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Home Guide How to perform Audio / Video Testing on Real Devices

How to perform Audio / Video Testing on Real Devices

By Kalpalatha Devi, Community Contributor -

Technology has improved a lot in a few decades, digital media has indulged in day-to-day activities. Nowadays most people are using smart devices for audio and video streaming in common activities. like listening to podcasts, audio books, and music, and needless to say on usage in social networks.

The education system has changed a lot and relying on online platforms and e-learning. So to provide better-quality products and customer demands business team has to maintain the quality and upgrade to the latest technologies along with new introductions, so video or audio testing has become a must. Usually, testing needs to be done to test the resolution load time and buffer time in different network conditions.

What are Audio/ Video test files?

There are different file formats for audio files and video files. File extensions or Fail types means a file that contains your video, audio, captions, and subtitles.

The video or audio files are compressed using codecs and stored in different file formats.These Codecs are software with instructions for decoding and encoding video and audio information in standard file formats. This compression minimizes the file size with minimum quality loss. This means these codecs will delete the redundant data and some colors to reduce the size file, the outcome will be a lossy format or lossless format. 

Here we should understand the Bit/frame rate, the amount of data stored per each second of the media. A higher bit rate and lesser compression give high-quality video but the file size will be large.

The primary audio file formats are: 

  • MP3 is the most commonly used audio format, when the amount of audio is large this format is used this is a lossy compressed file. MPEG1 and MPEG2 are the other formats which are lossless compressed files.
  • WAV is a raw audio file that has high-quality MP3 files primarily used in digital audio formats. These are suitable for a music file.
  • OGG this format is used in music files along with audio this can hold additional information. 

The popular video formats are:

  • MP4 / MPEG-4 – This is used on the internet and for video streaming 
  • MOV – Commonly used in storing movie files for tv shows, compatible with both Windows and MAC platforms.
  • AVI – It contains both audio and video 
  • WMV – Window media video 
  • FLV – Flash compatible video

Each of these formats has properties like supporting formats, devices, and platforms.

And we may have to test the files which are uncompressed and files compressed with some loss of data and compressed files without loss of data.

Now let’s understand how to perform testing on these files.

Testing of audio and video needs to be tested on the actual device and remote device.

If the testing needs to perform on the remote device. First, configuration testing needs to be done. This is required to identify the flaws in the flow and ensure a smooth transition between the systems. Source and destination systems or client-server systems can have the same or different operating systems. 

Configuration testing will help to identify whether the test files are compatible with multiple hardware and software combinations. Functional testing can be done once the connection between the client and server systems is established and verified.

How to perform Audio Testing 

While performing the audio testing, we need to consider the requirement of the file format and metrics they are looking at, most common metrics are audio quality, network conditions like audio quality, Jitter, Packer loss & juggling between the networks. While doing the audio quality check, it can be tested manually by listening to the audio and identifying any distortion, echo, or other inconsistencies. 

While testing the audio files on specific real-time devices like mobile phones, if any notification or call is received during the audio play, it has to test whether the audio is paused and resumed automatically post the call without any missing content to the listener. Also, in cases, of testing using audio streaming apps on multiple devices, switching between the devices needs to be in sync with the audio on the second device where it has been left on the first device.

Testing manually has some downsides like an unstructured approach and may not pick up the subtle audio issues, time and resource-consuming, so usually, the audio testing will be performed by using different automation tools.

How to perform Video Testing

Sources of video are different types, Video Streaming and Video Conferencing. Streaming videos are on-demand, stored in specific locations, stored locally or outside of the network. Video conferencing is live video chat like MS Teams, Google Meetup & Apple Facetime between the service providers and consumer devices happens two-way web-based application.

While testing the video streaming, the metrics covered are bitrate and buffer time. Lag length, play length, lag ratio, etc. Different scenarios need to cover, the buffer time in multiple network conditions, audio and video sync and adjustments with various internet speeds, and availability of options like play, pause, forward, rewind, and skip, and their functionalities. It should adjust with the screen size of the device and any interruption during the play, it should play from the point of pause and other scenarios if any corrupted video it should prompt proper messages. 

Again testing the video manually has its limits on a repetitive task and analysis with manual interruptions will be difficult. So automation tools are required to do testing the video.

Let us see the steps for a test of sample video testing. 

For audio/ video testing, we need to perform different tests along with functional testing like performance testing, usability testing, and negative testing. 

If we are testing a video or audio on any web application, we need to make sure that any flash plugin is required for the browsers and install it if it is required, we need to test on different browsers for the playing controls and audio video sync and buffering, etc.

Below is a screen for a webinar on Youtube Channel, assume the same thing if we need to test different browsers and on multiple devices.

  1. We need to test the play controls on the video play, pause, fullscreen mode, default view mode, mini-player mode, mute,  subtitles or captions, quality controls, playback speed, etc.
  2. Verify the same in different browsers and check for any discrepancies.
  3. Test the same file accessing on mobile from a browser and the youtube app.
  4. Ensure the video pause and replay options during an interruption like a call or SMS on mobile.
  5. Ensure video access in different networks like wifi, mobile data, etc.

Test Results on Windows10 Chrome browserVideo Testing on Windows10 Chrome browserTest Results on Windows10 IE browserVideo Testing on on Windows10 IE browserTest Results on Redmi NoteVideo Testing on Redmi Note

How to perform Video Testing on Real Device Cloud

For validating a video on Browserstack Live, you can Signup / Login, put the URL of the website containing the Video, select the device and browser combination and start testing.

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The following example covers validation to check the play controls aof the video and switching the view modes and pause and play back options etc. for Youtube Video on different browser device combinations.

1. Test Results on Windows11 Chrome107 browser

In Windows 11 operating system played the webinar on YouTubeVideo Testing on Windows11 Chrome107 browser using BrowserStack LiveTested the play controls and audio and videoVideo Testing using BrowserStack Live on Windows11 Chrome107 browser2. Test Results on Windows10 Chrome BrowserVideo Testing on Windows 10 Chrome Browser using BrowserStack Live3. Test Results on iPhone 8 v15.4 Safari Browser

Verified by changing the playback settings and switching to fullscreen mode,changing the Quality and playback speed, Captions etc. Video Testing on iPhone 8 v15.4 Safari BrowserConclusion

Testing for any media file is crucial. The quality check of the audio or video provides the best clear content to the end user. Choosing the right platform and right tools for this validation plays an important role in your successful testing.

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Manual Testing UI Testing

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