To PEAQ or Not to PEAQ? - BS.1387 Revisited

Presenters:
Pablo Delgado, International Audio Laboratories Erlangen - Erlangen, Germany; Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS - Erlangen, Germany
Thomas Sporer, Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT - Ilmenau, Germany

Carefully conducted listening tests are time consuming and expensive. Computerized, objective measurement schemes for the assessment of perceived audio quality seem to be an adequate replacement. The Recommendation ITU-R BS.1387 (PEAQ) is a standardized method to assess bit-reduced audio signals However in the last 20 years both audio coding and listening methods have evolved. In addition many authors use PEAQ for assessment of audio processing scheme not known and validated in 1998.

This tutorial will consist of the following parts: • explain what PEAQ is, how it was designed and validated; • show some examples where PEAQ fails to predict perceived quality; • summarizes the work since the standardization concerning newer audio coding tools, spatial audio and listening procedures; • gives an outlook of further developments; • give advice under which circumstance the current version of PEAQ should be used.