Video Quality Experts Group Update

The Communications Research Centre (CRC) hosted the 4th meeting of the Video Quality Experts Group in March. A total of 24 delegates from nine countries attended.

VQEG is an international group of experts whose task is to validate objective measures of picture quality for Broadcasting, Multimedia and other applications. Co-chaired by Philip Corriveau of the Advanced Video Systems Group of CRC, the Group includes some major international laboratories and manufacturers such as Tektronix, NHK, KDD, TDF and others. Its output feeds into the Radiocommunications and the Telecommunications Sectors of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which eventually sets international standards.

VQEG is addressing an important and urgent need for standardized quality picture assessment methods, given the introduction of digital television and the increasing use of digital video compression in a wide range of applications.

Currently, the most accurate method for evaluating picture quality is via subjective assessments. However, as these are difficult to implement and not adaptable to in-service quality assessment, there is a need for objective measurements. Picture Quality Assessment devices will be a valuable tool for the broadcasters, network operators and other service providers in the future, to measure and monitor their quality of service.

Over the last two years, VQEG has conducted a series of subjective and objective tests to evaluate the performance of 10 objective models. The results indicate that there is no one model that outperforms any of the others, nor do any of the models accurately predict subjective assessments. Thus no recommendations can be passed to the standardizing bodies at this time.

At the March VQEG meeting, it was decided that three parallel activities would be pursued within the group: Full-Reference objective models for Television; Reduced-Reference and No-Reference objective methods for Television; and Reduced-Reference and No-Reference methods for Multimedia.

Over the next year, it is expected that further subjective and objective tests will be conducted and hopefully models validated and recommended for these three areas.

For more information, please contact:

Philip Corriveau André Vincent

Researcher, Subjective Assessment Manager, Advanced Video Systems Group

Broadcast Technologies Research Broadcast Technologies Research

Tel: 1-613-998-7822 Tel: 1-613-998-2299

phil.corriveau@crc.ca andre.vincent@crc.ca