Sky Deutschland selects Witbe for Ultra HD/4K STB video analysis

Sky Deutschland selects Witbe for the Ultra HD/4K Video analysis of its set-top-boxes platform

PARIS, France — Witbe, the leader in Quality of Experience Monitoring, has been selected by Sky Deutschland, a leading entertainment company in Germany and Austria, to automate the analysis and testing of their Sky set-top-boxes. Witbe Robots will support Sky to provide the best video Quality of Experience to its customers. Witbe video algorithm and monitoring Robots analyze the video quality of Sky’s set-top-boxes continuously during the software development phases.

Sky Deutschland is committed to delivering the best viewing experience to its customers across their several set-top-box platforms. Sky Deutschland wants to keep their customers happy and needs them to have the best Quality of Experience. Therefore, they sought out cutting edge technology to make sure that changes in the encoding backend or in the set-top-box software do not introduce sporadic macro blocking or blocky artifacts in the videos they play back on their set-top-boxes. Sky Deutschland has decided to work with Witbe to cope with this challenge, choosing Witbe Video Robots and the proprietary algorithm Witbe VQ-MOS (Video Quality – Mean Opinion Score rating), representing precisely how the human eye perceives the quality of a video. Witbe´s Robots will ensure that any video quality disruptions will be detected before the deployment of any changes and will speed up the analysis and diagnostics of sporadic field issues.

Witbe Video Robots help Sky Deutschland to automatically test and measure in real-time the video quality really delivered to their end-users. Witbe Robots act as real-end users, connected to Sky’s set-top-box in various test scenarios, to truly assess the quality of any video stream. Augmented with Witbe VQ-MOS – the only perceptual, non-reference-based video algorithm – the Witbe Robots verify the availability, performance, and integrity of the video services provided on the Sky set-top-boxes. With Witbe VQ-MOS, Sky receives different KPIs visible by the human eye such as jerkiness, blurriness, blockiness, motion, and spatial complexity analysis. With this information, Sky’s Quality Assurance teams can better qualify the impact of changes in the video delivery chain, such as encoding, decoding and transport.

Stefan Kastl, Director CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) at Sky Deutschland, said: “It is fundamental for us to deliver the best end-user experience. Witbe enables us to keep improving the Sky experience. Witbe gave us the technology we needed, and we are eager to keep working with their team”.

Marie-Véronique Lacaze, Co-Founder, President & Chief Executive Officer of Witbe further commented: “We are very proud that we were selected by Sky Deutschland for video analysis of their set-top-boxes. With our Witbe Video Robots up to date for Sky’s latest UHD/4K streaming technologies and our Witbe VQ-MOS, we are helping Sky Deutschland deliver an impeccable Quality of Experience to their customers. It is also an honor for us to add Sky Deutschland to our clients in Europe, supporting our ongoing growth in the German market. This is also why Witbe is back again at IBC this year, to meet our clients and prospects in Europe. Our team will be welcoming you in hall 5 on booth A69, ready to give you a demo of our competitive advantages”.