Perception-Oriented Video Frame Interpolation via Asymmetric Blending

Abstract: Previous methods for Video Frame Interpolation (VFI) have encountered challenges, notably the manifestation of blur and ghosting effects. These issues can be traced back to two pivotal factors: unavoidable motion errors and misalignment in supervision. In practice, motion estimates often prove to be error-prone, resulting in misaligned features. Furthermore, the reconstruction loss tends to bring blurry results, particularly in misaligned regions. To mitigate these challenges, we propose a new paradigm called PerVFI (Perception-oriented Video Frame Interpolation). Our approach incorporates an Asymmetric Synergistic Blending module (ASB) that utilizes features from both sides to synergistically blend intermediate features. One reference frame emphasizes primary content, while the other contributes complementary information. To impose a stringent constraint on the blending process, we introduce a self-learned sparse quasi-binary mask which effectively mitigates ghosting and blur artifacts in the output. Additionally, we employ a normalizing flow-based generator and utilize the negative log-likelihood loss to learn the conditional distribution of the output, which further facilitates the generation of clear and fine details. Experimental results validate the superiority of PerVFI, demonstrating significant improvements in perceptual quality compared to existing methods. Codes are available at \url{https://github.com/mulns/PerVFI}