For video streaming services, a bit rate ladder is generated by encoding each video signal at various bit rates and associated spatial resolutions. For a bit rate ladder that maximizes the subjective quality at a minimum bit rate, it was found that the VMAF of the highest provided quality should not exceed 95, which is on average associated with the same subjective quality as the original signal. Second, all VMAF differences between adjacent renditions should ideally be not greater than 2 as this guarantees indistinguishable subjective quality on average. The generation of a bit rate ladder fulfilling these constraints faces the difficulties that (i) today’s encoders cannot be instructed to achieve a certain VMAF and (ii) a certain VMAF can be achieved by various combinations of bit rate and spatial resolution. These difficulties result in a content-dependent multidimensional solution space for generating the quality-based bit rate ladder at a minimum bit rate. In this paper, an algorithm is presented which can generate such a bit rate ladder. The algorithm determines the VMAF of nine initial encodings of the signal. Using a specifically designed and trained neural network, the VMAF of 5805 combinations of bit rate and spatial resolution is predicted from the nine initial ones. Based on these predictions, a bit rate ladder is extracted and further refined until all VMAF constraints are fulfilled. Experiments show that the algorithm requires 3.6 encodings per provided VMAF on average. A VMAF of 95.07 is achieved on average for the highest provided quality and a VMAF difference between adjacent renditions of 1.92.
A quality-based bit rate ladder design for over-the-top video streaming services is presented. Following the design criterion of maximizing subjective quality under the constraint of minimizing storage costs, the bit rate ladder is defined by three parameters. The first parameter is the lowest VMAF score at which a video signal is on average subjectively indistinguishable from the original video signal. Following the international recommendation ITU-R BT.500, extensive subjective tests were carried out to evaluate the fundamental relationships between the subjective quality and the VMAF score using a 4K OLED TV environment. Based on the test results, this VMAF score is set to 95. The second parameter is the lowest VMAF score being accepted on average by more than 50 % of the users for watching video signals of free streaming services. Additional tests yield in setting this VMAF score to 55. The third parameter is the maximum difference of two VMAF scores, for which the associated subjective qualities are approximately the same on average. In a third test, this difference is determined to be 2. This results in an ideal bit rate ladder providing each video signal in 21 qualities associated to the VMAF scores 95, 93, …, 57, 55. This bit rate ladder design can be applied to complete video signals occurring in per-title encoding strategies or to individual scenes of video signals occurring in per scene or shot-based encoding strategies. Applications using less than 21 renditions for this range, may suffer from impaired subjective quality
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