06 Oct What benefits does Quality of Experience QoE measurement bring to TV Broadcasters?

In mass media, especially on television broadcasting, content is the king, but quality is also a big driver for consumers. In fact, as important is the content television channels serve as the quality of experience QoE these channels offer to people.

For that reason, professionals in the industry have the responsibility and commitment to identify where quality is affected and why.

QoE

Let’s start remembering that QoE stands for Quality of Experience, a measure that let us know how satisfied users are. It could be applied to a wide range of services and products (digital service, app, video streaming service, website…). It is not about Quality of Service QoS. In any case, QoE is important for television providers because it provides insight into how users perceive the quality of their service.

The QoE requirements are defined from an end user perspective and, due to that, differences in perceptual acuity and preference mean that QoE judgments obtained from different people may vary. Therefore, measurements of QoE are generally made using group data. Where the necessary studies have been done to calibrate the relationship with QoE, it may also be estimated using objective measurements.

There are additional considerations that can determine the viewer’s response. Some of these factors affect the perception of quality, such as the context of the judgment (a particular image will be rated one way if it showed on a standard definition TV (SDTV), another on a high definition TV (HDTV), and still differently if the viewer show it in a video clip on Internet). Other implications that could affect to people’s reactions are related to cultural background, motivation, attention related factors, emotional state, and so on. That’s the reason why direct evaluations of QoE are designed to exclude these factors, since they are not generally under the control of an operator and so do not contribute to equipment requirements.

Other factors influence the viewer’s judgment of acceptability. These include things like previous experience with the specific communication mode or related modes (for instance, experience with old DVD format quality will influence how acceptable one finds IPTV or VoD), how much one is paying for the service, and what special benefits the service provides (mobility, time independence, exceptionally large program library), and so on.

Acceptability is not equivalent to QoE. A low-resolution video image will have a lower QoE than a high resolution image, but it may be completely acceptable for certain applications and services, depending on the end device, the physical size of the display, and the purpose for which it is being used.

Why you have to consider QoE

A lot of factors could affect QoE (some of them we have seen in this blog, as latency, jitter, and packet loss). Thanks to the technology companies could monitor QoE and can identify problems, which help to take steps to improve the quality of their service. In addition, QoE data can be used to benchmark performance against competitors. Ultimately, QoE is a valuable tool for understanding and improving the user experience.

So, there are a lot of reasons why companies must care about QoE. In fact, one of the main arguments is that the success of your business depends largely on its ability to offer outstanding services to end-users. The ability to assess and control what your end-user can experience is critical, so you can control if a customer decides to stay with you thanks to QoE. Performance and user experience must be managed by applying the true quality of end-to-end monitoring.

By doing it, you are putting the end-user at the heart of your business, and proactively monitoring your services. Measuring your quality of experience allows your business to monitor the performance of your services just as a real user would experience them, so you could truly understand their experience and sense.

Also, QoE could help companies to measure and improve the quality of their service by monitoring customer satisfaction levels and using feedback to improve the service. In the end, if a Broadcaster is able to offer an excellent QoE, it could improve the customer satisfaction levels and, thanks to that, increase customer loyalty and retention. In that sense, QoE is a vital tool for any television provider that wants to ensure the best possible level of service for its customers and therefore loyalty.

Remember that customers don’t tend to choose a product or service just only based on price. In fact, quality is one of the main considerations. Even more, studies have shown that customers are willing to pay more for a product or service that they think is made well or exceeds the standard. Your customers expect you to deliver quality products.

In the end, poor quality is a bad business and could increase costs while reducing revenues. An effective quality-control system in house (QoE measurement) could help you to analyze nonconforming goods or services to determine the root causes and retesting products after reworking them.