The effect of bandwidth on the quality of transmitted pediatric echocardiograms.
BACKGROUND
Remote access to pediatric cardiology diagnostic services is enabled by real-time transmission of echocardiographic images. Several transmission bandwidths have been used but there has been little analysis of image quality provided by different bandwidths. We designed a study of the quality of transmitted images at various bandwidths.


METHODS
Two echocardiographers viewed randomly a series of 13 recorded pediatric echocardiographic images either directly or after transmission using 1 of 4 bandwidths: 256; 384; 512; or 768 kbps. An image clarity scoring scale was used to assess image quality of cardiac structures.


RESULTS
Measurable differences were found in image quality with different transmission bandwidths; 512 kbps was the minimum for consistently clear imaging of all cardiac structures examined.


CONCLUSIONS
Bandwidth greater than 512 kbps confers sharper images subjectively although this could not be quantified by our methods.
Children's Heart Centre, Izaak Walton Killam Health Centre and Dalhousie University, 5850 University Avenue, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3J 3G9. john.finley@iwk.nshealth.ca
John P
JP
Finley
Robert
R
Justo
Maria
M
Loane
Richard
R
Wootton
D002648:Child; D002669:Child Welfare; D004452:Echocardiography; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D015588:Observer Variation; D011664:Pulmonary Valve / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D014261:Tricuspid Valve / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging