Institute for Telecommunication Sciences / Resources / Video Quality Research / Standards /
National and International Standards
National and International Standards
National Standards:
From 1994 to 1997, Institute for Telecommunication
Sciences (ITS) personnel played a key role in the development of
four American National Standards that can be used for gauging the
quality of digital video systems. In 2003, ANSI T1.801.03-1996 was
revised and reissued as ANSI T1.801.03-2003. These standards
are:
- ANSI T1.801.01-1995, "American National Standard for
Telecommunications - Digital Transport of Video
Teleconferencing/Video Telephony Signals - Video Test Scenes for
Subjective and Objective Performance Assessment."
- ANSI T1.801.02-1996, "American National Standard for
Telecommunications - Digital Transport of Video
Teleconferencing/Video Telephony Signals - Performance Terms,
Definitions, and Examples."
- ANSI T1.801.03-1996, 2003, "American National Standard for
Telecommunications - Digital Transport of One-Way Video Signals -
Parameters for Objective Performance Assessment." This 1996
standard was revised as ANSI T1.801.03-2003 (see description given
below).
- ANSI T1.801.04-1997, "American National Standard for
Telecommunications - Multimedia Communications Delay,
Synchronization, and Frame Rate Measurement."
ANSI T1.801.01 provides a set of video test scenes in digital
format that can be used for subjective and objective testing of
digital video systems. Standardized test scenes are important
because video images with little detail or motion may retain their
quality during digital compression and transmission, while images
with extensive detail or rapid motion may become significantly
impaired. Having standardized test scenes gives users the ability
to directly compare the performance of two or more systems.
ANSI T1.801.02 provides a dictionary of digital video performance
terms and impairments. This standard includes a video tape that
illustrates common digital video impairments such as tiling,
smearing, edge busyness, error blocks, and jerkiness. Thus, this
standard gives end-users and service providers a common language
for discussing digital video quality.
ANSI T1.801.03 defines a whole new framework of objective
parameters that can be used to measure the quality of digital video
systems. For a tutorial of the original ANSI T1.801.03-1996 video
quality metrics and their application for measuring compressed
digital video impairments, see our ANSI Video Quality
Tutorial. In 2002, a "General" ITS-developed video quality
metric (VQM) was prepared and submitted to the ITU Video Quality
Experts Group (VQEG) for independent testing and verification. Of
all the international VQM proponent submissions, the ITS VQM
submission was the only VQM that was in the top performing group
for both the 525-line and 625-line video tests. For the U.S.
standard 525-line video test, the ITS VQM achieved a correlation
coefficient to the subjective data of almost 95%, near the
theoretical limit. These test results are even more remarkable
because the ITS VQM submission was a "reduced-reference"
measurement system whereas the other proponents submitted
"full-reference" measurement systems. The ITS VQM submission only
requires approximately 1/20 of the reference data to make a
measurement. As a result of these international achievements in
2003, the ITS VQM was standardized by ANSI in July 2003 (ANSI
T1.801.03-2003), which replaced the original ANSI T1.801.03-1996.
ITU-T Study Group 9 and ITU-R Working Party 6Q have also included
the ITS VQM in their Recommendations (see the International
Standards section given below). To assist companies and potential
licensees in the deployment and use of the patented ITS VQM
technology, evaluation
software that implements the above national and international
standards has been posted on the ITS web site.
The fourth standard, ANSI T1.801.04, defines measurement methods
for audio delay, video delay, and audio-visual synchronization.
These performance parameters are important for interactive (i.e.,
two-way) telecommunication services.
For copies of these standards, contact the American National Standards Institute
(ANSI).
National Technical Reports:
From 2000 to 2003, ITS personnel also helped develop a
series of five technical reports (TRs) that have been published by
Committee T1 - Telecommunications, Alliance for Telecommunications
Industry Solutions (ATIS). These technical reports can be
downloaded directly from ATIS:
- T1.TR.72-2001, 2003, "Methodological Framework for Specifying
Accuracy and Cross-Calibration of Video Quality Metrics."
- T1.TR.73-2001, "Video Normalization Methods Applicable to
Objective Video Quality Metrics Utilizing a Full Reference
Technique."
- T1.TR.74-2001, "Objective Video Quality Measurement Using a
Peak-Signal-to-Noise-Ratio (PSNR) Full Reference Technique."
- T1.TR.75-2001, "Objective Perceptual Video Quality Measurement
Using a JND-Based Full Reference Technique."
- T1.TR.77-2002, "Data and Sample Program Code to be used with
the Method Specified in Technical Report T1.TR.PP.72-2001 for the
Calculation of Resolving Power of the Video Quality Metrics in
Technical Reports T1.TR.PP.74-2001 and T1.TR.PP.75-2001."
International Standards:
ITS personnel are active participants in the video
quality standards development process of the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU). Currently, the most active area of
participation is in the joint ITU-R / ITU-T Video Quality Experts
Group (VQEG) which is evaluating video quality measurement methods
for MPEG-2 and other video services. ITS maintains the VQEG Web Page,
the the VQEG reflector (ituvidq@its.bldrdoc.gov),
and the VQEG document archive (ftp://vqeg.its.bldrdoc.gov/).
Companies and organizations that would like to participate in VQEG
activities should send a subscribe message to the above
reflector.
The "General" ITS VQM, standardized by ANSI T1.801.03-2003 (see
above) has also been included in the following two ITU
Recommendations:
-
ITU-T Recommendation J.144, "Objective perceptual video quality
measurement techniques for digital cable television in the presence
of a full reference."
-
ITU-R Recommendation BT.1683, "Objective perceptual video
quality measurement techniques for standard definition digital
broadcast television in the presence of a full reference."
The ITS Reduced Reference (RR) calibration algorithms,
documented in Technical Report
TR-08-433b, "Reduced reference video calibration algorithms,"
has been included in the following ITU-T Recommendation:
The "Fast Low Bandwidth" ITS VQM, documented in ITUT_COM9_C5.pdf, has been included in
the following Draft New ITU-T Recommendation:
The Peak-Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) ITS VQM, documented in ITUT_COM9_C6.pdf, has been included in
the following Draft New ITU-T Recommendation: