This study proposes a new objective metric for video quality assessment. It predicts the impact of technical quality parameters relevant to visual discomfort on human perception. The proposed metric is based on a 3-level color scale: (1) Green - not annoying, (2) Orange - annoying but acceptable, (3) Red - not acceptable. Therefore, each color category reflects viewers' judgment based on stimulus acceptability and induced visual annoyance. The boundary between the “Green" and “Orange" categories defines the visual annoyance threshold, while the boundary between the “Orange" and “Red" categories defines the acceptability threshold. Once the technical quality parameters are measured, they are compared to perceptual thresholds. Such comparison allows estimating the quality of the 3D video sequence. Besides, the proposed metric is adjustable to service or production requirements by changing the percentage of acceptability and/or visual annoyance. The performance of the metric is evaluated in a subjective experiment that uses three stereoscopic scenes. Five view asymmetries with four degradation levels were introduced into initial test content. The results demonstrate high correlations between subjective scores and objective predictions for all view asymmetries.

Date Published: 17 March 2015
PDF: 17 pages
Proc. SPIE 9391, Stereoscopic Displays and Applications XXVI, 93910P (17 March 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2076949

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9391:
Stereoscopic Displays and Applications XXVI
Nicolas S. Holliman; Andrew J. Woods; Gregg E. Favalora; Takashi Kawai, Editor(s)