Video content is omnipresent today. Be it the entertainment industry, social media, or e-learning platforms, everywhere videos are used to convey information and entertain the audience.
A video content creator or distributor understands the need for Quality Control, which is an essential part of the process when the content is exchanged or modified, such as post-production, encoding, etc. Effective Quality Control ensures that the content submitted to the customers or distributed to the viewers is up to the mark and meets the necessary requirements for the next stage in the content workflow.
That’s where video quality control software comes in. A video quality control software can detect errors related to audio, video, container, and overall content, saving you time and money.
In today’s post, we’ll discuss how video-quality software works.
What are the typical file-based errors in a video?
Different types of errors can exist in video content, such as unwanted black frames, freeze frames, frameshift issues, audio phase errors, audio loudness, incorrect cadence, syntax errors, and many others. QC operators are skilled at finding many of these errors, but the manual approach does not scale well in comparison to a large number of files and formats in which the content has to be delivered.
Further, human inspection is subjective and QC results may vary depending on the personal opinions of individual operators.
Therefore, a blend of video quality control software and a manual review of the reports generated removes these problems.
So, let’s see how video quality control software works!
Working on a video quality control software
Here are the key steps in using video quality control software:
Step 1: Create a template according to delivery specifications
Delivery specifications are a set of requirements for transferring media content from the production/post-production company to the broadcast network or streaming service provider. It includes a list of acceptable formats and technical attributes like frame rate or picture size for the content and acceptable quality criteria.
Major streaming companies such as Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, and others have published their full specifications that specify their content technical requirements in detail.
So, first, a template should be created for quality control as per these delivery specifications. A template in QC software is a set of settings wherein you specify the parameters you need to measure along with their thresholds.
Step 2: Content Submission
The next step in the process is to submit the video content to the quality control software for analysis. This can be done manually, through an API or a watchfolder. A watchfolder is a directory in your storage that QC software monitors. As soon as new content appears in this watchfolder, QC process for this content is automatically triggered in the QC software. Using API to submit the content allows you to control the QC software from workflow management software.
Step 3: Content Analysis
Once the video is submitted, the software examines it for the various parameters such as resolution, bit rate, frame rate, and baseband issues for audio & video. It will report the location and type of errors in the submitted content.
Step 4: Review
Based on the analysis, the software generates a detailed QC report. The report highlights any issues with the content along with their precise location and description. Based on these reports, operators can review their content and take appropriate action.
Step 5: Decision
Finally, the operator can take decisions based on the QC report and their own review of issues. They can either rectify the content or reject the content asking the supplier to resubmit the content post-rectification.
Takeaway
With a detailed understanding of the working of video quality software, you can deploy and effectively use QC software in your content workflow to gain operational efficiency.
Venera Technologies offers a wide range of QC solutions for your on-premise as well as cloud workflow. It also offers ready-made templates as per the delivery specifications of major streaming platforms like Amazon, Netflix, HULU, iTunes, etc.
So, utilize the benefits of automated video quality control software and use your valuable resources efficiently.
