Software Testing and QA for Media and Entertainment: What You Should Know

Media quality is something users notice immediately when it's bad, but rarely think about when it's good. From streaming failures during major sports events to audio glitches in viral games, poor quality can turn excitement into frustration within seconds—and businesses aren't immune either. This growing dependence on flawless performance makes quality assurance more crucial than ever. PwC’s Global Entertainment & Media Outlook for 2025-2029 predicts the entertainment and media industries will only continue to grow. With incremental revenues projected at $557 billion (...yes, that’s a billion with a B), this sector is expected to grow at a 3.7% CAGR through 2029. 

With this rapid growth comes increasing complexity—more platforms, formats, and expectations—all of which demand rigorous quality assurance to stand out.

In this blog, we will explore why media and entertainment are relevant to discuss, how quality helps your media stand out, and the best practices for ensuring quality in entertainment and media.

Understanding the entertainment and media industry

Entertainment and media is an industry that covers everything from traditional broadcasting to digital platforms, making it a particularly broad field. To make sense of it, it’s helpful to break it into segments—especially by looking at the different content types.

Gaming (game engines, live ops tools, esports platforms)

Even when divided, most of these segments can still be broken down further. The gaming industry has grown so large and diverse that it can no longer be covered with a “one size fits all” approach. Since gaming is now available not only on PCs and gaming consoles, but also on smartphones, VR, AR, and other handheld devices, each has its own hardware and software specs, requiring tailored game testing methods.

Audio / Music (DAWs, streaming services)

The audio/music sector includes popular streaming apps and platforms like Spotify, YouTube Music, SoundCloud, and many more. Additionally, audio editing and creation tools like FL Studio and numerous others fall into this category.

Video / Film / TV (editing tools, OTT platforms, ad tech)

This segment encompasses tools for content creation, distribution, and monetization - from editing software such as Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve to streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube. With OTT and on-demand streaming increasing, testing must verify compatibility, playback quality, and performance across devices, browsers, and network conditions. 

*It’s important to note that audio and video go hand-in-hand, and are often assessed together or used in relation to each other. For this reason, at TestDevLab, we’ve combined these two media types into one Audio/Video Lab. 

Publishing / Digital media (CMS tools, analytics, creator platforms)

The publishing and digital media sector includes content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Drupal, and Medium, along with creator and analytics platforms that support digital publishing, monetization, and performance measurement. Testing focuses on content delivery, SEO features, responsiveness, and integration with third-party tools across web and mobile environments.

Events (ticketing, event management, virtual events)

This area covers platforms for ticketing, scheduling, attendee engagement, and virtual or hybrid event hosting. Solutions like Eventbrite, Cvent, and Hopin facilitate smooth event planning and participation. Testing emphasizes payment processing, scalability during high traffic, real-time interactions, and cross-platform accessibility.

Interactive / Immersive media (AR/VR experiences, metaverse platforms, interactive storytelling)

It’s important to note that immersive experiences are starting to branch out from the gaming industry into other forms of entertainment. The ability to experience and interact with other users while enjoying concerts, watching films, videos, lectures, and more is transforming how users engage with your content, making QA across devices, software, and networks essential.

Social media platforms / Influencer content tools (Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, X, and more)

Social media platforms have become one of the most accessible and widely used ways to consume content, and it is central to digital entertainment today, given that 68.5% of the global population uses social media. Furthermore, these content-sharing platforms have become about much more than just sharing images and videos - they’re giving your users the ability to connect, learn, and shop. Ensuring a seamless experience across these platforms requires careful testing, as users expect content to work flawlessly, regardless of their devices.

Understanding that entertainment and media encompass huge industries and markets, we see how important it is to stand out in such condensed conditions. One of the most important factors that aid in standing out is quality. 

How software testing and QA help your products stand out

Standing out becomes vital in such a condensed market, and the best way to excel is with quality. In general, quality isn’t anything new or revolutionary - it’s been a stepping stone for leading businesses for years. A 2016 study shows that quality plays an important role not only in the content (audio and video) of entertainment and media, but also in overall design (UI/UX). It also affects organizational aspects, such as customer support responsiveness or platform navigation. While the study dates back a few years, its conclusions have only become more relevant in an era dominated by streaming, personalization, and real-time content delivery. Let’s take a look at some of the real ways quality will improve not only your product, but also your business. 

Overall success

Moreover, in the context of visual media, your users won’t see quality as a luxury - they will expect it. The same study concludes:“...content  was  portrayed  as  the  most  important  building  block  of  media success.” When content fails, the whole operation is at risk of failing. Ensuring that content is up to standards is done by quality assurance, and it takes into account not only the quality of the content itself, but also the quality of its environment - the network and its changes, battery health, devices, and more. Simply put, the more conditions are taken into account, the higher the guarantee that your visual media will outperform your competitors’ - no matter the use case.

Customer trust and brand loyalty

The more attention you pay to the quality of your entertainment products, the higher the chance that it will foster trust and loyalty towards your brand. In the entertainment industry, delivering quality consistently and proactively proves and translates into brand reliability - users will choose the services and products, the quality of which they can rely on persistently. As a bonus, users often associate high quality with credibility.

Perceived value and pricing power

If you pay close attention to quality and implement it in your software development life cycle (SDLC), the overall level at which your products operate will be elevated as well. Quality will allow you to command premium pricing, and users will see the value just visibly - with better visuals, smoother functionality, superior sound, and other functions. Because you will have better control over pricing, your brand will be protected from price wars with competitors.

Positive word-of-mouth potential

Your users will be more likely to recommend and share your product in a positive light when their experiences are delivered in a high-quality format. Since the entertainment industry is social media-driven, the visibility of your product will depend on user advocacy, which will be amplified by quality and credibility organically.

Best practices for ensuring quality in entertainment and media

Continuing on the content types, we’ll dive deeper into some of them and discuss how quality assurance is ensured for their specific cases. 

Testing the gameplay

The gaming industry is constantly evolving with new consoles, devices, and platforms emerging daily. To keep up with constant regulation and market changes, performing game testing is the way to level up.

• Performance testing: Evaluating game performance in terms of stability, responsiveness, and reliability under different workloads and user scenarios. For example, ensuring your multiplayer game remains stable even when thousands join a live event.
• UX testing: Analyzing the usability for single and multiplayer game experiences, whether offline or online. 
• Security testing: Identifying potential vulnerabilities that can be exploited by unauthorized users. 
• AR/VR testing: Ensuring seamless compatibility with a wide range of devices and hardware, including headsets, controllers, and wearables.
• Battery testing: Ensuring software and apps have optimized power usage is what leads to smooth user experiences and user adoption.

In addition, recognizing the growing relevance of AI, we are steering game testing services towards innovation. Automated end-to-end testing is becoming a reality with our AI and computer vision-based game testing solution.

These testing strategies ensure that players experience smooth, secure, and engaging gameplay, helping your game outperform in a competitive market.

Audio and video testing

Since products can be very unique, so must be the testing approaches. Depending on the case, A/V testing can be done either manually, automatically, or by introducing a mixed approach of both.

Here’s what that includes: 

• Audio analysis - analyzing audio quality across codecs, bitrates, devices, networks, etc. 
• Video analysis - testing video content under various real-life scenarios to detect changes in FPS, color, resolution, synchronization with audio, and more.
• Network analysis - simulating numerous network conditions like bandwidth, jitter, latency, and packet loss to identify areas for improvement.
• Compatibility testing - validating compatibility across platforms and legacy across a wide range of devices (both real and emulated).
• Device performance - checking whether your content delivers the same experience to all of your users, regardless of their devices.

Combined cases

From these examples alone, we see that based on the content types, the kinds of testing required can overlay each other and/or the types can be used together, especially in cases of more complex multi-media solutions. 

Take a high-resolution video game, for example. It may seem that only the scope of game testing is applicable, but once theme music (audio), unplayable cut scenes (video), and sound effects come into play, there is a need to combine content types, and therefore, the testing approach. 

This gaming example is just a small part of the entertainment and media industry, yet it highlights an important idea - the entertainment industry is complex, widely used, and often combined. Because of this, there’s no single correct way to ensure the quality of your entertainment solutions. They require a multi-faceted approach, attention to detail, and highly skilled professionals.

Final take

With entertainment in more formats than you can count, it’s becoming more difficult to stand out from your competition. Although useful and attention-grabbing, factors like innovation or new tech may not always be the answer. Oftentimes, when launching new entertainment products, quality is left as an afterthought or only looked at reactively.

Instead, the real and result-driven solution is investing in quality proactively. When quality assurance becomes a part of the SDLC, you can be sure your reputation won’t be left in the hands of low frame rates, non-functional buttons, and, as a result, bad reviews from unsatisfied customers.

There isn’t one right way to approach testing entertainment and media, either - there are as many unique testing solutions as there are products. And oftentimes, the best approach is a multi-faceted one - keeping in mind not only your product, but also its surrounding environment and neighboring components. Partnering with an experienced QA team ensures your entertainment solution delivers flawless experiences from launch day and beyond.