Mid Sweden University

Stereoscopic 3D TV viewing puts different visual demands on the viewer compared to 2D TV viewing. Previous research has reported on viewers' fatigue and discomfort and other negative effects. This study is to investigate further how severe and what symptoms may arise from somewhat longish 3D TV viewing.

The MPEG 3DV project is working on the next-generation video encoding standard and in this process, MPEG issued a call for proposal of encoding algorithms. To evaluate these algorithms a large scale subjective test was performed involving Laboratories all over the world[1, 2]. For the participating Labs, it was optional to administer a slightly modified Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ) before and after the test. One of the SSQ data sets described in this article is coming from this study. The SSQ data from the MPEG test is the largest data set in this study and also contains the longest viewing times. Along with the SSQ data from the MPEG test, we have also collected questionnaire data in three other 3D TV studies. We did two on the same 3D TV (passive film pattern retarder) as in the MPEG test, and one was using a projector system. As comparison SSQ data from a 2D video quality experiment is also presented. 

This investigation shows a statistically significant increase in symptoms after viewing 3D TV primarily related to the visual or Oculomotor system. Surprisingly, 3D video viewing using projectors did not show this effect.

This paper gives an overview of three recent studies by the authors on the topic of 3D video Quality of Experience (QoE). Two of studies [1,2] investigated different psychological dimension that may be needed for describing 3D video QoE and the third the visibility and annoyance of crosstalk[3]. The results shows that the video quality scale could be sufficient for evaluating S3D video experience for coding and spatial resolution reduction distortions. It was also confirmed that with a more complex mixture of degradations more than one scale should be used to capture the QoE in these cases. The study found a linear relationship between the perceived crosstalk and the amount of crosstalk.

In order to cater for user’s quality of experience (QoE) requirements, HTTP adaptive streaming (HAS) based solutions of video services have become popular recently. User QoE feedback can be instrumental in improving the capabilities of such services. Perceptual quality experiments that involve humans are considered to be the most valid method of the assessment of QoE. Besides lab-based subjective experiments, crowdsourcing based subjective assessment of video quality is gaining popularity as an alternative method. This paper presents insights into a study that investigates perceptual preferences of various adaptive video streaming scenarios through crowdsourcing based subjective quality assessment.

Crosstalk is a cause of a major perceptual problem in the 3D display system shown itself mostly as ghosting. In this work we aimed at investigating how much perceived crosstalk that is acceptable for the end-users in movie type contents played by 3D projection systems. Two types of 3D projection systems (one system using active shutter glasses, and the other system using passive polarized glasses) were compared in the experiment. The study included an objective measurement of crosstalk in the 3D projection system and a subjective users' experience of the visible distortions. The results shows that 10% can be considered as a crosstalk threshold for end-users not to be annoyed (MOS<3.5) by the distortions and thus acceptable. The distortions start to be perceived at about 3% crosstalk. The study found a linear relationship between perceived crosstalk and the amount of crosstalk. The perceived crosstalk also varies largely depending on the video contents. © 2014 SPIE-IS & T.

Readability of displays in bright outdoor surroundings is a problem for many types of visual displays. The wide range of lighting conditions that these displays should be able to operate in, makes the design of the test set-up very challenging. Mobile displays of today usually have LCDs with LED backlight or OLEDs, which gives the possibility to control the light levels from very low luminance or even zero luminance to very high luminance levels with good contrast and color rendering. There are many displays that can show high luminance (&gt;1000 cd/m2) and with that are considered or claimed to have daylight or sunlight readability. However, these statements are rarely supported by scientific tests with test subjects. This paper will discuss and analyze the conditions for performing such experiments. Experimental results that the visual acuity is negatively affected by strong illuminance are presented.

A shortcoming of traditional videoconferencing systems is that they present the user with a flat, two-dimensional image of the remote participants. Recent advances in autostereoscopic display technology now make it possible to develop video conferencing systems supporting true binocular depth perception. In this paper, we present a subjective evaluation of a prototype multiview autostereoscopic video conferencing system and suggest a number of possible improvements based on the results. Whereas methods for subjective evaluation of traditional 2D videoconferencing systems are well established, the introduction of 3D requires an extension of the test procedures to assess the quality of depth perception. For this purpose, two depth-based test tasks have been designed and experiments have been conducted with test subjects comparing the 3D system to a conventional 2D video conferencing system. The outcome of the experiments show that the perception of depth is significantly improved in the 3D system, but the overall quality of experience is higher in the 2D system. © 2014 SPIE-IS & T.

The stereoscopic 3D viewing experience has been studied quite intensively recently; however the subjective test methods to assess it have not been determined. It has become clear that the 3D viewing experience cannot easily be described by just one scale. This paper describes a cross-laboratory study employing the same test setup and materials where a multi-scale rating method was used. One of the laboratories used three scales: Depth Naturalness, Visual Comfort and Video Quality; while the other laboratory used these: 3D Realism, Depth Quantity and Video Quality. The results show that the Quality of Experience (QoE) of 3D video is a multidimensional concept and therefore more than one scale is in many cases needed for subjective assessment of the QoE of 3D video. © 2013 IEEE.

Stereoscopic 3D viewing experience has been studied quite intensively recently, but still the subjective test methods have not yet been settled. It has become clear that the 3D viewing experience cannot easily be described by just one scale. This paper describes a study where three different rating scales (Quality, Discomfort and Presence) are compared in a subjective test, combined with two viewing distances. The results shows that in a stereoscopic 3D video quality test targeting mainly coding distortions one scale such as video quality could be sufficient. © 2013 Society for Information Display.

The MPEG 3DV project is working on the next generation video encoding standard and in this process a call for proposal of encoding algorithms was issued. To evaluate these algorithm a large scale subjective test was performed involving Laboratories all over the world. For the participating Labs it was optional to administer a slightly modified Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ) from Kennedy et al (1993) before and after the test. Here we report the results from one Lab (Acreo) located in Sweden. The videos were shown on a 46 inch film pattern retarder 3D TV, where the viewers were using polarized passive eye-glasses to view the stereoscopic 3D video content. There were 68 viewers participating in this investigation in ages ranges from 16 to 72, with one third females. The questionnaire was filled in before and after the test, with a viewing time ranging between 30 min to about one and half hour, which is comparable to a feature length movie. The SSQ consists of 16 different symptoms that have been identified as important for indicating simulator sickness. When analyzing the individual symptoms it was found that Fatigue, Eye-strain, Difficulty Focusing and Difficulty Concentrating were significantly worse after than before. SSQ was also analyzed according to the model suggested by Kennedy et al (1993). All in all this investigation shows a statistically significant increase in symptoms after viewing 3D video especially related to visual or Oculomotor system.

The 3D video quality is of highest importance for the adoption of a new technology from a user's point of view. In this paper we evaluated the impact of coding artefacts on stereoscopic 3D video quality by making use of several existing full reference 2D objective metrics. We analyzed the performance of objective metrics by comparing to the results of subjective experiment. The results show that pixel based Visual Information Fidelity metrics fits subjective data the best. The 2D stereoscopic video quality seems to have dominant impact on the coding artefacts impaired stereoscopic videos.