Video processing, compression
and quality research group

Based in MSU Graphics & Media Laboratory

MSU Video Quality Measurement Tool (MSU VQMT) project:

• Main MSU VQMT page on compression.ru
• Download & Purchase on compression.ru
• Basic information
• Online help
• Metrics reference
• Version history & Changelog

Brief Description

MSU Video Quality Measurement Tool (MSU VQMT) is professional software that is used to perform deep comparative objective analysis of video quality. The main functionality of this software is to calculate objective quality metrics for digital multimedia content (video or image) using reference (when comparing one or several processed/compressed/distorted video sequences to original one) or non-reference (when analyzing content and getting mark of its quality) types of analysis.

MSU VQMT is developed by COMPRESSION.RU Team with participants MSU Graphics & Media Lab. Video Group (G&M Lab.). Project leader: dr. Dmitry Vatolin.

To use MSU VQMT with Python refer to MSU VQMT Python Interface.

See also: MSU VQMT online help on https://videoprocessing.ai.

Main support email: video-measure@compression.ru.

Main application areas

Codec developers Modern metrics are close to human perception. Control quality loss with VQMT.

Television industry. Be sure in picture quality.

Studios. Control quality in automatic or manual mode on stage of production

Medical equipment developers. Analysis quality and parameters of medical devices signal.

Video providers. Reduce storage and transmission cost.

Research groups & Universities. Use VQMT to control arbitrary parameters of video and images.

Individuals. Writers, bloggers, journalists in video segment.

AV system manufacturers. For camera, video compressors, transmitters developers.

We use MSU VQMT in own projects, for example:

• Moscow State University, CS MSU Graphics & Media Lab. Annual Codecs Comparison https://www.compression.ru/video/codec_comparison/index_en.html.

• MSU Benchmarks. https://videoprocessing.ai/benchmarks/

• See also x264 Codec Capabilities analysis from YUVsoft Corp.
  http://yuvsoft.com/pdf/x264_parameters_comparison.pdf.

Editions & API

FREE license is an edition for individuals. It supplies only GUI edition for Windows and has limitations.

DEMO license is an edition for testing PRO/Premium features. This version is useless - computed values are incorrect. However it can be used to test VQMT features and performance.

Trial license is an edition for companies considering purchasing VQMT. This edition can be requested on VQMT website. The standard trial period is 2 weeks.

PRO license is an edition for companies and individuals, who wants to use all abilities of MSU VQMT GUI and CLI interfaces on Windows or Linux. It helps them to carry out massive comparisons of their technologies using batch processing of big numbers of files and flexible options for measurements without technical limitations. One PRO verison license grants access to one Windows and one Linux platform simultaneously. We have very attractive volume discounts.

PREMIUM license is an edition for companies, who actively uses MSU VQMT. It doesn’t limit installations, supports automatical activation, using in clouds, on virtual machines and more.

SDK license is a special expensive license for companies that want to incorporate VQMT into their workflow.

System Requirements

Supported Windows systems (GUI and CLI):

• Microsoft Windows 7 x64 SP 1 or later, with installed updates: KB2999226, KB976932, KB2533623.
• Microsoft Windows 8 x64, 10 x64 or later.

Supported Linux systems (command-line interface only):

• Debian family (Ubuntu 16.04 or later)
• Red Hat family (CentOS 7 or later)
• Support for other standalone Linux systems – by request.

Hardware requirements:

• 2 GHZ x86-64 Processor
• Processor with AVX support required on Linux
• 4 GB of RAM
• 200 Mb free disc space

We recommend:

• 4+ core processor with AVX support
• 8 GM RAM
• Graphical adapter with at least 1 GB video RAM.

We recommend Premium version for usage in clouds, containers, virtual machines and with other virtualization technologies. The PRO activation is guaranteed to work only on standalone workstations, laptops.

Main Features

Three types of User Interface:

1. Command-Line Interface (Windows & Linux, Professional only);
2. Graphic User Interface (Windows only, Free & Professional);
3. Python Interface. Can be installed via PyPI package.

Various input video formats:

• Video files (*.avi; *.avs; *.dat; *.divx; *.f4v; *.flv; *.h265; *.m2ts; *.m2v; *.m4v; *.mkv; *.mov; *.mp4; *.mpg; *.mts; *.mxf; *.ogm; *.ogv; *.qt; *.ts; *.vob; *.wmv; *.265; *.3g2; *.3gp; *.3gpp and others);
• Raw files with 1-16 bit integer color depth or 32-bit floats, different colorspaces and subsamplings;
• Image files and image sequences: *.bmp, *.bw, *.cut, *.dds, *.exr, *.g3, *.gif (only static images), *.hdp, *.hdr, *.ico, *.iff, *.j2c, *.j2k, *.jif, *.jng, *.jp2, *.jpe, *.jpeg, *.jpg, *.jxr, *.lbm, *.mng, *.pbm, *.pcd, *.pct, *.pcx, *.pgm, *.pic, *.pict, *.png, *.ppm, *.psd, *.ras, *.rgb, *.rgba, *.sgi, *.targa, *.tga, *.tif, *.tiff, *.wap, *.wbm, *.wbmp, *.wdp, *.webp, *.xbm, *.xpm;
• Full-HD, 4K, 8K and other resolutions support;
• TIFF images with 16 and 32 bit (floating point) color depth;
• AviSynth scripts – it can be very useful when using VOB, WMV and other files as input for MSU VQMT;
• Video files via AviSynth scripts auto generation;

Base metrics are included:

1. PSNR;
2. HDR PSNR;
3. MSE;
4. MSAD;
5. Delta;
6. Delta ICtCp;
7. SSIM (superfast, fast, precise, OpenCL, CUDA);
8. HDR SSIM;
9. MSSSIM (superfast, fast, precise, OpenCL, CUDA);
10. HDR MS-SSIM;
11. 3SSIM (CPU, OpenCL, CUDA);
12. stSSIM (temporary excluded);
13. VQM;
14. HDR VQM;
15. NIQE (no-reference);
16. VMAF;
17. SI (no-reference)
18. TI (no-reference)

Additional objective quality metrics from MSU:

• MSU Brightness Flicking Metric (with source code);
• MSU Brightness Independent PSNR (with source code);
• MSU Drop Frame Metric (with source code);
• MSU Noise Estimation Metric (with source code);
• MSU Scene Change Detector (with source code);
• MSU Blocking (no-reference);
• MSU Blurring (no-reference);

In command-line mode metrics can be calculated simultaneously. Also metrics supports:

• Sets of color components;
• ROI;
• Saving results to CSV of JSON files
• Visualization;
• Different averaging modes;
• Plug-ins interface with SDK that gives user possibility to create their own metrics;
• Possibility to compare several files in one comparison – typical situation when comparing original uncompressed file with several compressed files with different codecs or presets;
• Possibility to save “bad” frames for every comparison with flexible options – it can be very useful when comparing two (or more) codecs and user wants to see frames where these codecs have maximum difference, the lowest/highest metric value, etc.