overseen by Tom Gibbon, Consultant to Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK, on behalf of WBU-ISOG.

“One of the reasons the tests turned out so well is because of the hard work the vendors did before the tests,” he told a WBU-ISOG Forum in Zagreb.

A total of 112 audio interoperability tests were also conducted, with 105 rated an unconditional pass.