[opendtv] Re: Mediaflo Technology - Mark_Schubins_Contrast_Sensitivity_Function_Presentation

  • From: Tom Barry <trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 21:58:19 -0500

For anybody still following this thread, Mark's Powerpoint presentation can now be found on my web page at:


<www.trbarry.com/Mark_Schubins_Contrast_Sensitivity_Function_Presentation.ppt>

See the verbal description still included from his previous post below. From off list post the last slide is the one he describes but the others may help to explain it. I think I'm going to study it a bit before I comment more.

- Tom


Mark Schubin wrote (a few posts back now):
That's not bad (1440p or more would be even better) for a situation in which the visual-acuity limitation is 720p. But visual-acuity limitations involve both resolution and contrast.

I'd love to attach a slide I created involving a contrast-resolution sine grating (contrast increasing towards the top, resolution increasing towards the right) with two curves superimposed on it, but I think Freelists won't allow attachments, so I'll describe it.

Near the bottom is a lopsided smile-shaped curve representing the contrast-sensitivity function (CSF) of a particular observer. The trough of the smile (maximum sensitivity, i.e., the ability to perceive minimum contrast) is at around three cycles per degree. The necessary contrast increases to the left (less resolution) and even more sharply to the right (greater resolution). Everything under that curve is invisible to an observer with that particular CSF .

Starting at the top left is a curve like the right side of a bell-shape. It's a modulation-transfer-function (MTF) curve. It ends up at the bottom right, but the exact shape of that curve is determined by such factors as the number of samples in the display. Anything above that curve simply isn't reproduced by the system.

The two curves intersect. Where the visual system needs the most contrast, the television system provides the least (i.e., where the CSF curve is highest, the MTF curve is lowest). There is a wedge at the left side of the grating, which is both visible (above the CSF curve) and reproduced (below the MTF curve). EVERYTHING we see from a particular television system must fit within that wedge. It's pretty scary. The first time I showed it to a top engineer in our field, he argued that it couldn't be, but eventually he accepted it.

We have no control over a viewer's CSF. The only way to increase the size of the wedge is to increase the MTF. More samples is one way to do that.

TTFN,
Mark



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