Video Artifact Detection

Identify and diagnose specific quality issues in video files. Focus on visual inspection techniques and artifact recognition, not fixing the issues.

Artifact Categories

1. Compression Artifacts

Blocking (macroblocking)

• Square or rectangular blocks visible in motion or gradients
• Caused by: Low bitrate encoding, high quantization
• Where to look: Fast motion scenes, areas with subtle color gradients
• Severity indicator: More visible = worse quality

Banding

• Visible steps/bands in color gradients instead of smooth transitions
• Caused by: Low bit depth, aggressive quantization, source issues
• Where to look: Sky gradients, dark shadows, smooth surfaces
• Note: May be source issue, not encoding issue