File-Based QC
Pulsar
Automated File-Based QC
Pulsar is the fastest, most comprehensive, and versatile file-based Automated QC system in the market. It automates quality check and control at every stage of the content life-cycle. With support for the latest technologies, such as HDR, IMF and 4K, Pulsar allows you to remain ahead of the curve by tackling the quality issues early and efficiently. Additionally, it’s incredibly simple to use. With support for all Broadcast/OTT formats along with a wide range of checks, Pulsar is ready to be used in a wide range of workflows, including Broadcast, Production, Post Production, Media Services, Archiving, and Over-the-Top.
Fast and Scalable
Fastest QC system in the market with up to 6x faster than real-time analysis speed for HD content and near real-time analysis for JPEG-2000 4K content. Faster QC results into lesser licenses for a given content volume with a direct impact on investment in the QC system. It also improves the workflow throughout with quicker access to QC results. You can also easily setup a verification cluster with multiple QC verification units for higher system throughout.
HDR built-in
Perform QC of your Dolby-Vision, HDR-10, and HDR-10+ content. You can perform a variety of metadata validation checks along with detailed reporting of HDR parameters. You can also cross-check the video properties between the HDR metadata and the video essence. The HDR toolset in Pulsar is the most comprehensive and significantly aids in setting up and managing your HDR workflows efficiently.
IMF integrated
Pulsar has the most comprehensive support for IMF packages. Some of the key capabilities include:
- Support for Application #2E and SMPTE TSP 2121
- Package validation
- Supplementary package support
- CPL and OPL based validation
- Sidecar composition map validation
- Photon integration
VOD and Adaptive Bitrate
With built-in support for adaptive bitrate formats as well as fragmented MP4, Pulsar allows users to automate the QC of Video-on-demand assets. Key capabilities include:
- Formats. MPEG-DASH, Apple HLS and Microsoft Smooth Streaming
- Encrypted packages support
- Auto-assignment of different QC templates to different encoding profiles
- Adaptive bitrate package specific checks to help validate the integrity of ABR packages
Compliance
Ensures that your content complies with country regulations and customer specifications.
- Photosensitive Epilepsy using Harding PSE engine & get a Harding certificate for every job.
- Compliance with Audio loudness against CALM act, EBU R128, and OP-59 recommendations.
- Compliance with legal luminance & chrominance range or RGB Gamuts.
- Compliance against presence of Emergency Alert System (EAS) messages in the content.
- Compliance against Netflix, iTunes, DPP, ARD-ZDF, and many other organizations using our ready-to-use factory templates.
Track Layout
Many content applications, such as advertisement content delivery, require certain content segments to be present at the head and tail of the content. These content segments may include color bars, black frames, freeze frames, slates, audio mute, tones, and silence. You can set up your custom track layouts and validate the overall structure. This can be done in conjunction with the template checks.
An overview of the Pulsar features:
Features
- Perpetual license or Pay-Per-Use
- Can be deployed on premise or in the cloud
- Different editions are available
- Rapid checks
- Verification checks
Verification checks
Workflow integration
Pulsar is based on SOA architecture and exposes XML/SOAP APIs for integration. Pulsar has been integrated with multiple leading suppliers in the industry. SDK is available for free with access to sample codes, WSDL and documentation, using which you can easily integrate Pulsar with your workflow management system.
Pulsar Editions
| Professional | Standard | Basic | Pay-Per-Use | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No of simultaneous files | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Maximum cores | 32 | 8 | 4 | 4 |
| Verification Unit cluster | Yes | No | No | No |
| Watch Folders | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Web Service API | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Media Player * | * | * | * | * |
| Controller Plus * | * | No | No | No |
| Rapid * | * | No | No | No |
| DD/DD+ * | * | * | * | No |
| Dolby-E * | * | * | * | No |
| Nielsen watermark * | * | * | No | No |
| Loudness correction * | * | * | * | * |
| VC-1, WMA | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| JPEG-2000 | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Fast JPEG-2000 | * | * | No | Yes |
| HEVC | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Adaptive Bitrate Formats | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Harding PSE * | * | * | * | * |
| IMF/DCP | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Image sequence | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| HDR | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Track Layout | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Audio Language Identification | * | * | * | No |
* Optional feature
- Verification Unit Cluster: Ability to cluster multiple Verification Units together to process a larger number of files simultaneously.
- Controller Plus: Ability to provide automatic fail-over redundancy for the Pulsar Controller.
- Rapid: A module that allows to quickly check and sort media files based on metadata header information.
- Media Player: Media player linked with Pulsar reports for visual review.
- Audio Language Identification: Auto-identification of audio language from audio media data.
The Pulsar system specifications:
Hardware Requirements
Entry level system
- Intel Xeon E-2186G, 3.8 GHz, 6 cores CPU or similar
- 16 GByte RAM
- 512 GByte SSD
- Nvidia Quadro P400
- 1 Gbps Ethernet
- USB 3 Connector
- Windows 10 Pro
- Google Chrome
Best value system
- Intel Xeon 6242R, 3.1 GHz, 20 cores CPU or similar
- 32 GByte RAM
- 512 GByte SSD
- Nvidia Quadro P400
- 1 Gbps Ethernet
- USB 3 Connector
- Windows 10 Pro
- Google Chrome
Supported Formats
Container
(encrypted and unencrypted)
Video Codecs
- H.265
- H.264
- AVC-Intra 50/100
- SONY XAVC
- MPEG-2 (D10, XDCAM, HDCAM, IMX-30/50)
- VC-1
- DV
- DVCPro25
- DVCPro50
- DVCPro100/HD)
- Avid DNxHD (VC-3), DNxHR
- Apple ProRes 422 (HQ, SD, LT, Proxy), ProRes 4444
- Canopus HQ/HQX
- JPEG-2000
- Uncompressed (RGB, YUV)
Audio Codecs
- LPCM, AES3
- AC3 (DD), SMPTE 302M, E-AC3 (DD+),
- MPEG-1/2, AAC, HE-AAC
- WMA (Standard & Pro)
- Dolby-E
- Audio streams
HDR
- HDR-10
- HDR-10+
- Dolby Vision
- Container: MXF, GXF, LXF, MOV, MP4, 3GPP, MPEG-2 TS, MPEG-2 PS, FLV, WMV, AVI, Matrox AVI, WAV, BWF, AIFF, DPX, JP2, TIFF, Smooth Streaming, HLS, MPEG-DASH, IMF, DCP (encrypted and unencrypted), AS-02, AS-11, Elementary
- Video: H.265, H.264 (incl. AVC-Intra 50/100 and SONY XAVC), MPEG-2 (incl. D10, XDCAM, HDCAM, IMX-30/50), VC-1, DV (incl. DVCPro25, DVCPro50, DVCPro100/HD), Avid DNxHD (VC-3), Avid DNxHR, Apple ProRes 422 (HQ, SD, LT, Proxy), ProRes 4444, Canopus HQ/HQX, JPEG-2000, Uncompressed (RGB, YUV)
- Audio: LPCM, AES3, AC3 (DD), SMPTE 302M, E-AC3 (DD+), MPEG-1/2, AAC, HE-AAC, WMA (Standard & Pro), Dolby-E, Audio stems
- HDR: HDR-10, HDR-10+, Dolby Vision
Verification Checks
General
- General: Compliance, Factory templates – Netflix, DPP, Amazon Prime, ARD-ZDF, Loudness (R128, CALM, OP-59, ARIB), iTunes & CableLabs
- IMF/DCP: CPL based analysis, Package validation, CPL cross checks, CPL checks, PKL cross checks, OPL checks, Assetmap check, IMSC checks, Sidecar checks, Netflix Photon validation
- ABR: Playlist cross checks. Segment cross checks, Profile cross checks, Encrypted Packages
Container
Conformance, Format, File Size, Media Info metadata dump, File name validation, MD5, SHA1 Hash, No of streams, Incorrect extension, Selective track analysis
MXF: AS-11 descriptive metadata, Version, Operational pattern, Timecode presence/track count/mode/start value/source, Index table presence/location/completeness/correctness, Origin parameters, KLV alignment grid/fill elements, Partitions validity/Status/Completeness/Instance count/Index table presence/Essence presence/Max length, Essence wrapping/external check/referencing/partition strategy, Audio track numbers/element size/channel count/configurations, Descriptive metadata presence/scheme, Run-in sequence, Random index pack, Segmentation track, File package count, Index edit rate, Index duration, Audio/Video sample rate, Audio/Video stream type, Audio/Video edit rate, Video line map, Stored width, Stored height, Display width, Display height, Aspect ratio, Component depth, Horizontal sub-sampling, Vertical sub-sampling, System item presence, Block Align, Channel status mode, Fixed channel status data, Stored F2 offset, Display F2 offset, Sampled X/Y offset, Display X/Y offset, Identical GOP indicator, Edit unit byte count, Slice count, Dark metadata, Timecode frame drop, Audio locked/unlocked status, Audio ref level, Sampling rate, Quantization bits, Average bytes per second, Index start position, Single index location, Single essence location, Forward index direction, Image start/end offset, Color siting, Padding bits, Black ref level, White ref level, Color range, Constant B picture flag, Single sequence, Low delay
Transport Streams: SCTE35, Program count, PCR Jitter, Packet Length, PID Usage, PIDs, PID Bitrate, Packet Intervals, PAT checks, PMT checks, Stream checks, PES checks, Language Metadata Verification
QuickTime: Checks and correction for PASP, FIEL, GAMA, CLAP, COLR. Channel Configuration, Track properties, Movie properties, Language Metadata Verification, Check disabled tracks, Check multiple codec entries, Check Timecode properties
Video Essence
Audio Essence
Audio Codec, Sampling Frequency, Quantization Bits, Channels, Bitrate (CBR/VBR), Drops, Silence, Mute, Test Tones, Loudness (R128, CALM, AGCOM, ARIB, Speech Gated), Loudness Range, Dialnorm, Sample Peak (DBFS, PPM), True Peak, Dual Mono, Clipping, EAS tone, Phase Mismatch, Nielsen Watermarks, Language ID, Mosquito Tone, Quasi Peak
HDR
- Parameters: HDR Formats, Reporting of HDR10, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision metadata
- Static Metadata: Verify (display color primaries, mastering display luminance, content light level)
- Dynamic Metadata: Compliance, Validate HDR10+ metadata (MaxSCL, Average Max RGB, Distribution values, Tone mapping information, Targeted system display maximum luminance), Validate Dolby Vision metadata (Metadata version, shot must not contain <0,0,0> in level 1 metadata, Detect duplicate dynamic metadata, Crosscheck canvas aspect ratio, Crosscheck Video track information, Crosscheck (Calculated/metadata) Image aspect ratio
Cross-checks
- Video-Container: Width, Height, Frame rate, Aspect ratio, Bitrate, Profile/Level, Scan mode, Field order, Chroma format, GOP type, GOP length, B-pictures, Low delay, Duration, Component depth
- Audio-Container: Sampling frequency, Bit depth, Channels, Bitrate, Duration
- Audio-Video: Duration in meta-data, Actual duration
- Correction: Loudness correction for PCM and MPEG -1 L2 audio, QuickTime meta-data
- Meta data: Closed Captions (608/708) presence/conformance/format/location, Line 21 VBI Caption Decode, AFD, Bar, V-Chip, Teletext
Rapid Check
- File Rules Incorrect extension, File Size, Invalid file characters
- Video Codec, Video Format, Chroma Format, Colour Matrix, Scan Mode, Duration, Frame Rate, Resolution, Display Aspect Ratio, Pixel Aspect Ratio, Profile/Level, Bit Depth, Buffer Size, Entropy Coding, Reference Pictures, MBAFF
- Audio Codec, Sampling Frequency, Quantization Bits, Channels, Profile
- Container Format, No. of Video/Audio streams, Track Duration, PASP, GAMA, CLAP, FIEL, COLR, Channel Configuration
The Pulsar related HowTo videos:
Venera
Venera specializes in providing cutting edge solutions in the field of digital media. The company offers a wide range of solutions, starting from test and measurement solutions for the broadcast market, to enterprise solutions for corporate training and distance education. Since its inception in 2003, the company has been delivering quality, innovative solutions and creating long-lasting relationships with its customers. Today, more than a hundred organizations worldwide trust Venera's solutions and technologies for different applications - from testing to communications.
Based in USA and India.
The Team
Vikas Singhal
Fereidoon Khosravi
Sanjeev Saini
