Proposal for an objective video quality assessment method that takes temporal and spatial information into consideration

With the proliferation of high-speed IP connection service, video communication service has been attracting attention. In order to realize high-quality video communication service, it is important to carry out appropriate quality design prior to providing service and to adequately monitor and administer the service. To this end, it is necessary to establish a quality evaluation technique that appropriately expresses the quality enjoyed by the user and evaluates the video quality appropriately and rapidly. In this paper, a video quality assessment method is proposed for coding distortions at a wide range of bit rates, assuming use in a PC vision environment. The proposed method performs evaluation with weighting that takes account of blurring of the edge portion, generation of new edges, and deterioration in the time axis direction. The estimation accuracy of the present objective quality evaluation method is confirmed by adding coding distortions to the input video of 36 standard video scenes. Accuracy similar to the fluctuations of the subjective quality assessment is obtained, indicating that the method is sufficient for objective video quality assessment. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 1, 89(12): 97– 108, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecja.20265