On the Application of Spatio-Temporal Contrast-Sensitivity Functions to HDTV

Abstract

Spatio-temporal contrast-sensivity functions have been measured by many psycho-pysicists /1,2/ and the published data have been used by TV engineers for various applications. The most attractive property of these functions is the apparent exchangebility between spatial and temporal resolution, which is utilized by many signal compression schemes (e.g. MUSE and HD-MAC). But it is mostly overlooked that this mechanism is only effective under certain viewing conditions and that there is no reduction in the ability to resolve spatial detail, if the eye can follow the movement. The only mechanism which can really be exploited in this situation is motion blur, which is generated by integration and lag of the camera target /3/. Nevertheless we investigated three different topics related to the spatio-temporal behaviour of human vision which will be discussed in the following.