Measuring the end-to-end performance of digital video systems

Significant research and development efforts by industry and government laboratories were brought to fruition in 1996 with the approval of the American National Standard (ANSI) T1.801.03 entitled "American National Standard for Telecommunications-Digital Transport of One-Way Video Signals-Parameters for Objective Performance Assessment." This standard provides a set of objective parameters that have consistently demonstrated high correlation levels with subjective evaluations of digital video impairments. The parameters are technology-independent and may be used to measure the performance of a wide range of digital video compression, storage, and transmission systems. This paper presents an overview of the ANSI T1.801.03 parameters and summarizes other relevant standards activities and contributions.