Video quality assessment through PSNR estimation for different compression standards

Abstract

There is a threefold increase in video traffic over internet. Due to this video compression has become important. Compression of video signals is quiet an interesting task but comes at the cost of video quality. After compression, two methods are scientifically applied to evaluate the quality of video; Subjective and objective analysis. In subjective approach the compressed video is shown to a group of viewers and their feedback is recorded Objective approach aims to set up a mathematical model which can approximate the results of subjective analysis. One such approach is based on the measurement of PSNR. When a signal is applied to the encoder for compression, too much of compression results in a signal with a smaller size but at the same time quality of the signal degrades. In this paper we will compare the quality of compressed video signals produced by H.264, Mpeg2 and Mpeg4 encoder based on the values of MSE and PSNR. Lower the value of MSE, higher will be the PSNR. Comparative plots of MSE, PSNR, SSIM and images for subjective analysis have been added at the end of this paper.