An Approach to Interactive Multimedia Systems Through Subjective Video Quality Assessment in H.264/AVC Standard

This paper seeks to provide an approach to subjective video quality assessment in H.264/AVC standard. In general, methods for video content quality evaluation can be divided on objective and subjective one. While objective methodology uses mathematical methods for presenting human visual system (HVS), subjective method uses group of subjects (observers) to present decoded video sequences. Video content quality estimation enabled to evaluate in a subjective way the relevant parameter i.e., signal-to-noise ratio. For this purpose, special software program is developed for subjective quality estimation of all tested sequences using the recommendation ITU-T P.910 which is convenient for testing different multimedia applications. Testing for subjective quality evaluation is realized in two steps. The user's interface preparation is carried out in the first step, while in the second one, the presentation of the processed test sequences through user interface is realized. Using the subjective analysis in processed test sequences, it is confirmed that there exists a small difference in signal-to-noise ration, i.e., video quality between sequence in reference source format and sequence under the test condition. To prove this, the observer’s ratings are mainly 4 or 5 and mean estimation values varying in the range from 4,00 to 4,95. Key-Words: H.264/AVC, Peak signal-to-noise ratio, Selective intra-prediction method, Optimized interprediction method, Subjective video quality assessment.