The Impact of Packet Loss on Quality of H.264/AVC Video Streaming

Abstract

In this paper a simple and robust method for estimation of distorted video quality is proposed and assessed, which is perceived by human observer in mobile video streaming applications. Increasing bandwidth of mobile communication systems expand the variety of offered multimedia services such as video streaming. However, the quality of these services is very dependent on rapidly varying mobile communication conditions. Most widely used video quality estimation methods, such as Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Structural Similarity (SSIM), and Video Quality Metric (VQM) are based on the presence of full or reduced reference video. These methods could be used to assess video quality of video transmission system only during test stage and in the limited number of scenarios. In order to assess user experienced video quality in real conditions, methods with no reference must be employed. Such existing methods as video quality metric use bit-error rate that has low correlation with by human perceived video quality. More precise methods usually are too complex and require too much processing power that cannot be tolerated in handheld mobile devices. In this paper it is shown that developed no reference low complexity video quality estimation method based on H.264/AVC video stream packet structure delivers estimate of received video quality comparable with results of subjective MOS tests.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eie.22.2.14596