SSIMPLUS® VQ Dial Benefits All Video Distributors.
The VQ Dial is the first viewer-centric solution that gives video providers the ultimate control to deliver a guaranteed target viewer experience at the absolute minimum cost.
A few ways VQ Dial delivers a fully optimized viewing experience:
- Set and forget with our Video Experience Automation technology.
- Adapt encoding bitrate to the visual quality and resolution targeted.
- Reduce re-buffering events by 50% and decrease video start times by 10%.
- Deliver consistent quality by adjusting encoding behavior to the content and device.
VQ Dial Reduces Cost by 50%, Even if You are Using CAE Encoder Technologies.
VQ Dial is the only solution able to traverse the entire network to optimize your video encoding settings for the targeted viewer experience while reducing your costs.
Dial in your targeted quality and dial down costs.
VQ Dial controls your encoder to ensure every file and stream meets the target Viewer Experience Score.
Dial in your target quality.
Our AI can see like a human viewer and it allows you to set a quality score and keep it consistent across your network.
Here’s how VQ Dial works:
Set the target quality to 85 for an excellent viewing experience. Dial up to 90 and your viewers will receive the industry’s best viewing quality. Need to save? 80 provides a balance of quality and cost savings.
Why SSIMPLUS Score makes VQ Dial the best solution:
- Rates video quality as your video viewer actually perceives it.
- Provides a consistent quality score across devices and for each resolution.
- SSIMPLUS accurately correlates to what humans see.
Here’s what you could be saving with VQ Dial.
| Number of subscribers | 5,000,000 |
|---|---|
| Hours watched per month/subscriber | 20 |
| Average bitrate of top profile | 5.8 Mbps |
| Number of video hours in library | 20,000 |
| Cost per GB delivered CDN egress | $ 0.005 |
Calculations are based on SDR, H. 264 codec, 1080p resolution, 29.97fps. Contact Us if you want to receive calculations for the other parameters.
VQ Dial Integrates Simply with All Workflows.
Because of the black box design of many video encoding solutions, some may feel that it’s not possible to guarantee quality unless you are able to fully control the encoder. VQ Dial works across all standard video encoders and adapts your encoding solution in accordance to the source quality, content behavior, and encoder performance, while functioning as a control plane that integrates with any existing video encoding pipeline.
Respected and Recognized
The SSIMPLUS® algorithm is the power behind VQ Dial.
The foundation of the VQ Dial is the SSIMPLUS algorithm that is so uniquely powerful that it was awarded a 2020 Technology and Engineering Emmy® Award.
Media & entertainment companies, pay TV distributors, and streaming services rely on our Video Experience Automation Platform to delight their users.
SSIMPLUS delivers the most trustworthy Viewer Experience Score by replicating the human viewer experience and closely correlating with Mean Opinion Scores.
How SSIMPLUS compares to VMAF, SSIM, PSNR for dialing in quality.
SSIMPLUS delivers a trustworthy Viewer Experience Score for Live and VOD regardless of content type, source quality, frame rate, resolution, codec, dynamic range, device, or visual impairments.
| Success Criteria | VMAF | SSIM | PSNR | SSIMPLUS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Consistent across content type | Partially | Partially | Partially | Yes |
| 2 | Consistent across impairments | No | No | No | Yes |
| 3 | Consistent across content attributes | Partially | Partially | Partially | Yes – HDR, WCG |
| 4 | Source quality (incl. no-reference) | No | No | No | Yes |
VQ Dial Compared to Content-Adaptive Encoders.
VQ Dial is the only solution able to traverse the entire network to optimize your video encoding settings ensuring that you are not over-encoding or under-encoding your content for the platforms that you are targeting.
| Criteria | VQ Dial | Content Adaptive Encoder |
|---|---|---|
| Video Experience | Starts with your business goal and delivers consistently the targeted Viewer Experience Score. | Promises to “keep the quality same as before”. Optimizes for bitrate, not Viewer Experience, has big variations in video quality. |
| Efficiency | Does not waste any bits – quality is consistent throughout the whole library (no more no less). | Doesn’t use bitrate efficiently – wastes bits when quality is above the target and deteriorates the experience when quality is below. |
| Source-aware | Considers both source and encode quality. | Blind to source quality. |
| Customizable | Flexible, can easily set different Viewer Experience score for each asset or group of assets in the VOD Library. | N/A |
| Customizable | Achieves up to 50% savings on top of what your current content-aware approach can deliver that can equate to millions of $$$ per year in delivery cost savings. | Achieves less savings: doesn’t give you that ability to dial quality/savings based on your business goals. |
| Formats | Supports all content types such as HDR10 and Dolby Vision. Measures colour quality. | Colour Blind. Typically do not support HDR. |
| Impairments | Does not suffer from challenging impairments such as Banding or Contouring. | Does not suffer from challenging impairments such as Banding or Contouring. |
| Monitoring | Built-in monitoring platform. | Requires separate monitoring. |
| Monitoring | Uses the most accurate perceptual quality metric. The emmy Award-winning SSIMPLUS algorithm that accurately “sees” video quality like an actual viewer will see. | Use quasi/pseudo metrics that do not accurately predict the Viewer Experience. |
Finally, you can deliver consistent viewer experiences.
No more quality dips! In this example, VQ Dial achieves a target viewer score of 85 at a 34% savings compared with a Content Adaptive Encoder.
The green line is the SSIMPLUS VQ Dial optimized asset, the orange is encoded with a state-of-the-art content-aware encoder. The CAE encoder spends more bits than needed as quality fluctuates below and above the target.
FAQs
How does it work?
VQ Dial drives video encoding to deliver the target Viewer Experience at the lowest possible cost. A video service doesn’t have to change their existing workflow as VQ Dial would work and behave the same way as the current encoder does. The only difference is that you would use VQ Dial instead of your encoder and VQ Dial would use your encoder on your behalf.
How easy is it to deploy?
VQ Dial is a flexible and scalable software solution that already supports the best performing encoders. You can use your existing workflow to take advantage of VQ Dial with no changes needed to your tech stack.
How easy is it to set up a trial?
As easy as 1-2-3. If you are interested, please contact us at qualitydial@ssimwave.com
With what encoders is it compatible?
VQ Dial supports most commonly used and best performing encoders. We would be happy to add support for an encoder that we do not currently support upon request.
Additional questions?
If you have additional questions like:
- How does the performance compare with content-aware encoding approaches?
- What do you recommend as a target score for my library?
- How long does it take to encode an hour long asset?
- Does the solution create a full ABR stack? How is the ABR stack determined?
- or any others, please contact us at qualitydial@ssimwave.com
- or fill in this form https://www.ssimwave.com/talk-to-a-rep-form/
