Brix Networks announced an enhanced IP video quality algorithm - the Brix Video Quality Index (Brix VQI) - that ensures providers' success with their IPTV rollouts.

"In order to effectively deliver profitable triple-play services, cultivate customer loyalty, and grow market share, it is essential that network operators provide their subscribers with high-quality offerings," said Robert Travis, director of product marketing, Brix Networks. "Our VQI technology is a critical component of our comprehensive service assurance platform, and helps determine the overall quality of a variety of existing and emerging IP-based video applications, such as IPTV, video-on-demand, and interactive video."

According to a recent Light Reading Insider's report, "IPTV: Where the Money Is," IPTV will capture 65 million subscribers worldwide by 2010, and carriers will spend an estimated $21 billion over the next five years in order to deploy the systems needed to deliver those services.

The Brix VQI is an objective measurement scale for video over IP networks and applications providing accurate, easy-to-understand metrics for highly distributed, large-scale carrier and enterprise networks. The Brix VQI incorporates the impact of network transmission quality - the most important factor contributing to video quality - and quantifies the effect latency, packet loss, jitter, packet discards, buffering, and re-buffering events have on a video service.

With today's announcement, the Brix VQI has been enhanced to be "application aware," meaning it can distinguish, analyze, and correlate the key performance indicators (KPIs) related to data impairments that, in turn, contribute to picture jerkiness, blurriness, or no picture in video-based services.

"Brix Networks has established itself as a leader in the VoIP testing and monitoring market," observed Jessy Cavazos, program manager, communications test and measurement practice, at Frost & Sullivan. "Due to its broad customer base and extensible product family, it doesn't surprise us that the company is also taking a leadership role in the IP video service assurance market."

"Developed with ongoing standards initiatives in mind, Brix VQI is an innovative video quality algorithm that yields useable metrics to generate an IP video quality score - per video stream - that accurately represents the user's quality of experience," said Brix Networks' chief technology officer, Kaynam Hedayat. "VQI builds on our extensive industry-leading experience in VoIP networks, and quantifies the impact that latency, initial wait time, network jitter, packet loss, and other application-level impairments have on the overall performance of an IP video service."

Similar to the widely accepted Mean Opinion Score (MOS) that has historically been used to determine voice quality, the Brix VQI measures video quality on a scale of 1-5, with higher scores reflecting fewer impairments and a greater likelihood of overall customer satisfaction. The codec-independent Brix VQI is a valuable tool for providers to monitor and predict the expected quality versus actual quality of their IP video services.

The patent-pending Brix VQI technology goes beyond providing typical media measurements and, by leveraging the unique Brix Tri-Q Analysis capabilities, also analyzes and monitors the session quality, signaling quality, and delivery quality of IP video services. The Brix VQI is used for continuous monitoring and to baseline performance, and also helps increase service visibility from the edge of the IP network to the core of IP video delivery.

Brix Networks' seamlessly integrated hardware and software products, collectively called the Brix System, are strategic and indispensable service assurance solutions that proactively monitor VoIP and IP video quality. Network operators use the Brix System to guarantee the successful launch and ongoing, profitable operation of their VoIP and IP video services.

The company also offers two free, self-service testing portals - www.TestYourIPVideo.com and www.TestYourVoIP.com - that enable users to independently measure the quality they are receiving from their interactive or streaming IP-based video services and VoIP connections, respectively.