Blind frame freeze detection in coded videos

In multimedia systems, system errors and artifacts should be avoided in order to keep the Quality of Experience (QoE) of the user as high as possible. For that, the system should be tested and monitored for a long time to assure normal operation. In this paper, we present a new algorithm that automatically detects freezing artifacts in coded videos. The system output is captured and encoded, and the error/artifact detection is run later on the decoded video. One major constraint on our detection algorithm is that every freeze should be detected in order to analyze the reason of its occurrence. Such a constraint entails a high number of false alarms when using the standard freeze detection algorithms. For that, we present a new algorithm that keeps the number of true positives to its maximum, while minimizing the number of false positives.