Assessment of image quality in high resolution display systems

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This Engage proposal describes a new collaboration between Qualcomm Corporation and York University. Qualcomm is a global leader in telecommunication that designs and markets wireless telecommunication devices, and a leader in the establishment of industry standards. Rapid advances in display technology are driving the creation of devices with increasingly high resolution, for a variety of platforms (mobile devices, televisions). While consumers are accustomed to high definition (HD) displays, displays with four times this resolution (4K, UHD) are becoming a viable consumer option. One of the critical determinants of the success of this industry will be the perceived quality of display content. To attain 4K (and higher) resolution, increasingly large amounts of data has to be compressed to reduce bandwidth. A consequence of display stream compression is reduction of picture quality with introduction of pixelated noise and other image artefacts. To cope with this data-size/fidelity trade-off, and its potential impact on the market, the industry must develop standards for low-impact (visually lossless) compression algorithms. Moreover, to make such standards meaningful, it is critical that they be developed via carefully controlled and designed user studies with suitable content, and test parameters. To establish and validate rigorous test protocols Qualcomm requires input from experts in human visual assessment and psychophysical methodologies. The proposed partnership with York University will provide access to this expertise and pave the way towards establishing a standard protocol to evaluate whether or which compression algorithms are able to cope with the increases in data rate, without sacrificing image quality. York will review current approaches to display stream compression (DSC) evaluation, using current standards and naïve observers. The potential impact of this project is significant given the importance of the telecommunications industry to the Canadian economy.