Monitoring Viewer Experience for Digital Terrestrial and Cable Television

This paper describes a monitoring solution for the viewer experience on digital terrestrial and cable television. Compared to other systems, the proposed solution uses additional information provided by monitoring also the same television programs broadcasted by satellite, what is a commonly encountered situation. Also, it can simultaneously monitor all the television programs broadcasted on one terrestrial or cable channel. The viewer experience can be evaluated by monitoring 24/7 a set of parameters measured in key network locations and by correlating their values. It is thus possible to determine the cause that led to a drop in the video quality. Test results are presented for the terrestrial programs of the Romanian National Television.