Position:
PhD (CASE) Studentship in multimedia signal processing (3
years)
Location:
London, UK
Title: Perceptually-sensitive video
encoding
Applications are invited for a
CASE PhD studentship with the Digital Signal Processing and
Multimedia Research Group of the Electronic Engineering
Department, Queen Mary, University of
London in collaboration with BT
Group CTO Research and Venturing.
Project description:
The development of new compression or transmission systems is
driven by the need of reducing the bandwidth and storage
requirements of images and video while increasing their
perceived visual quality. Traditional compression schemes aim
at minimizing the coding residual in terms of mean squared
error (MSE) or peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). This is
optimal from a purely mathematical, but not a perceptual point
of view. Ultimately, perception is the more appropriate and
more relevant benchmark. Therefore, the objective must be to
define a codec that maximizes perceived visual quality such
that it produces better quality at the same bit rate as a
traditional encoder or the same visual quality at a lower bit
rate.
The research will centre on standard video coders and will
exploit semantic segmentation, human visual attention models
and foveation. The main objectives of the project are the
following: (1) to develop a perceptually-sensitive video
encoding algorithm; (2) to study a model of visual attention
in video and to validate it with subjective experiments using
an eye tracker; (3) to extensively test and evaluate the
improved encoder with standard data sets
Workplace:
The normal place of
work will be Queen Mary, University of London, but the
candidate will have the opportunity to spend some periods,
distributed over the project life and totalling a minimum of 3
months, within BT. The successful candidate will join an
expanding research group engaged in a variety of national and
international projects on digital media and content
technologies.
Queen Mary, University of London is situated in Mile End,
bordering Regents Canal, close to Canary Wharf and to the City of
London (
http://www.qmul.ac.uk
).
Eligibility:
The studentship is
open to UK and EU students only.
For UK residents it covers the cost of home student tuition
fees as well as a tax-free EPSRC maintenance stipend (
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk ).
For EU students it only covers the cost of tuition fees and
does not include a maintenance stipend. In addition, for both
UK and EU students, a stipend contribution of GBP 3,000 per annum
will be made by the CASE sponsor.
Applicants must have a first degree in mathematical science,
physics, statistics, computer science, electronic engineering
or allied disciplines (minimum 2:1 or equivalent), and excellent mathematical and programming skills. Previous
experience of digital signal processing or computer vision is
desirable, although not mandatory.
Start date: 1st
May 2006
Application:
Applicants should follow the
guidelines that can be found at
http://www.elec.qmul.ac.uk/study/phd/res-stud.htm
For informal
enquiries:
contact
Dr Andrea Cavallaro (
andrea.cavallaro@elec.qmul.ac.uk )
Links:
DSP and Multimedia Group:
http://www.elec.qmul.ac.uk/research/dsp/index.html
BT Group CTO Research and Venturing:
http://www.bt.com
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