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MSU Video Quality Measurement Tool: Manual

MSU Graphics & Media Lab (Video Group)

MSU VQMT Information

Basic Information About VQMT
Setting & Screenshots (advanced files settings, visualization settings)
Metrics Info (PSNR, MSE, MSAD, SSIM, VQM, MSU Blurring/Blocking)
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
Plugins & Plugin SDK[BI-PSNR, DFM, BFM, NE, SCD]
MSU VQMT program performance (New!)
Subjective quality metrics comparison (New!)

PRO Version Info (with command-line interface) [Full Documentation, PDF, 2.98 MB]
Download & Purchase [Brochure, PDF, 475kB]

Main Settings

MSU Video Quality Measurement Tool: Main Window

File selection

Original file - original video file. Other files will be compared with it.
Processed (compressed) - processed (compressed) file, which will be compared with original.
Comparative analysis - allows to one-pass comparison of two files with one original (for example compressed by different codecs).
Second processed (another codec) - second processed file for comparative analysis.
Use mask file - enables masking. Please read FAQ for more information.
Use black mask - black areas of a given mask file are the areas that should be masked.
Open with AviSynth - the program tries to generate appropriate AviSynth script and open the file using the script. The checkbox is enabled only when AviSynth is installed on computer. User can control script generation using Advanced button. More information about it can be found in AviSynth support paragraph.
Preview - use Preview buttons to preview selected files contents.

AVI files (*.avi).
Uncompressed bitmaps in RGB24 colorspace (*.bmp).
AviSynth scripts (*.avs).
Raw yuv in a various colorspaces (*.yuv, *.y4m). The colorspaces are: IYUV (I420), YV12, UYVY, Y (only luminance channel), planar YUV, YUY2 (YUYV), YV16. For more information about colorspaces refer to FOURCC official site.
*.MOV, *.VOB, *.WMV, *.MP4, *.MPG, *.MKV, *.FLV and other known video formats (via AviSynth)
Raw yuv files through auto generated AviSynth scripts (*.yuv). Auto generated script uses RawSource plugin. The colorspaces supported are: IYUV (I420), YV12, Y (only luminance channel), UYVY, VYUY, YUY2 (YUYV), YVYU. As the one can see the colorspaces list is slightly different from the one of the original program's one. For more information about colorspaces refer to FOURCC official site.
Raw files with more than 8 bits per color component (*.yuv, *.rgb) -- only in PRO version. Supported colorspaces are 4:2:0, 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 yuv with 10, 14 and 16 bits and 4:4:4 rgb with 10, 14 and 16 bits. The formats are organized as described in 6.1 Bitstream formats paragraph of H.264 standard.

Note:

PRO version

Metric selection

Metrics Information

Output Selection

Save CSV file - save results to csv-file
Save metric visualization video / image - save video with selected metric visualization
Save "bad frames" - Automatic selecting and saving frames with maximum difference between original and processed files (or between two processed in comparative analysis mode)

Show results visualization

AviSynth Support

Citated from avisynth.org: "AviSynth is a powerful tool for video post-production. It provides ways of editing and processing videos. AviSynth works as a frameserver, providing instant editing without the need for temporary files."

AviSynth script generation settings window
Avisynth generation parameters.

To increase the number of the file types, supported by MSU VQMT application, auto generated AviSynth scripts were implemented. AviSynth script generation settings window is designed to control application's script generation by advanced users. User can use the feature of auto generated AviSynth scripts only if the AviSynth is installed on the computer.

MSU VQMT uses the next filters in its scripts:

AviSource (internal AviSynth filter)
OpenDMLSource (internal AviSynth filter)
AviFileSource (internal AviSynth filter)
DirectShowSource (internal AviSynth filter)
DirectShowSource2 (external AviSynth filter):
QTSource (external AviSynth filter):
- AviSynth official site
- Doom9's thread about QTSource
FFMpegSource (external AviSynth filter):
RawSource (external AviSynth filter):

If the user do not set any special settings the application will try to open the file by running over all the filters, beginning with the prefed one. Preferd filter is selected based on the file extension.
User can set:

Prefered filter. The program will try to use this filter first to open the file.
Comma-separated list of the parameters to the filter. This list will be provided to the filter without any changes after the file name, which is the first argument. For example, if the user provides '352, 288, "I420"' as the filter parameters and tries to open video.yuv file with RawSource, than the filter will be called the next way:
RawSource("video.yuv", 352, 288, "I420")
Check box to not try to use different plugins. If the user sets the check box, then the application will not run over all the available plugins if the prefered one with the provided parameters can not open the file and returns an error. This may be useful if the user sure that only one of the supported plugins opens the file correctly.

Advanced Settings

Advanced file settings

RGB<->YUV matrix

REC.601 This matrix is default for AVISynth. Y: [16...235], U, V: [16...240] (or [-112...112]
PC.601 This matrix was used in the previous version of the program. Y: [0...255], U,V: [-128...128] (or [0..255])
Information about color-planes transform matrixes

Save CSV file / Save measure visualization video / image - Advanced

CSV Settings

Output dir - directory for cvs-files
Name generation - method for csv-files names generating (Prefix - <metric_name>_<video_name>.csv, Postfix - <video_name>_<metric_name>.csv, Custom - specified by user).
CSV Type - select separator in csv-file (";" or ",")
Create CSV in Unicode - save CSV in Unicode or in ASCII

Visualization settings

Name generation - method for generating names of visualization files (Prefix - <metric_name>_<video_name>.avi(bmp), Postfix - <video_name>_<metric_name>.avi(bmp)).
Output dir - output dir for avi (bmp) files

Caption options

Position - caption position in the frame
Print metric value - print value of metric in output video
Print frame number - print frame number in output video

Save "bad frames" - Advanced

"Bad frames" settings

With maximum difference between original & processed When original file is compared with one processed frames with maximum difference will be saved.
With maximum difference between first processed and second processed / With maximum difference, where metric for first is greater than for second / With maximum difference, where metric for second is greater than for first - in comparative analysis mode save frames, where differenece between two frames is maximum / with maximum difference, where metric for first is greater than for second / with maximum difference, where metric for second is greater than for first
Count out radius - if this radius is not equal to 0, the "bad frames" will be saved only if the distance (in the film) between any bad frames is greater, then this value . This feature is very useful, when one codec processes whole scene worser, than second. Only one frame from this scene will be saved and you can also get "bad frames" from another scenes.
Output dir - directory for saving bad frames "bad_frames". Name generation mask: <video_name>_fr<frame_number>.bmp

More Options

Wav file

Play WAV file, when finished - select wav-file, which will be played after measurement

Visualization Metrics Information

Top plot shows metric values for the whole sequence, the bottom one shows chosen part of it.
Video Slide - select fragment to zoom to
Show grid - show or hide grid
Controls - shift between frames, zoom or unzoom, copy plot to clipboard. Most of the buttons can be hold to perform operation faster. Only bottom plot and legend are copied to clipboard.
Show frame - show current frame

Visualization Frames of Sequences

Switch between original/first/second processed by pressing 1, 2 and 3
You can easily resize th dialog, increasing or decreasing visible area
Use buttons to move from frame (or "bad frame") to frame. You can use main visualization dialog to change frames as well
With Ctrl+C or "copy" button you can copy currently selected frame to clipboard (frame is copied with original size)
Scale - zoom or unzoom current frame

Preview window

Video can be resized by resizing dialog, changing scale slider position or pressing the buttons of increasing or decreasing the scale. When the buttons are pressed the scale is changed to the usable predefined positions.
Use buttons or slider to move from frame to frame.