Determining the Amount of Audio-Video Synchronization Errors Perceptible to the Average End-User

The Media and Acoustics Perception Lab (MAPL) designed a study to determine the minimum amount of audio-visual synchronization (a/v sync) errors that can be detected by end-users. Lip synchronization is the most noticeable a/v sync error, and was used as the testing stimuli to determine the perceptual threshold of audio leading errors. The results of the experiment determined that the average audio leading threshold for a/v sync detection was 185.19 ms, with a standard deviation of 42.32 ms. This threshold determination of lip sync error (with audio leading) will be widely used for validation and verification infrastructures across the industry. By implementing an objective pass/fail value into software, the system or network under test is held against criteria which were derived from a scientific subjective test.