The Subjective Quality of Stereoscopic 3D Video Following Display Stream Compression

Stereoscopic displays present similar but different images/videos separately to the left and right eyes. Here we report the results of a subjective assessment of computer-generated high dynamic range (HDR) stereoscopic video compression targeting lightweight, low-latency visually lossless performance. The ISO/IEC 29170-2 non-flicker paradigm (Annex A) was adapted for stereoscopic videos and used to evaluate the VESA DSC 1.2a and VDC-M 1.2.2 codecs operating at and beyond their recommended maximum compression levels. Both codecs exhibited visually lossless performance at their target compressions levels. There were differences in compression artifact detection rates with some image sequences between stereoscopic and 2D presentation although the direction of the difference was inconsistent. The results confirm the effectiveness of these codecs for Stereoscopic 3D (S3D) videos and suggest that observers are relatively insensitive to compression artifacts in moving stereoscopic imagery.