VESA Display Stream Compression (DSC) is a light-weight codec designed for visually lossless compression over display links. Such high-performance algorithms must be evaluated subjectively to assess whether the codec meets visually lossless criteria. Here we present the first large-scale evaluation of DSC1.2 according to ISO/IEC 29170-2.

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Advances in imaging and display engineering have given rise to new and improved image and video applications that aim to maximize visual quality under given resource constraints (e.g., power, bandwidth). Because the human visual system is an imperfect sensor, the images/videos can be represented in a mathematically lossy fashion but with enough fidelity that the losses are visually imperceptible-commonly termed "visually lossless." Although a great deal of research has focused on gaining a better understanding of the limits of human vision when viewing natural images/video, a universally or even largely accepted definition of visually lossless remains elusive. Differences in testing methodologies, research objectives, and target applications have led to multiple ad-hoc definitions that are often difficult to compare to or otherwise employ in other settings. We present a compendium of technical experiments relating to both vision science and visual quality testing that together explore the research and business perspectives of visually lossless image quality, as well as review recent scientific advances. Together, the studies presented in this paper suggest that a single definition of visually lossless quality might not be appropriate; rather, a better goal would be to establish varying levels of visually lossless quality that can be quantified in terms of the testing paradigm.

High-dynamic range displays provide impressive image quality, but require markedly higher bandwidth. Here we report results of the first large-scale subjective assessment of HDR image compression. We applied the ISO/IEC 29170-2 flicker paradigm to evaluate two state-of-the art VESA codecs (DSC v1.2a, pre-release version of VDC-M) at several compression levels.

ISO/IEC 29170-2 outlines a subjective procedure for assessing codec quality for near-threshold artifacts. Here we outline a statistical method for analyzing these data using Generalized Linear Mixed-Models (GLMMs). This procedure provides insightful metrics concerning the relative performance of two or more codecs that may aid in the perceptually-guided development and selection of novel codec technologies.Author Keywords subjective quality assessment; image compression; statistical modeling P-31 / M. D. Cutone • SID 2018 DIGEST