A study of subjective video quality at various frame rates

Abstract

This paper presents a new video database (BVI-HFR), which contains content with a variety of frame rates from 15Hz to 120Hz, that can be used to demonstrate the benefits and limitations of higher frame rates, as well as investigating the role that frame rates play from capture to delivery. A characterization of the video database using low-level descriptors is also provided, which establishes that it successfully spans a variety of scene types and motions, and compares well to existing video databases. Subjective evaluations performed on the video database, have demonstrated a significant relationship between frame rates and perceived quality, up to 120Hz. They also confirm that the relationship between frame rate and perceived quality is content dependent.Index Terms-High frame rates, video database, subjective quality assessment.

A Study of High Frame Rate Video Formats

“…Previous research has demonstrated that there are a number of clear benefits associated with increased frame rates, including: the visibility of temporal aliasing artefacts being diminished [10,[21][22][23][24][25][26]; a reduction in perceptible motion blur [23][24][25][27][28][29]; increased realism, smoother motion, improved depth perception for both expert [30] and non-expert [31] viewers (especially when tracking using smooth pursuit eye movements); more realistic motion image quality (confirmed using EEG data) [32]; a reduction in viewer stress levels [33] (signified by a lower blinking frequency [34]); an improvement in speed and spatial discrimination, and reading ability [35]; and an increase in perceptual quality [18,36], at least up to 240 fps [29]. The use of higher frame rates also enhances the ability to capture and playback slow-motion videos [37].…”

“…The Bristol Vision Institute High Frame Rate (BVI-HFR) video database [18] contains 22 unique video sequences that were captured natively using a RED Epic-X video camera with a 3840×2160p (UHD-1) spatial resolution, a frame rate of 120 fps and a 360 • shutter angle. All 22 sequences were spatially down-sampled to 1920×1080p (HD) resolution using REDCINE-X software (which was also used for post-processing) into YUV 4:2:0 format (8 bit).…”

“…In this paper we utilise BVI-HFR to study the impact of frame rate variation in a number of key areas for future immersive video formats. Building upon our previous work in this area [18][19][20], we exploit temporal down-sampling to enable comparisons across a range of frame rates.…”

“…The subjective evaluations that were originally provided with the BVI-HFR video database was based on 29 participants[18]. We have conducted further experimentation here to increase the number of participants to 51.…”

The visibility of motion artifacts and their effect on motion quality

“…Video frame rates, higher than those conventionally used today, have been shown to lead to increases in perceived quality [1,2,3], due to a reduction in motion artifacts (motion blur and temporal aliasing) [4]. This has generated interest in the film, broadcast, streaming and virtual reality (VR) communities [5,6].…”