A Study of Objective Quality Metrics for HLG-Based HDR/WCG Image Coding

Metadata

Publisher: SMPTE — White Plains, NY, USA
Doc Type: Journal Article
Content Type: Original Research
Abbreviated Title: SMPTE Mot. Imag. J
Volume: 130, No. 4, pp. 53–65
Abstract: In this work, we study the suitability of high dynamic range, wide color gamut (HDR/WCG) objective quality metrics to assess the perceived deterioration of compressed images encoded using the hybrid log-gamma (HLG) method, which is the standard for HDR television. Several image quality metrics have been developed to deal specifically with HDR content, although in previous work we showed that the best results (i.e., better matches to the opinion of human expert observers) are obtained by an HDR metric that consists simply in applying a given standard dynamic range metric, called visual information fidelity (VIF), directly to HLG-encoded images. However, all these HDR metrics ignore the chroma components for their calculations, that is, they consider only the luminance channel. For this reason, in the current work, we conduct subjective evaluation experiments in a professional setting using compressed HDR/WCG images encoded with HLG and analyze the ability of the best HDR metric to detect perceivable distortions in the chroma components, as well as the suitability of popular color metrics (including \Delta I T P_R, which supports parameters for HLG) to correlate with the opinion scores. Our first contribution is to show that there is a need to consider the chroma components in HDR metrics, as there are color distortions that subjects perceive but that the best HDR metric fails to detect. Our second contribution is the surprising result that VIF, which utilizes only the luminance channel, correlates much better with the subjective evaluation scores than the metrics investigated that do consider the color components.
Publication Date: 2021-05-01
DOI: 10.5594/JMI.2021.3065415
ISSN: Print: 1545-0279 | Electronic: 2160-2492
Link: https://doi.org/10.5594/JMI.2021.3065415
Author(s): Yasuko Sugito
bio
Yasuko Sugito is with the Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) Science and Technology Research Laboratories (STRL), Tokyo, Japan, researching video compression algorithms and image processing on 8K. Her current research interests focus on image quality assessment, both subjectively and objectively, for 8K videos with high-frame-rate (HFR) 120-Hz, high dynamic range (HDR), and wide color gamut (WCG).
Trevor Canham
bio
Trevor Canham was born and raised in Rochester, NY, where he went on to receive a BS degree in motion picture science from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2018. Since then, he has been a research engineer focused on dynamic color management systems with the Image Processing for Enhanced Cinematography Group at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. His interests lie in the interaction between visual perception and aesthetic imaging systems.
Javier Vazquez-Corral
bio
Javier Vazquez-Corral received a PhD degree in computer science from Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB), Bellaterra, Spain, in 2011. He is currently a researcher with the Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona. His research interests are related to the use of color in image processing and computer vision problems. He is also interested in bridging the gap between color in the human brain and its use in computer-vision applications.
Marcelo Bertalmío
bio
Marcelo BertalmÍO, born in Montevideo in 1972, received a PhD degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, in 2001. His current research interests are in developing image processing algorithms for the media industry that mimic neural and perceptual processes in the visual system and to investigate new vision models.
Keyword(s): HDR, HLG, Image Compression, Objective Quality Metric, Wide Color Gamut
Copyright: © 2021 SMPTE

Bibliographic Reference(s)

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Yasuko Sugito, Trevor Canham, Javier Vazquez-Corral, and Marcelo Bertalmío; A Study of Objective Quality Metrics for HLG-Based HDR/WCG Image Coding, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 130, Issue: 4, May 2021); SMPTE, 2021. Available at https://doi.org/10.5594/JMI.2021.3065415

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Yasuko Sugito, Trevor Canham, Javier Vazquez-Corral, and Marcelo Bertalmío; A Study of Objective Quality Metrics for HLG-Based HDR/WCG Image Coding, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 130, Issue: 4, May 2021); SMPTE, 2021. Available at https://doi.org/10.5594/JMI.2021.3065415

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<span class="citation">Yasuko Sugito, Trevor Canham, Javier Vazquez-Corral, and Marcelo Bertalmío; <cite>A Study of Objective Quality Metrics for HLG-Based HDR/WCG Image Coding</cite>, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 130, Issue: 4, May 2021); SMPTE, 2021. Available at <a href="https://doi.org/10.5594/JMI.2021.3065415" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.5594/JMI.2021.3065415</a></span>

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Yasuko Sugito, Trevor Canham, Javier Vazquez-Corral, and Marcelo Bertalmío; A Study of Objective Quality Metrics for HLG-Based HDR/WCG Image Coding, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 130, Issue: 4, May 2021); SMPTE, 2021
doi: 10.5594/JMI.2021.3065415
url: https://doi.org/10.5594/JMI.2021.3065415

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Yasuko Sugito, Trevor Canham, Javier Vazquez-Corral, and Marcelo Bertalmío; <cite id="bib-10-5594-jmi-2021-3065415">A Study of Objective Quality Metrics for HLG-Based HDR/WCG Image Coding</cite>, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal ( Volume: 130, Issue: 4, May 2021); SMPTE, 2021
<span class="doi">10.5594/JMI.2021.3065415</span>
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