ViSQOLAudio: An objective audio quality metric for low bitrate codecs

Area of Science:

• Audio Engineering
• Signal Processing
• Multimedia Communications

Background:

• Streaming services aim to optimize bandwidth usage for audio and visual channels to enhance user experience.
• Assessing audio quality at low bitrates is crucial for efficient streaming delivery.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of objective audio quality metrics in predicting perceived audio quality for music encoded at low bitrates.
• To compare the performance of established objective metrics against listener test results.

Main Methods:

• Benchmarking three objective audio quality metrics: Perceptual Evaluation of Audio Quality (PEAQ), Perceptual Objective Listening Quality Assessment (POLQA), and VISQOLAudio.
• Comparing objective metric predictions with subjective quality ratings obtained from listener tests.
• Focusing on music content encoded at low bitrates.

Main Results:

• Objective metrics designed for speech quality assessment show significant potential for evaluating low-bitrate audio codecs.
• The study identified specific objective metrics that correlate well with listener perceptions of music quality at reduced bitrates.

Conclusions:

• Objective metrics, particularly those developed for speech, can serve as reliable predictors of audio quality for low-bitrate music streaming.
• This finding supports the use of these metrics for optimizing streaming service bandwidth and user experience.