Quality Assessment of Video Content for HD IPTV Applications

In the last few years, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) has emerged as one of the major distribution technologies for broadband multimedia services. However, the delivery of High Definition Television (HDTV) services over IP networks still faces many challenges. This paper presents a study on quality assessment of HD video content for IPTV applications. Video sequences with different content types are delivered through an IPTV testbed. Subject to packet loss, their quality is evaluated with common objective video quality measurement tools in the emulated error-prone environment with respect to their content complexity. Objective criticality based on the calculation of spatio-temporal activities is examined to validate its suitability as video content complexity indicator in quality assessment. Subjective assessment is further carried out to validate the objective test results. With a good correlation between subjective Mean Opinion Score (MOS) and objective metrics, the prediction of viewer satisfaction in terms of HD video content quality in IPTV networks becomes feasible. Suggestions are also made regarding the choice of suitable measurements for more meaningful HD content classifications.