Perceived quality of channel zapping

The end user experience of service quality is critical to the success of a service provider’s IPTV deployment program. A key element involved in validating IPTV quality of experience (QoE) is how quickly and reliably users can change TV channels, often referred to as channel zapping. Currently there is no knowledge about the explicit relation between zapping time and the user perceived quality as expressed as a Mean Opinion Score (MOS). We have proposed a model where the MOS depends on the zapping time on a logarithmic scale. In order to validate our model we have conducted a number of subjective tests in order to get insight in this relation. The tests were performed by 21 test subjects at TNO and at Acreo. It turns out that the correlation between the subjective data and the perceptive model is very high (0.99). Therefore we conclude that our perceptive model is very useful for assessing the perceived quality of zapping. The result is not limited to IPTV but applies to any type of TV service with channel switching times that are not instantaneous, regardless whether it is terrestrial or satellite based.