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MSU Video Quality Measurement Tool: Manual
MSU Graphics & Media Lab (Video Group)
Settings & Screenshots
- Main settings
- Advanced settings
- Visualization metrics information
- Visualization frames of sequences
- Preview window
- Open wizard
- AviSynth support
- Contacts
Main Settings

- File selection
- Original file - original video file. Other files will be compared with it.
- Processed (compressed) – processed (compressed) file, which will be compared with original. The folder containing this file is automatically set as output folder for *.csv and visualization files (can be edited by "Advanced" button in "Output selection" section).
- Comparative analysis – allows to compare two files with one original in one pass (for example compressed by different codecs).
- Second processed (another codec) – second processed file for comparative analysis. The folder containing this file is automatically set as output folder for *.csv and visualization files (if it is not equal to folder containing first processed file then the last specified folder is used as output folder).
- Use mask file – enables masking. Please read FAQ for more information.
- Use black mask – black areas of a given mask file are the areas that should be masked.
- Open with AviSynth – the program tries to generate appropriate AviSynth script and open the file using the script. The checkbox is enabled only when AviSynth is installed on computer. User can control script generation using Advanced button. More information about it can be found in AviSynth support paragraph.
- Preview – use Preview buttons to preview selected files contents.
- Video files (*.avi, *.mov, *.vob, *.mp4, *.mpg, *.mkv, *.flv, *.qt, *.dat, *.divx, *.f4v, *.h265, *.m2ts, *.m2v, *.m4v, *.mts, *.mxf, *.ogm, *.ogv, *.ts, *.wmv, *.265, *.3g2, *.3gp, *.3gpp, etc.);
- AviSynth files (*.avs);
- Raw yuv in various colorspaces (*.yuv, *.y4m). The colorspaces are: IYUV (I420), YV12, UYVY, Y (only luminance channel), planar YUV, YUY2 (YUYV), YV16. For more information about colorspaces refer to FOURCC official site;
- Video and raw files with auto-generated AviSynth script;
- Images and image sequences (*.png, *.bmp, *.jpg, *.tiff, *.exr, *.hdr, etc.);
- Raw files with more than 8 bits per color component (*.yuv, *.rgb). Supported colorspaces are 4:2:0, 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 yuv with 10, 14 and 16 bits and 4:4:4 rgb with 10, 14 and 16 bits. The formats are organized as described in 6.1 Bitstream formats paragraph of H.264 standard.
- Metric selection All required information can be found in Metrics Information page.
- Output Selection
- Save CSV file – export results to CSV file
- Save metric visualization video / image – export visualization for selected metric as video file
- Save bad frames – automatically select and save frames with maximum difference between original and processed files (or between two processed ones in comparative analysis mode)
- Show results visualization If checked, dialog with visualization of the results is shown after measurement.
Advanced Settings

Advanced file settings
- RGB↔YUV matrix
- REC.601 This matrix is default for AviSynth. Y: [16...235]; U, V: [16...240] (or [-112...112])
- PC.601 This matrix was used in the previous version of the program. Y: [0...255]; U, V: [-128...128] (or [0...255])
Information about color-planes transform matrixes

Save CSV file / Save metric visualization video / image – Advanced
- CSV Settings
- Output dir – directory for CSV files
- Name generation – method for generating names of CSV files
- Prefix – <metric_name>_<video_name>.csv
- Postfix – <video_name>_<metric_name>.csv
- Custom – specified by user
- CSV Type – separator in CSV file (";" or ",")
- Create CSV in Unicode – save CSV in Unicode instead of ASCII
- Visualization settings
- Name generation – method for generating names of visualization files
- Prefix – <metric_name>_<video_name>.avi(bmp)
- Postfix – <video_name>_<metric_name>.avi(bmp)
- Output dir – output directory for AVI (BMP) files
- Caption options
- Position – position of the caption in the frame
- Print metric value – print value of metric in output video
- Print frame number – print frame number in output video

Save bad frames – Advanced
- Bad frames settings
- With maximum difference between original & processed – when comparing one processed file with the original, frames with maximum difference will be saved.
- With maximum difference between first processed and second processed / With maximum difference, where metric for first is greater than for second / With maximum difference, where metric for second is greater than for first – in comparative analysis mode save frames, where differece between two frames is maximum / with maximum difference, where metric for first is greater than for second / with maximum difference, where metric for second is greater than for first.
- Count out radius – if this radius is not equal to 0, the bad frames will be saved only if the distance (in the film) between any bad frames is greater, than this value. This feature is very useful, when one codec processes whole scene worse, than second. Only one frame from this scene will be saved and you can also get bad frames from another scenes.
- Output dir – directory for saving bad frames bad_frames. Name generation mask: <video_name>_fr<frame_number>.bmp

More options
- WAV file
- Play WAV file, when finished – select WAV file, which will be played after measurement
Visualization Metrics Information

Top plot shows metric values for the whole sequence, the bottom one shows chosen part of it.
- Video Slide – select fragment to zoom to
- Show grid – show or hide grid
- Controls – shift between frames, zoom in or zoom out, copy plot to clipboard. Most of the buttons can be held down to perform operation faster. Copy button copies to clipboard the bottom plot and its legend
- Show frame – show a separate window with the current frame allowing comparison between the sequences
Visualization Frames of Sequences

- Switch between original/first/second processed by pressing 1, 2 and 3
- You can easily resize the dialog by increasing or decreasing visible area
- Use buttons to move from frame (or "bad frame") to frame. You can use main visualization dialog to change frames as well
- With Ctrl+C or "copy" button you can copy currently selected frame to clipboard (frame is copied with original size)
- Scale – zoom in or zoom out current frame
Preview window

- Video can be resized by resizing dialog, changing scale slider position or pressing the buttons of increasing or decreasing the scale. When the buttons are pressed the scale changes to the usable predefined positions.
- Use buttons or slider to move from frame to frame.
Open Wizard

Opening Wizard Main page allows you to select:
- path to input file or to mask of input image sequence,
- opening mode,
- index file settings.
Note: You cannot select all opening settings using this window. Some settings, such as RAW file width and height and AviSynth command line, must be set in the following pages.
You can select file using one of the following ways:
- from system file picker using button Browse,
- dragging file from another application (like Windows Explorer) and dropping it into drop file here rectangle,
- manually editing file name field.
When the selected file is image and there are other image files that can make a sequence with selected file in the same folder, image sequence selection dialog is displayed. Read more about using image sequences in Image Sequences section.
In the Open with: dropdown list you can select opening mode. Leave default value (Auto) if you want VQMT to automatically select one of modes that can open this file if possible. Select another mode, if you want to customize opening. There is also special value Multiopen that allows you to open video files with all available modes and visually compare results. Use Multiopen if you do not know what open mode is best for opening video file.
Using this page, you can select index file setting, as described in VQMT help.
After all settings are entered, press Next button to go to the next page, which can be Preview Page or RAW Page. RAW Page is opened when you select YUV raw file opening mode or if you selected Auto opening mode and VQMT recognized file as RAW. In the other cases Preview Page is opened
.AviSynth Support
Cited from avisynth.org: "AviSynth is a powerful tool for video post-production. It provides ways of editing and processing videos. AviSynth works as a frameserver, providing instant editing without the need for temporary files."

To increase the number of the file types, supported by MSU VQMT application, autogenerated AviSynth scripts were implemented. AviSynth script generation settings window is designed to allow control of application's script generation by advanced users. The feature of autogenerated AviSynth scripts can be used only if the AviSynth is installed on the computer.
MSU VQMT uses the next filters in its scripts:
- AviSource (internal AviSynth filter)
- OpenDMLSource (internal AviSynth filter)
- AviFileSource (internal AviSynth filter)
- DirectShowSource (internal AviSynth filter)
- DirectShowSource2 (external AviSynth filter):
- QTSource (external AviSynth filter):
- FFMpegSource (external AviSynth filter):
- RawSource (external AviSynth filter):
User can set:
- Preferred filter. The program will try to use this filter first to open the file.
- Comma-separated list of the parameters to the filter. This list will be provided to the filter without any changes after
the file name, which is the first argument. For example, if the user provides '352, 288, "I420"' as the filter parameters and tries
to open video.yuv file with RawSource, than the filter will be called the following way:
RawSource("video.yuv", 352, 288, "I420") - Check box to not try to use different plugins. If the user sets the check box, then the application will not run over all the available plugins if the prefered one with the provided parameters can not open the file the application returns an error. This may be useful if the user is sure that only one of the supported plugins opens the file correctly.
Contacts
e-mail: | ![]() |
MSU Video Quality Measurement Tools
Other resources
Video resources:



Last updated: 10-May-2017 |
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Project updated by
Server Team and MSU Video Group
Project sponsored by YUVsoft Corp.
Project supported by MSU Graphics & Media Lab