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Project head: Dr. Dmitriy Vatolin
Organization of assessment: Alexander Parshin, Petrov Oleg
Refinement, translation: Oleg Petrov
Verification: Alexander Parshin, Artem Titarenko

About comparison

Tested codecs:

• DivX 6.0
• Xvid 1.1.0
• x264
• WMV 9.0

Bitrates:

• 690 kbps
• 1024 kbps

Number of sequences: 4

Number of experts: 50

Download MSU Subjective Comparison of Modern Video Codecs (32 pages in PDF, 852 kB)

Goal of subjective comparison

During last few years many comparisons of video, audio and image codecs were carried out by our Graphics & Media Lab at Moscow State University. All of them used objective metrics like PSNR, VQM or SSIM. This fact has raised reasonable questions on adequacy of objective measures to the subjectively perceived quality, which is the main parameter of a codec's performance. Goals of our assessment are subjective comparison of new versions of popular videocodecs, comparison of results with objective metrics and subjective assessment technology testing.

Main comparison parts:

1. Subjective comparison of videocodecs.
2. Comparison of results with objective metrics.

Subjective comparison

Main quality parameter for a codec - subjective impressions of a viewer of a compressed video. Latter is the main idea of subjective comparison methods - quality score for a compressed sequence is the average opinion of a group of experts on its quality (MOS, Mean Opinion Score).
There are lots of methodologies of subjective assessment, many of them are implemented in MSU Perceptual Video Quality tool that was used for the assessment. Our comparison is using SAMVIQ - method that was recently developed by EBU (European Broadcasting Union), PDF with the comparison contains its description. On a graph below you can see average MOS for all codecs, the higher the better. Probably, XviD results could be improved by switching on deblocking algorithm (this algorithm isn't used by default).

Average MOS for all codecs

Following graph illustrates average MOS for each codec and bitrate and its' 95% confidence intervals.

Evaluation of objective metrics

PSNR, VQM and SSIM were measured for each sequence with MSU Video Quality Measurement tool, description of these metrics can be found on this page. The following graphs illustrate relation between subjective opinion and an objective metric: if set of points is close to a straight line, then the metric is adequate to the subjectively perceived quality (values of PSNR and SSIM were mapped on MOS scale, see PDF with the comparison for more details).

Content of HTML version

Download

• MSU Subjective Comparison of Modern Video Codecs - PDF (853 kB)
• MSU Subjective Comparison of Modern Video Codecs - ZIP (721 kB)

Other resources

Video resources:

Public MSU video filters Here are available VirtualDub and AviSynth filters. Commonly we develop a whole family of some kind of a filter. Generally there are also versions optimized for PC and hardware implementations (ASIC/FPGA/DSP). These optimized versions can be licensed to companies. Please contact us for details via video(at)graphics.cs.msu_ru. MSU Cartoon Restore (New!) MSU Noise Estimation (New!) MSU Frame Rate Conversion (New!) MSU Image Restoration (New!) MSU Denoising (Top!) MSU Old Cinema MSU Deblocking (Top!) MSU Smart Brightness and Contrast (Top!) MSU Smart Sharpen (Top!) MSU Noise generation MSU Noise estimation MSU Motion Estimation Information MSU Subtitles removal MSU Logo removal (Top!) MSU Deflicker (Top!) MSU Field Shift Fixer AviSynth plug-in MSU StegoVideo MSU Cartoonizer (Top!) MSU SmartDeblocking (Top!) MSU Color Enhancement MSU Old Color Restoration MSU filters FAQ (Read me!) MSU filters statistics (New!)	MSU filters for companies We are working with Intel, Samsung, RealNetworks and other companies on adapting our filters other video processing algorithms for specific video streams, applications and hardware like TV-sets, graphics cards, etc. Some of such projects are non-exclusive. Also we have internal researches. Please let us know via video(at)graphics.cs.msu_ru if you are interested in acquiring a license for such filters or making a custom R&D project on video processing, compression, computer vision. Automatic Objects Segmentation (New!) Semiautomatic Objects Segmentation New Frame Rate Conversion (New!) New Deinterlacer (New!) MSU-Samsung Deinterlacing Project Digital TV Signal Enhancement Old Film Recovery Tuner TV Restore Panorama Video2Photo SuperResolution SuperPrecision MSU-Samsung image and video resampling MSU-Samsung Frame Rate Conversion Motion Phase filter Deshaker (video stabilization) Film Grain/Degrain filter (New!) Deblurring filter Video Content Marking
Codecs comparisons Objective and subjective quality evaluation tests for video and image codecs 4-th MPEG4-AVC/H.264 Comparison (New!) Lossless Video Codecs Comparison 2007 (New!) 3-rd MPEG4-AVC/H.264 Comparison HD Photo and JPEG 2000 Comparison MPEG-2 Decoders Crash Test (Top!) Subjective Compar. of 4 Modern Codecs (Top!) 2-nd MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Comparison (Top!) FAQ of 2-nd H.264 Comparison 1-st MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Codecs Comparison FAQ of 1-st H.264 Comparison JPEG 2000 Image Codecs Comparison (Top!) Lossless Video Codecs Comparison 2004 MPEG-4 SP/ASP Codecs Comparison (Top!) Video codecs comparison (old) Ads link: x264 parameters efficiency comparison	Video quality metrics Programs with different objective and subjective video quality metrics implementation MSU Video Quality Metric - objective metrics for codecs and filters comparison (Top!) Implemented metrics short info: PSNR, Delta, MSAD, MSE, SSIM, VQM, MSU Blurring, MSU Blocking MSU Brightness Flicking Metric MSU Brightness Independent PSNR MSU Drop Frame Metric MSU Noise Estimation Metric MSU VQM Metric Tool FAQ MSU Human Perceptual Quality Metric - several metrics for exact visual tests (Top!) Implemented metrics short info: ITU-R BT.500-11: DSIS, DSCQS I & II, SCACJ; EBU: SAMVIQ; MSUCQE MSU PVQ Metric Tool FAQ
Video codecs projects Different research and development projects on video codecs MSU Lossless Video Codec (Top!) MSU Screen Capture Lossless Codec (Top!) MSU MPEG-2 Video Codec x264 Codec Improvement	Other Other information Crazy gallery (filters screams :) License for commercial usage of MSU VideoGroup Public Software (please be careful: some soft like metrics has another license!)

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Last updated: 07-December-2007

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Project supported by MSU Graphics & Media Lab