1 Reduced-Reference Video Quality Assessment using Distributed Source Coding M. Tagliasacchi, G. Valenzise, M. Naccari, S. Tubaro Abstract In this paper we propose a reduced-reference quality assessment algorithm which computes an ap- proximation of the structural similarity (SSIM) metric exploiting coding tools provided by the distributed source coding theory. The algorithm has been tested to evaluate the quality of decoded video bitstreams after transmission over error-prone networks. We evaluate the accuracy of the proposed quality assessment algorithm by measuring the Pearson’s correlation coefficient between the structural similarity metric computed in full-reference mode and the one provided by the proposed reduced-reference algorithm. The proposed reduced-reference algorithm achieves good correlation values (higher than 0.85 with packet loss rate equal up to 2.5%). Index Terms Reduced Reference Video Quality Assessment, Distributed Source Coding I. I NTRODUCTION The dissemination of video contents over digital networks has gained an increasing popularity in the last few years, thanks to the improvement of network capabilities in speed, reliability and latency, and to the availability of more and more sophisticated video coding standards, such as the recent state-of-the- art H.264/AVC video codec [2]. For example, in one of the most promising digital video broadcasting applications, IPTV, a centralized content provider uses a packed-switched IP network to transmit the compressed video programs to many end-users. Usually, this kind of networks provides only best-effort services, i.e. there is no guarantee that the content will be delivered to clients without errors. In fact, This work was presented in part in reference [1] and has been developed within VISNET II, a European Network of Excellence (http://www.visnet-noe.org), funded under the European Commission IST FP6 programme. The authors are with Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione, Politecnico di Milano, P.zza Leonardo da Vinci, 32 20133 - Milano, Italy - Ph. +39-02-2399-7619 - FAX: +39-02-2399-7321 - E-mail: {tagliasa, valenzise, naccari, tubaro}@elet.polimi.it. September 30, 2008 DRAFT