Low bit rate quality assessment based on perceptual characteristics

Peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) is not a good measure of perceived picture quality, especially at low bit rates of coding. This paper proposes a new approach for computing perceptual distortion for visual signal in order to provide an objective measure for perceptual quality at low bit rate coding in typically mobile communications. The regions with three major perceptually disturbing artifacts, namely, damaged edge, blockiness and ringing, are detected as the basis of assessment. The correlation of the metric with human perception has been demonstrated with low bit rate CIF test data.