Institute for Telecommunication Sciences / Research / Quality of Experience / Video Quality Research / Subjective Testing / History of P.910

History of ITU-T Rec. P.910 and P.913

By Margaret Pinson, July 2025

By 2014, the techniques described in ITU-R Rec. BT.500 and ITU-T Rec. P.910 had become obsolete. They did not reflect the change from cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions to digital monitors and mobile devices.

ITU-T Rec. P.913 was created to provide experimental new subjective methods for digital monitors and mobile devices. ITU-T Rec. P.910 was left as-is, both to provide the trusted subjective methods and due to concerns that voting members would block the addition of less mature methods into P.910. 

Once international experts gained confidence in the P.913 methods, ITU-T Study Group 12 merged P.913, P.910, and P.911 (audiovisual test methods) into a single standard (P.910) and discontinued both P.911 and P.913.

As a point of clarity, ITU-T Rec. P.910 contains subjective tests methods that are suitable for most modern video systems. P.910 contains a large number of options due to the large variety of video applications, displays, use cases, and research questions. ITU-R Rec. BT.500 focuses on the needs of broadcasters who use much higher bandwidths and bits-per-pixel.