Perceptual Quality - Online Real-Time Interactive Multimedia

This monograph introduces a comprehensive framework for optimizing perceptual quality in online, real-time, interactive multimedia systems involving multiple users, performance metrics, and application controls. It outlines an integrated offline-online process that learns perceptual quality under controlled conditions and adapts it to dynamic, real-time environments. The optimization is modeled as a decomposable multi-metric, multi-control problem, solvable in polynomial time by integrating solutions from simpler subproblems. Each subproblem is evaluated using a novel, function-free method based on dominance and a binary-divide algorithm with guaranteed error tolerance.

The work is the first to show that the relationship between a stimulus and its variation in multimedia and psychophysical applications can be nonlinear yet monotonic and non-smooth. It also pioneers a method for optimizing perceptual quality in real-time communications without requiring original data at the receiver. This long-standing open problem is challenging due to the subjective nature of perceptual quality and the complexity of unknown tradeoffs among quality measures. The findings demonstrate the feasibility of solving these challenges through decomposition and dominance, offering practical solutions for improving perceptual quality in online real-time interactive multimedia applications.

List of contents

Part I: Background.- 1 Online Interactive Multimedia Systems.- 2 Network Controls and Supports.- Part II. Perception Models and Theory.- 3 Human Perception Research.- 4 Offline Simplex Perceptual Model.- 5 Offline Multi-Metric Joint Perceptual Model.- 6 Online Generalization of Offline Models.- Part III: Case Studies.- 7 Case Study on Audio Conferencing Systems.- 8 Case Study on Multi-Player Online Interactive Games.-9 Conclusions.

Product details

• Authors: Benjamin W Wah, Benjamin W. Wah, Jingxi Xu
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 23.02.2026
• EAN: 9783032079404
• ISBN: 978-3-0-3207940-4
• No. of pages: 283
• Illustrations: XXII, 283 p. 1 illus.
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > IT, data processing > Application software; Kognitive Psychologie, Mensch-Computer-Interaktion, Perception, Multimedia Information Systems, Voice over IP, User Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction, Function-free psychometric functions, Objective perceptual quality models, Internet Multimedia Applications, Multi-metric, multi-control applications, Optimal runtime perceptual quality, Decomposable formulation, Multiparty online action games, Multiparty videoconferencing, Subjective evaluations, Just noticeable difference, Online real-time interactive multimedia applications, Offline-online optimization, Perceptual quality in psychophysics