Quality Assessment of Natural Videos

互联网和现代手持通信设备的到来，正在数字视频技术和产品的消费方面引发一场非凡的革命，并由此导致全球信息基础设施的性质和需求发生翻天覆地的变化。数字视频采集、网络、存储和显示设备已经发展到非常复杂的程度，导致许多流行的和全球部署的网络应用迅速崛起，如互联网视频、交互式视频点播（VoD）、视频远程呈现、视频电话、pda和其他无线视频设备、视频监控、高清电视、数字影院等。监控和控制广播视频流的质量对提高服务质量（QoS）至关重要。然而，在执行可靠的视频质量分析方法方面的进展仍然相当有限。本文提出的研究将创建强大的视频质量评估（VQA）算法，这些算法与视觉感知高度相关。拟议研究的预期效益是深远的。改进视频服务质量（QoS）的方法是世界范围内电缆、半导体、移动电话和网络行业的主要重点，并且在这个主题上花费了大量的努力。成功的VQA算法很可能部署在全球有线和无线通信网络以及视频采集和显示设备中。视频质量的突破性理论将使基于感知标准的视频处理算法的设计成为可能——这是成像科学几十年来的圣杯。

The arrival of the Internet and modern handheld communication devices is ushering in a remarkable revolution in the consumption of digital video technologies and products, and a resulting sea change in the nature and needs of the global information infrastructure. Digital video acquisition, networking, storage and display devices have advanced to an extraordinary degree of sophistication, leading to the rapid rise of many popular and globally deployed networked applications as Internet Video, Interactive Video on Demand (VoD), Video Telepresence, Video Phones, PDAs and other Wireless Video devices, Video Surveillance, HDTV, Digital Cinema etc. Monitoring and controlling the quality of broadcast video streams is essential towards improving quality of service (QoS). Yet, progress in methods for performing reliable video quality analysis has remained quite limited. The research proposed here will create powerful Video Quality Assessment (VQA) algorithms that correlate highly with visual perception. The expected benefits of the proposed research are far-reaching. Methods for improving video Quality of Service (QoS) are a major emphasis of the world-wide cable, semiconductor, cell phone, and networking industries and considerable efforts are being expended on this topic. Successful VQA algorithms are likely to be deployed throughout the global wireline and wireless communication networks as well as in video acquisition and display devices. Breakthrough theories of video quality will enable the design of algorithms for video processing based on perceptual criteria - a decades-old holy grail of imaging science.