Video quality assessment in video streaming services considering user preference for video content

In video streaming service, the user´s Quality of Experience (QoE) is not only related to video signal quality received at consumer´s devices, the users´ subjectivity must also be considered. In this context, a video quality assessment method that takes into account the user´s preference for video content is proposed in this research. In order to perform this task, the users´ profiles that include their preferences were stored in a video server. Then, subjective tests of video quality assessment were conducted, in which evaluators had different video content preferences. Results show that the evaluators´ QoE is highly correlated with the user´s preference for video content type. Based on these experimental results, a function named Preference Factor (PF) is defined and used to adjust the quality index values obtained by an objective video quality metric running in the end user´s device. The PF function also depends on video content type and quality index score. Using the PF function, the enhanced Video streaming Quality Metric (e-VsQM) is proposed and the results of its performance evaluation demonstrate that PF improves an objective video quality metric. Furthermore, e-VsQM has low complexity and can be utilized in different video services. Thus, an application scenario is presented, in which the proposed video quality metric is implemented.