A subjective study of the perceptual acceptability of audio-video desynchronization in sports videos

TL;DR

This study investigates how viewers perceive audio-video desynchronization in sports videos, revealing that speech is more sensitive to sync errors and complex sports events tolerate larger offsets, informing broadcast standards.

Contribution

It provides empirical data on perceptual thresholds for audio-video desynchronization in sports content, highlighting content-dependent differences in acceptability.

Findings

Humans are more sensitive to sync errors in speech.

Sports broadcasts have higher tolerance for desynchronization.

Content type influences perceptual thresholds.

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study conducted on the perceptual acceptability of audio-video desynchronization for sports videos. The study was conducted with 45 videos generated by applying 8 audio-video offsets on 5 source contents. 20 subjects participated in the study. The results show that humans are more sensitive to audio-video offset errors for speech stimuli, and the complex events that occur in sports broadcasts have higher thresholds of acceptability. This suggests the tuning of audio-video synchronization requirements in broadcasting to the content of the broadcast.