Statistical analysis of picture quality for the digital television broadcasting

We have introduced "criticality" as a quantitative measure of the difficulty in digitally coding pictures for the purpose of analyzing picture quality statistically. Because picture quality in digital coding depends greatly on picture characteristics such as spatial details and motion, it is not easy to confirm how well a system performs from only a subjective assessment test, in which a limited number of test sequences are used. A definition of criticality is proposed and results of criticality measurement for SDTV and HDTV broadcast television programs are reported. Also proposed is a method to obtain the statistical distribution of picture quality for television programs in digital broadcasting. By measuring the frequency of occurrence of criticality and relating it to subjective picture quality, it becomes possible to obtain the statistical quality distribution of television programs in digital broadcasting.