Subjective and objective quality evaluation of the H.264/AVC coded video

The H.264/AVC codec provides a superior coding efficiency and an improved network adaptation if compared to older video standards. In this paper we present experimental results obtained by the subjective and objective quality evaluation of the H.264/AVC coded video. Four objective metrics are used: peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), minimum of locally averaged PSNR (local_PSNR), Video Quality Metric (VQM) and Structural Similarity index (SSIM). We have analyzed results of objective and subjective metrics for several CIF sequences and bit rates. Also, we have compared results obtained for H.264/AVC coded sequences with those coded with MPEG-4 Part 2 codec. Results of the subjective quality evaluation show that on the bit rates below 640 kb/s the H.264/AVC codec has achieved an obviously higher video quality, ensured by the objective metrics as well. On the bit rates higher than 640 kb/s the subjective quality of sequences coded by MPEG-4 Part 2 is close to the quality of H.264/AVC coded video, confirmed only by the SSIM and local_PSNR results.