Frequency sensitivity for video compression

We investigate the frequency sensitivity of the human visual system, which reacts differently at different frequencies in video coding. Based on this observation, we used different quantization steps for different frequency components in order to explore the possibility of improving coding efficiency while maintaining perceptual video quality. In other words, small quantization steps were used for sensitive frequency components while large quantization steps were used for less sensitive frequency components. We performed subjective testing to examine the perceptual video quality of video sequences encoded by the proposed method. The experimental results showed that a reduction in bitrate is possible without causing a decrease in perceptual video quality. © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI. [DOI: 10.1117/1.OE.53.3.033107]