January 2, 2026 – The Next Wave of Video Quality Assessment Techniques Now Envelope HDR

Today’s entertainment delivery landscape is as complex as it has ever been. The continual move toward high dynamic range (HDR) video imagery adds significant new requirements for manufacturers and delivery networks that need to measure picture quality to assure success.

Up until the recent past, internet-based program originators have led the way in applying the latest HDR implementations for video content delivery and today many satellite, cable, and broadcast program networks are moving to implement new HDR image formats for distribution. The timing could not be better for this development since no readily available video quality metric assessment algorithm had been created with a high correlation to human vision studies created with HDR content.

Video Clarity has implemented new metrics from recently developed methods that add highly accurate and independently verified HDR video quality assessment.

In the  summer of 2025 two new HDR full-reference quality measurements were applied to the ClearView® Video Quality Analyzer using HDRMAX, an  independently developed set of high dynamic range extensions to current standard dynamic range (SDR) quality metrics. These feature enhancements extend the useful life of the most popular and current SDR metrics for an HDR video quality test workflow. With HDRMAX,  developed by the University of Texas at Austin Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Video Clarity now provides an HDR quality metric extension for VMAF and MS-SSIM that is specifically designed and correlated to human subjective studies created with HDR video imagery.

These HDR metric extensions for VMAF and MS-SSIM provide highly accurate video quality assessments (VQA) for 10-bit HDR as well as all SDR formats. This means that the new quality tests can be applied to assess any content, whether HDR or SDR, similarly to how the original metrics correlated to SDR video have been used successfully for years.

By isolating the extreme ends of the dynamic range at the expense of the middle range using the HDRMAX nonlinearity function, highly evident visual distortions are emphasized and accounted for versus standard VQA models which create dominant responses for brightness and colors in the middle portion of the dynamic range. The HDRMAX nonlinearity function is one of several ways it provides a modified feature response to directly capture perceptual quality information more sensitive to bit-depth for HDR video while simultaneously outperforming the original SDR VQA models to which it is applied.

At IBC and the SMPTE Summit in September of 2025 we introduced ColorVideoVDP, a significant step forward for a video quality metric, developed by Mantiuk, Hanji, Ashraf, Asano, and Chapiro in conjunction with the University of Cambridge, which has a significant set of new attributes for assessing video quality going through today’s multi-dimensional distribution paths.

Media enterprises, whether they are a program originator, multi-channel service provider, or an encoder technology vendor, need highly usable tools to gather information about quality and assess the effects of potential digital processor settings, distribution formats, and delivery mediums whether it be large or small screen and possibly including displays for augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR).

Up until this point there have been no perceptual video quality metrics with certain criteria applied in ColorVideoVDP such as providing quality score from a combination of both color and luma, basing the assessment on actual display parameters and viewing conditions, and providing a significant correlation to assess spatial and temporal artifacts that apply to standard video distribution models as well as with AR and VR applications.

ColorVideoVDP is using advanced techniques to apply these additional parameters to assess quality by modeling spatial and temporal aspects of vision for both luminance and color. It accounts for the viewing conditions, geometric, and photometric characteristics of a given display and is trained to predict common video-streaming distortions evident in video delivery such as compression, rescaling, and transmission errors and eight new distortion types related to AR/VR displays.

The quality score of ColorVideoVDP is a construct of several methods as described by the metric developers in ColorVideoVDP: A visual difference predictor for image, video and display distortions. First, the test and reference content, typically stored as video or images, is transformed into colorimetric quantities of light emitted from a given display. Then, the frames are decomposed into color opponent channels, temporal channels, and spatial frequency bands, mimicking the mechanisms of the visual system. The core component of the metric is the model of contrast sensitivity and masking, which computes a per-band visual difference between test and reference content. It relies on the near-threshold and supra-threshold models of contrast detection and discrimination. In the last two steps, the visual differences are pooled across the bands and channels and then the resulting visual difference value is regressed into an interpretable Just-Objectionable-Difference (JOD) scale.

ColorVideoVDP, applied as a full reference video quality test with the JOD assessment score, will be provided as a software update coming within Q1 of 2026 and with new systems and software integrated into the latest ClearView® Video Quality Analyzer.

About Video Clarity Inc.
Video Clarity Inc. provides video quality analysis systems which include quality lab applied video content recording and playback solutions for broadcasters, video-processing equipment manufacturers, and entertainment entities that must deliver high-quality video to multiple screens and continually measure the audio and video quality of their products and services. Propelled by market-leading technology, Video Clarity solutions have been adopted the worldwide by major media networks; leading broadcast-product manufacturers; and educational, government, and research organizations. Video Clarity was founded in 2003, with headquarters in Campbell, California, and distribution worldwide.

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Video Clarity Inc. Contact:
Adam Schadle, Vice President
Tel: +1 408 379 6952
Email: adams@videoclarity.com