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Pulsar – Automated file based QC

Fastest, most versatile on-premise Audio/Video QC

Free Whitepaper for you!!

Free Whitepaper for you!!

Overview

Pulsar is the fastest, most comprehensive and versatile file-based Automated MEDIA QUALITY CONTROL system in the market. It automates quality check and control at every stage of the content life-cycle. With support for 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. What’s more, it’s incredibly simple to use! With support for all Broadcast/OTT formats along with wide range of checks, Pulsar is ready to be used in wide range of workflows including Broadcast, Production, Post Production, Media Services, Archiving and Over-the-Top.

Overview

Pulsar is the fastest, most comprehensive and versatile file-based Automated media quality control system in the market. It automates quality check and control at every stage of the content life-cycle. With support for latest technologies such as HDR, IMF and 4K, Pulsar, QC software  of choice for many media organizations, allows you to remain ahead of the curve by tackling the quality issues early and efficiently. What’s more, it’s incredibly simple to use! With support for all Broadcast/OTT formats along with wide range of checks, Pulsar is ready to be used for QC check in wide range of workflows including Broadcast, Production, Post Production, Media Services, Archiving and Over-the-Top.

Features & Benefits

Fast & Scalable

Pulsar allows 6x faster than real-time analysis speed for HD content. This results in quicker access to QC results and lesser investment for a given content volume. You can set up a cluster with multiple verification QC units for higher system throughout.

High Dynamic Range

Pulsar has the most comprehensive HDR toolset for performing a variety of metadata validation checks and detailed reporting of HDR parameters. You can also cross-check the video properties between HDR metadata and video essence. Dolby Vision, HDR-10 and HDR-10+ formats are supported.

Interoperable Master Format

Pulsar offers comprehensive checks for IMF packages such as package validation, CPL and OPL based validation, support for Application# 2E and SMPTE TSP 212, sidecar composition map validation, and others.

Factory Templates

With Pulsar’s ready-to-use factory templates, you can check compliance with major content delivery platforms. You can also customize these templates as needed.

VOD QC
VOD

Pulsar has built-in support for adaptive bitrate and fragmented MP4 formats, allowing users to automate QC of video-on-demand assets.

Compliance
Compliance

Pulsar, with its wide range of QC checks, ensures that your content is compliant with regulations and customer specifications such as Photosensitive Epilepsy Validation, audio loudness against CALM act, EBU R128 and OP-59 recommendations, compliance with legal luminance & chrominance range or RGB Gamuts, and others.

Track Layout

Many applications such as Advertisement content delivery, requires certain segments to be present at head and tail of the content. This may include color bars, black frames, freeze frames, slates, audio mute, tones and silence. Pulsar with its advanced QC checks allows you to setup your track layouts and validate it.

Fast & Scalable

Pulsar allows 6x faster than real-time analysis speed for HD content. This results in quicker access to QC results and lesser investment for a given content volume. You can set up a cluster with multiple verification QC units for higher system throughout.

High Dynamic Range

Pulsar has the most comprehensive HDR toolset for performing a variety of metadata validation checks and detailed reporting of HDR parameters. You can also cross-check the video properties between HDR metadata and video essence. Dolby Vision, HDR-10 and HDR-10+ formats are supported.

Interoperable Master Format

Pulsar offers comprehensive checks for IMF packages such as package validation, CPL and OPL based validation, support for Application# 2E and SMPTE TSP 212, sidecar composition map validation, and others.

Factory Templates

With Pulsar’s ready-to-use factory templates, you can check compliance with major content delivery platforms. You can also customize these templates as needed.

VOD QC
VOD

Pulsar has in-built support for adaptive bitrate and fragmented MP4 formats, allowing users to automate QC of video-on-demand assets.

Compliance
Compliance

Pulsar ensures that your content is compliant with regulations and customer specifications such as Photosensitive Epilepsy Validation, audio loudness against CALM act, EBU R128 and OP-59 recommendations, compliance with legal luminance & chrominance range or RGB Gamuts, and others.

Track Layout

Many application such as Advertisement content delivery, requires certain segments to be present at head and tail of the content. This may include color bars, black frames, freeze frames, slates, audio mute, tones and silence. Pulsar allows you to setup your track layouts and validate it.

Our customers

Venera serves some of the finest companies of the world in helping improve their content QC operations. Here’s a snapshot of the brands who trust us.

Venera Client Third Eye
Venera client AMC network
Venera Client Ibfbs
Venera client cinidigm
Venera Client Disney
Venera Client Emilel
Venera client Extreme reach
Venera Client HBO
Venera Client Hearst
Venera NBC Universal
Venera Client NEC
Venera Client Sony
Venera Client Toei
Venera Client tokia
Venera Client TSP media

Wide range of checks

Pulsar – Automated file based QC software supports a wide range of QC checks. Small selection of checks are displayed here. Click here for the detailed list.

Color Gamut

Colour Gamut

Active Region

Active Region

Cadence

Cadence

Flshaframes

Flash Frames

Photosensitive Epilepsy

Photosensitive Epilepsy

Language ID

Audio Loudness

Audio Loudness

Audio Peaks

Audio Clipping

EAS

EAS

Audio Test Tone

Audio Test Tone

Audio Drops

Audio Drops

Technical specifications

Pulsar supports a wide range of broadcast, archiving and VOD formats. It also allows a wide range of audio, video checks on media content.

Formats

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: 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

 

Video Parameters: Codec, Video Format, Color space, Chroma Format, Color Matrix, Color Primaries, Transfer Characteristics, Scan Mode, Duration, Frame Rate, Resolution, Display/Pixel Aspect Ratio, GOP Length, GOP Type, Field Order, Frame Sizes, Buffer Size, Bitrate (CBR/VBR), Profile/Level, Entropy Coding, Reference Pictures, MBAFF, Timecode Discontinuity, Timecode frame drop, 2020 Color Space, Progression Order, Wavelet Transform

 

Video Quality: Black Frames, Blockiness, Brightness, Cadence, Chroma Hits, Chroma Line, Clipping, Colored Frames, Color Bars, Color Gamut, Combing, Credit Roll, Camera Dead Pixels, Dead Pixels, Digital Hits, Field Dominance, Flash Frames, Freeze Frames, Luma/Chroma levels, Half/Full lines, Bar Artefacts, Letter/Pillar Box, Framing Issue, Photosensitive Epilepsy (Harding)(SDR and HDR), Low Video Level, Low Black Level, FBI Warning Card, URL detection, Media Offline, Slate, Postal Stamp

 

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

 

Audio: 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, Language ID, Mosquito Tone, Quasi Peak

 

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

 

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

 

Reference-based Analysis: Ref-Q, SSIM, PSNR

Workflow integrations

We actively integrate with the prominent solutions in digital media industry to provide an integrated offering for your workflows that are easy & efficient to use.

Venera Client aws Elemental

Factory templates

We provide ready-to-use templates of technical specifications required by these prominent content platforms, which can be used by you for the specific channel you want to display your content.

Venera Client Prime Video
Venera Client Netflix
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Pulsar editions

Professional

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Standard

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Basic

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Pay-Per-Use

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Professional

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Basic

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Pay-Per-Use

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*Optional features

 

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.

 

Media Player: Media player linked with Pulsar reports for visual review.

 

Audio Language Identification: Auto-identification of audio language from audio media data.

FAQ’s

What type of QC can Pulsar perform?

Pulsar can perform a wide range of QC checks at the video, audio, container, and metadata level. Pulsar can check the compliance of IMF/DCP packages. Pulsar supports HDR formats (HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision). Pulsar’s video quality checker can also perform reference-based measurements such as PSNR, SSIM and Venera’s own Ref-Q for media content.

What are the main advantages of using Pulsar?

Pulsar is the fastest, most comprehensive, and most versatile file-based Automated QC software in the market. The Pulsar Pro edition can perform the QC analysis of HD files 6 times faster than real-time. Pulsar’s User Interface is considered by many to be the easiest and most intuitive. Pulsar Pay Per Use edition is the only usage-based on-premise QC software for those with limited content volume or infrequent need for a professional QC solution.

Does Pulsar perform QC on live content?

Pulsar will not perform QC on live content. Pulsar is an automated file-based QC system for file-based content.

What are the different ways through which I can process files with Pulsar?

You can process files with Pulsar either manually or in an automated way. For automatic processing, you can process files through the watch folder or using SOAP API.

Can I perform a Harding test on HDR content?

Yes, Pulsar can perform the Harding test on HDR contents based on the ITU BT-1702-2 and JAPAN HDR specification. HDR-10 and Dolby-Vision formats are currently supported in Pulsar.

Can I integrate Pulsar into my workflow? What options are available?

Yes, you can integrate Pulsar into your workflow using SOAP API.

Can I install Pulsar as a windows service?

Yes, Pulsar can not only be installed as an application, but it can also be installed as a windows service.

What type of correction can Pulsar perform?

You can automatically correct the Integrated loudness of your file. Loudness correction is supported only for PCM and MPEG-1 layer 2 audio.

How Pulsar can process high-volume content?

Pulsar can process four files in parallel with one verification unit of Pulsar professional. Pulsar can process even more files by adding more verification units.

Can I run Pulsar on a virtual machine?

Yes, you can run Pulsar on a virtual machine.

Can I install Pulsar on Mac or Linux system?

Pulsar is a windows-based software. However, in addition to running Pulsar natively on windows-based machines, Pulsar can run on Macs that run Windows emulation software like Parallels or Bootcamp. Pulsar and all of its QC checks can also be run on a Linux system via a windows-based VM.

Blog articles

Our experts and thought leaders share their knowledge of technologies pertaining to QC solutions for digital media industry in these scholarly articles.

What is Cadence and why its validation is important?

Feb 14, 2024

Understanding video cadence (or pull-down) in the broadcast industry can be challenging. In this blog article, we will explain what Cadence (or Pull-down) is along with its practical application, and different pull-down patterns.

Frame Shifting or Blanking Shift Issue Unveiled

Dec 13, 2023

What is frame shifting, it's impact on video quality, and how to overcome the challenge effectively with automated QC tools?

qc-dolby-atmos

Understanding Dolby Atmos and its QC challenges

Aug 10, 2023

Dolby Atmos is a revolutionary leap in surround sound technology that takes the audio experience to a whole new level. Learn more about it.

Caption-Audio Synchronization issues due to editing: Automated QC and alignment 

Nov 1, 2023

By leveraging automated QC tools, content creators can ensure precise caption-audio synchronization, and save  time and resources while delivering high-quality, synchronized captions for their videos.

Importance of QC in Audio Phase issues

Aug 29, 2023

Audio phase plays a pivotal role in sound reproduction. Understand the causes of audio phase issues and their QC solution.

What is Cadence and why its validation is important?

Feb 14, 2024

Understanding video cadence (or pull-down) in the broadcast industry can be challenging. In this blog article, we will explain what Cadence (or Pull-down) is along with its practical application, and different pull-down patterns.

Frame shifting or Blanking shift issue unveiled

Dec 13, 2023

What is frame shifting, it's impact on video quality, and how to overcome the challenge effectively with automated QC tools?

Caption-Audio Synchronization issues due to editing: Automated QC & alignment

  Nov 1, 2023

Learn why caption-audio synchronization is important and how to deliver high-quality synchronized captions in your video using automated QC tools

Importance of QC of Audio Phase Issues

Aug 29, 2023

Audio phase is a complex and intricate phenomenon that plays a pivotal role in sound reproduction. Understand the causes of audio phase issues and its solution

Understanding Dolby Atmos and its QC challenges

Aug 10, 2023

Learn about the revolutionary technology of Dolby Atmos that takes your sound experience to a new level.

Subtitle QC

CapMate 101 – Caption/Subtitle Files Verification and Correction Solution

Aug 4, 2022

Many of our customers had been telling us that the process of validating and correcting closed caption files is tedious, time consuming and costly! And that they needed an innovative QC solution...

Group of Pictures

Understanding GOP – What is “Group Of Pictures” and Why is it Important

May 4, 2022

GOP or “Group of Pictures” is a term that refers to the video structure representing how digital video is grouped. But before we get into understanding GOP, let’s start with the basics...

Dialog Gated Loudness

Dialog-gated Audio loudness and why it is important

Apr 13, 2022

Learn what is dialog gated loudness, it’s importance in video content, and how our QC products can help you detect it in an automated manner...

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What our clients say

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