1. A method for evaluating the sharpness quality of video data, the method comprising the steps of: (a) receiving an input video frame; (b) obtaining an edge image comprised of edge pixels for said input video frame; (c) assigning each edge pixel of a selected portion of said edge image to a center of an 8×8 block; (d) performing a discrete cosine transform (DCT) on said 8×8 block to produce a set of DCT coefficients; (e) normalizing said DCT coefficients of said 8×8 block to obtain a bivariate probability-density function; and, (f) calculating kurtosis of said normalized DCT coefficients to produce a sharpness metric.