Temporal Information (TI) is a standardized measure, defined in ITU-T P.910 section 7.8, of how much the picture changes from frame to frame. It is the spread (standard deviation) of the pixel-by-pixel difference between consecutive frames, so fast motion and scene cuts push TI up while a static shot keeps it low. It is the companion to Spatial Information (SI): plotting every source with TI on one axis and SI on the other shows content coverage at a glance. TI matters because motion drives how hard content is to compress - fast pans are murder for any encoder, and high-TI clips stress both encoders and the metrics meant to track them. A defensible source set spreads across the SI/TI plane, deliberately including the high-motion corner where systems struggle, not clustering in the convenient low-motion corner that reports a quality production will never see. With SI, TI converts the vague requirement that sources be varied into a measurable map, so the test exposes the system's weak spots instead of hiding them.
The handbook · 7 volumes
Fora Soft Video Engineering Handbook
Temporal information (TI) flags how much motion a clip carries, and high-motion clips are where encoders and metrics most often fail. In our seven-volume handbook on the video stack, Volume 1 is the starting point for TI, covering motion estimation, content complexity, rate control on hard scenes and quality metrics. Written by Nikolay Sapunov, CEO at Fora Soft.
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