Aurora 4.0 Update Now Available
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Aurora 4.0 is a major upgrade to Aurora 3.x and is recommended for all customers.
New Features:
Smart Test Plans – Aurora can now automatically choose a test template based upon the incoming file characteristics, allowing one master test plan to test all your files.
Users can now define their Slate/Head Format so that Aurora can monitor for the required presence at specific locations of items such as color bars, test tones, black, silence and freeze/title frames.
Multi-Core Decoder Enhancement – MPEG2 and H.264 decoders are now enabled by default to run as multi-thread, offering speed improvements of 15-40% (depending on content and processor) over Aurora 3.x for those formats. The JPEG2000 decoder is also enabled to use multi-thread, offering speed improvements of up to 300% (depending on content and processor) over Aurora 3.x for that format.
Multi-Core Testing Enhancement – for Professional SKU VUs, the multi-core testing environment has been tweaked to provide faster performance for HD files at higher bitrates, particularly when selecting freeze frame detection, black frame detection, field order swaps, gamut errors and Macroblocking artifact detection in one template.
GPU acceleration for Combing Artifacts – the detection of hardcoded interlacing artifacts in progressive frames (teeth or mouse-teeth on edges) has been accelerated on the GPU, and for those customers requiring real-time or faster performance for HD files, the GPU is strongly recommended.
Users can now sort incoming files in a hot folder by first arrived, file date and file name.
A title card location can now be specified, allowing the visual slate metadata to appear next to the digital metadata on the report.
Reports now show all average loudness levels in the audio stream summary (at the top of the report), for easy decision making
Reports show the % of the clip errors appear in, allowing users to determine if an event is pervasive or simply a one-off.
PDF reports may now be named using user-customizable parameters, such as file name, date and job ID.
Audio Snaps/Clicks/Pop detections added the ability to detect analog clicks
Improvements to Dolby E & TrueHD/MLP program detection & reporting
Template tests have been re-ordered according to customer feedback
A remove test button has been added to the template editor
Users can now choose between a server-side browse control or a client-side browse control.
Previously from Aurora 3.6
New Features:
Aurora Professional VUs now have the option to switch between single-core operation and multi-core operation. The single-core operation per VU is how Aurora has functioned since launch. Multi-core operation will take advantage of 4 CPU cores per VU, and as such, when you enable multi-core support from the Settings tab, you will see the available VU count change. The logic behind the available VU count is to allow the lesser of a) the number of licensed VUs and b) the number of available logical CPU cores divided by four.
Added Perceptual Visual Artifact Detection (PVAD) to the Professional VU. This new video quality metric allows location of non-pattern visual disruptions, such as transcoded tape hits, film tears, excessive print dirt and analog noise by using SSIM on surrounding frames within the video to locate artifacts in a similar method to your human visual system. This test is available when running exclusively
Copyright DCA, Inc 2011. Digimetrics and Aurora are trademarks of DCA, Inc.
on the CPU, albeit slowly, but is recommended for use with the nVidia Tesla GPU, which greatly accelerates the performance of the metric.
Improved caption decoding with a new Line 21 decoder.
Audio silence test now allows you to specify whether you want to check for channel or entire stream silence
Field swap test now allows you to require a certain percentage of frames to contain the error before creating a report item
Report now shows whether you are using Aurora Standard or Aurora Pro, and additionally shows the VU Mode (single-core or multi-core) and whether or not the GPU is in use.
Add New Job form now shows the template details of the selected template
Hot folder monitor can now be set to also check subfolders. We do not recommend this option when reference essence files are in use, as it will cause the referenced essence to be added to the job queue twice.
Fixed Items:
Fix to JPEG2000 files not demuxing correctly in the JPEG Image Format container
Fix to frame-wrapped DV files not demuxing correctly
Fix to sequentially numbered frame renders properly being tested in sequence by Aurora and played in Hydra (this is for RED, EXR, DPX and JPEG2000). We recommend using DXW to send sequences of files to Aurora whenever possible, as just using sequentially numbered frames will cause frames that are not rendered before the job starts to be skipped during testing. DXW can reference frames that are still rendering when the QC job starts.
Previously from Aurora 3.5
New Features:
Integrated HardingFPA with certificate of compliance for flashing detection. This is a for-sale option in the product.
Added Illegal Word in Caption test to look for standards & practices words in 608 & 708 captions.
Added FTP support – works for both manually added and automatically added jobs (from API or hot folders)
Replaced the Java-based browse control with a server-side javascript browse control. This eliminates the need for Java virtual machine on the client systems. You will have to manually enter the path to your file storage the first time you use the new control, but the browse control will remember the path from that point forward.
Added ability to specify an audio channel map for mono-essence audio PIDs in the default section of the template
New ability to delete old jobs from the database and job reports from the server using a clean-up function on the Settings tab
New ability to separate tests that are grouped together (such as the transport stream syntax tests) and assign individual tests in that group Info, Warning or Error status. This is only possible in the XML template, not in the template editor.
Added ISMV/ISMA Smooth Streaming file support
Added audio bit depth test
Added test for container file format
Added test for container PID count
Added test for container and stream timecode discontinuity
Copyright DCA, Inc 2011. Digimetrics and Aurora are trademarks of DCA, Inc.
Added test to check for presence of color bars & test tones simultaneously
Added test to check for presence of black/freeze frames & audio silence simultaneously
Added test to check for mono audio in a stereo pair
Added API call to remove jobs
Installer now allows for Aurora to use remote SQL installations
Fixed Items:
Fixed an issue where a file could be added to the queue, but the file path could become inaccessible before the job started. This previously caused a crash in StreamVU.dll.
Fixed an issue with identifying Dolby E in the GXF container
Resolved an issue with IMX content improperly displaying as VBR
Fixed several Unicode file name issues
Previously from Aurora 3.4
New Features:
Added RED decoder
Added DPX demux/decode
Added EXR demux/decode
Added DCP container support (unencrypted only)
Added RED/DPX/EXR support to the DXW container format
Added the ability to disable the file integrity check during hot folder copy operations
Fixed Items:
Fix for some systems unable to initialize new MPEG-2 video decoder.
The audio bit depth for MPEG-2 audio clips was always shown as 0, which is incorrect. It should (and now does) read as Not Present.
The error summary was not sorted correctly (numerically) in the original release of 3.3
The default quality test template now properly contains the updated Field Swap test, rather than the older Interlaced Artifacts test.
Previously from Aurora 3.3
New Features:
Added support for AVC Intra High Profile 422 video
Replaced FFMPEG decoder for MPEG-2 and H.264 video with Vanguard decoder
Improved demux performance on all container types
Added cadence detection and cadence change detection tests (in Video Metadata group)
Report will now show cadence detected from metadata or first 100 frames of the video stream
Overhauled average loudness test to included preset definitions for ATSC A/85, EBU R128 and UK BCAP 6.9 implementations of ITU BS.1770/1771 specification.
Added ability to specify number of frames that must exceed the threshold for instantaneous loudness test to eliminate single frame false-positives, where necessary
Separated Interlacing Artifacts (detectable only on progressive scan displays) and Field Swaps (detectable on both CRT and progressive scan displays) tests. Field Swap test has been completely rewritten to use object recognition and motion detection between fields and frames to determine field swaps. Interlacing Artifact test uses the pre-existing logic to look for ‘teeth’.
Copyright DCA, Inc 2011. Digimetrics and Aurora are trademarks of DCA, Inc.
DPX format support (must be wrapped in the DXW generic container, see Aurora manual for details)
E-mail notifications modified:
o Able to select when to be notified (Never, On Warnings Only, On Errors Only, Always)
o Header of email includes better identification for the file and results
o Body of email includes error report summary in plain text, along with attached PDF copy of report
SOAP API added a call to retrieve the path to the report.xml file both during and upon completion of the job
Hot folder settings now allow for only the file to be copied on move (rather than copying the file and reports) to enable downstream processing automation.
Improved ProRes and Cineform decoding speed
ISDB-TB distribution profile added
Fixed Items:
Growing MXF files are now properly started prior to the file completely writing
Red lines on the luma histogram in report now properly use the black & white levels specified in the default section of the template
Correct reporting of several previously unidentified caption muxing types
Fixed an issue where pre-roll defaults were not properly ignoring black frame errors
Previously from Aurora 3.2
New Features:
Dolby E decoder
Dolby E tests added to the Dolby codec syntax group, including guard band alignment (Pro SKU only)
JPEG2000 decoder
Report contains links allowing for Hydra player to start at exact Aurora error location (requires Hydra player to be installed on the client machine)
Complete overhaul of the tape hit and interlacing artifact tests to remove, in nearly all cases, instances of false positives. Users will notice that individual tape hit types are now exposed on the template editor interface, and that ‘shiny spot’ hits are turned off by default.
Test 2004 (Compare container metadata to streams) is now enabled for all supported container formats, rather than simply limited to MXF.
Added a template rule for required ancillary data that should be present in the container, such as captions, subtitles or ad insertion tables.
Template editor now shows the expected unit types and values expected (such as integer or floating point)
Template editor now validates all imported and saved templates against the template schema. In some cases, this may expose older templates that need to be rebuilt in the new editor, rather than imported from an older version of Aurora.
Added the ability to parse SxS and P2 clip.xml files directly, rather than needing to queue up the individual mono essence files one by one
Added DXW generic container support, allowing for simple XML descriptions of groups of mono essence files. DXW container schema and sample file are available from Digimetrics support or the Docs folder of the Digimetrics FTP site.
Added a test to check for GOP size in bytes
Copyright DCA, Inc 2011. Digimetrics and Aurora are trademarks of DCA, Inc.
Color gamut legality test now defaults to EBU R103 limits.
Overhauled the UI and SQL database connections, to improve performance of the GUI during high utilization events (greater than 1000 jobs in the queue).
Audio wrapping type is now shown on the report.
Fixed Items:
Resolved an issue where 24-bit AES-wrapped PCM audio could cause false positives in some audio tests, due to the nature of Aurora’s test engine being designed around 16-bit PCM audio samples.
Fixed a problem with IMX50 designated containers not properly demuxing.
Fixed a problem with a few one-off samples of odd byte-order streams and containers.
Some audio tests were not properly concatenating error results in the report
Fixed an issue where some ProRes files can be reported as the incorrect display resolution when storing anamorphic content
In a few instances, some waveform and video thumbnail pictures were not appearing in the report (usually the first and last picture or a secondary stream set of pictures).
Fixed a problem with the DVD constraint test producing false positives
Previously from Aurora 3.1
New Features:
Tape Hit detection to detect artifacts introduced by low RF or RF dropouts on the tape head during ingest – when using the CPU only, this feature currently runs quite slow (8x slower) compared to the rest of the video quality tests (when using a Tesla CUDA-capable GPU, this feature will actually run real-time or faster).
Completely new template editor includes the ability to only view the tests of the section the user is interested in, and the ability to import and export templates as XML files. The new template editor is fastest when using Mozilla Firefox.
GPU Acceleration – several video quality tests now accelerated using the GPU via nVidia’s CUDA technology. If a Tesla CUDA-capable nVidia GPU is present in the system, Aurora will use the CUDA-cores to accelerate the quality tests. If a Tesla CUDA-capable card is not present, all tests will continue to execute on the CPU, which will result in some tests (notably tape hits) running several times slower. The Tesla card must have TCC mode enabled (see your card’s release notes on how to enable). Aurora works best with 200 or more CUDA-cores on the GPU per VU, so please consider the following cards:
o Tesla Card (C2050 or better)
o Tesla Compute Cluster (S or M class with Fermi-based GPUs)
Entirely updated and simplified installer which installs and configures all pre-requisites as well as the entire Aurora application suite in under 15 minutes on most computers.
E-mail notifications are now available upon job completion
Partial black line detection to check for single line drop outs during ingest
Added tests for crushed blacks and super whites (using a luma histogram, which is shown both in video stream summary section of the report and in the error listing for this test)
Added picture of audio waveform for audio quality tests
LXF container support
Anamorphic content detection test – using pixel aspect ratio vs. display aspect ratio
Added tests for Fox GXF content
Separated CableLabs VOD tests from CableLabs TV tests.
Copyright DCA, Inc 2011. Digimetrics and Aurora are trademarks of DCA, Inc.
Updated reporting of timecode and runtime to include the values from both the container and video essence.
Added detection of 2 other types of audio snaps (related to single sample return to zero)
Added container packet number to report locations, where available
Tests to check for dialnorm and acmod/channel count changing during audio streams
Ability to detect chroma dropout in a single field (applies to 4:2:2 or better video only, 4:2:0 video crushes the chroma such that this test is not possible and will not execute)
Ability to check for illegal color gamut
Ancillary data (captions, ad insertion tables) now shown in separate report section
Fixed Items:
Hot folders can now be any local or network/UNC location
Users could previously see other user jobs – this has now been fixed to show each user only that user’s jobs (administrator users can still see all jobs).
Corrected an issue where color bar test was giving some false positives on specific files that had vertical banding at the top edge of the frame.
Stability enhancement in how the report is generated, eliminating any possible hangs in the application by opening a report while it is still being written to.
Fixed an issue where deleting a report from the Home Page logged the user out
Corrected test 1514 (empty caption container) to only report once per stream, if the entire caption packet contains no caption data.
Corrected an issue where audio frame counts could mismatch between QuickScan template and other templates
Timecode that starts at a value other than 00:00:00.000 is now reported correctly
Eliminated a perceived hang and improved completion time on MXF syntax tests
Stability enhancement preventing jobs that cannot be decoded from holding up other jobs in the queue (these jobs will be moved to Aborted by Application section)
Stability enhancement eliminating a memory leak in the verification service
Error concatenation is improved on the report
Performance improvement on higher bitrate MPEG-2 files
Timecode values for AVID ISIS style referenced files are now correct
Improved performance in web interface with all VUs running
Previously from Aurora 3.0
New Features:
Completely new home page on the user interface, including the ability to sort by any column of summary information
Updated job engine to support better performance on 2010 Intel Core i7/Xeon 5600 processors running on Windows Server 2008 R2.
MVC 3D profile support for H.264 video
Ability to set timecode to ignore tests for pre-roll and post-roll events
Ability to render the reports in either HTML or PDF
Container parameter test to look for specific PIDs on most common tables
Support for AS02 MXF
Added test for Pixel Aspect Ratio and using that value to look for anamorphic content in a 4:3 frame
Copyright DCA, Inc 2011. Digimetrics and Aurora are trademarks of DCA, Inc.
New tray application to monitor the Aurora services and restart them upon job or machine problem
Container parameter test to warn if specific codecs are not found
Updated syntax tests for DVB-T, ISDB-T and CableLabs VOD
All streams are selected by default when adding a container file to a new job
Added feature to black bar test to report correct aspect ratio of the content without the bars, and also to report the size of bars for both horizontal and vertical bars
Fixed Items:
Fixed ProRes snapshots in the report that were showing diagonal lines
Corrected audio tests not calculating channel count or location correctly for certain files
Subtantially shortened the pause for jobs moving from queue to showing progress
Now able to view images in the report from any web browser on any operating system
When MXF tables are not correct, Aurora will parse the streams to fill in the codec information when possible
Fixed an issue where containers with large number of streams (greater than 20) were causing a crash in the master controller service
Users on Mac OS X and Linux operating systems can now type in a full UNC or CIFS path in the Add New Job page, rather than using the browse control, since the filesystem on Mac OS X and Linux is not guaranteed to properly produce a UNC or CIFS path through Java.
Blockiness Artifact test is set up by simply selecting the maximum percentage of visible blocks, rather than the previous range.
In certain situations, the hot folder feature was not moving the files to the success or error locations
In certain situations, the frame snapshots were not showing up in the PDF report.