Objective Quality Assessment of Wideband Speech Coding using W-PESQ Measure and Artificial Voice

An objective quality measurement methodology for wideband-speech coding has been studied, its essential components being an objective quality measure and an input test signal. Wideband-PESQ conforming to draft Recommendation P.862 has been studied as the objective quality measure. The Wideband-PESQ has been verified from the viewpoint of the consistency between subjectively evaluated MOS and objectively estimated MOS. Experimental results show that the correlation between them is strong, and the RMSE is relatively small. It is concluded that Wideband-PESQ is a promising measure for the objective quality assessment of wideband-speech coding. However, the mapping function from Wideband-PESQ values to subjective MOS requires further study. This paper also describes the verification of artificial voice conforming to Recommendation P.50, as the input test signal for such measurements, by evaluating the consistency between the objectively estimated MOS using a real voice and that obtained using an artificial voice. Experimental results show that the correlation between them is very strong, and the RMSE is very small. It is concluded that an artificial voice can be used, in place of a real voice, for the objective quality assessment of wideband-speech coding.