Cover Story
The
Cover Story
VR and AR : The new Reality TV ?
AR and VR are seen by many as the next frontier in broadcasting , but while the benefits are clear for gaming and many b2b and b2c applications , is it ready for Live Television ? Colin Mann dons his headset to look for some answers , with the help of a range of industry executives .
“ broadcasting industry has been on the front lines of changing how we consume entertainment , so you can bet there are many tech executives out there investing in the new challenges of VR ,” notes Nelson Rodriguez , senior industry marketing manager , games , at Akamai Technologies . “ We talk to those people every day . Of course , however ready the industry is , the expectations are racing ahead , and it will be a complex process to develop the right standards for the future of the medium . There ’ s a general sense that VR still has some barriers to immersion , and the quality can still improve . In a few years , we ’ ll probably be talking about 4K 360 streams , pushed to fully-wireless high end headsets . That ’ s not even factoring in volumetric video . Right now , you ’ ve got two kinds of VR experiences ; 360 video on the one end and gaming on the other . Video VR is still designed around a user sitting in a fixed position , while games are exploring what it means for the viewer to walk around and interact .”
Charles Cheevers , chief technology officer of customer premises equipment at ARRIS ,
suggests that the terms ‘ broadcast ’ and ‘ VR ’ are probably oxymorons in the context of live viewing given the VR experience is meant to be your unique view of the scene . “ There is likely to be no full live broadcast of the entire 360 view but rather a combination of unicast services that show high resolution at the fovea [ a tiny pit located in the macula of the retina that provides the clearest vision of all ], where the person is looking , and multicast services showing less resolution where they are no looking .”
According to Cheevers , progress is steady on improving encoding and mapping to reduce bandwidth but to try and retain the VR experience , but it will not be until we get 4Kp60 and 90Hz performance that the viewer will feel truly immersed . “ This requires another level of bandwidth at 100-500Mbps and will be relying heavily on improvements in the ability to encode and map to the most applicable scenes . For now , live VR is still very much in its trial stages , but certainly sport and the ability for either the user to choose the view point or be taken ‘ into ’ the boxing match – where normally a camera would not go – are experiences there seems to value in creating ,” he adds .
Early
“ It is still very early in the evolution of broadcast VR and while it is certainly possible to deliver VR content to viewers – YouTube 360 video provides a working example – we will see significant ongoing development over the coming years ,” suggests Steve Plunkett , CTO , broadcast and media services , Ericsson . “ The current generation of VR devices , both mobile and tethered HMDs , vary significantly in terms of resolution , frame rates , bitrates and optical quality , placing greater constraints on what can be displayed compared to what can be captured . This variety at the point of
consumption increases complexity for the entire production and distribution chain , and mirrors the early days of OTT video . It will be some time before we reach a point of maturity , and in the meantime rapid evolution , innovation and experimentation will be the order of the day .” Thierry Fautier , VP of video strategy at Harmonic , Board Member and Co-founder of VR Industry Forum , notes that AR is being used in the professional broadcast space , but not yet in the consumer space . “ VR is being deployed by NBA and Turner . There are also a lot of trials underway , so VR is definitely going to be important for broadcast ,” he asserts , nevertheless accepting that the broadcast workflow needs to be changed completely for capture , stitching , post production , encoding and FoV streaming . “ VR delivery will mostly be over unicast networks . In order to deliver a tiled approach , we need to resolve the problem of latency ,” he states .
“ VR and AR have been on the minds of the industry for a few years , with the industry seeing a record $ 2 billion investment globally from 2015 to 2016 ,” notes Peter Oggel , VP product management and marketing at Irdeto . “ Consumer adoption rates are continuing to rise , with more than 20,000,000 VR headsets expected to be shipped in 2017 , a number which is only expected to increase . As a consequence , it is essential for the market to have appropriate strategies in place to support the comprehensive broadcast infrastructure and technology that VR and AR content requires , while ensuring that consumer willingness to adopt these new dimensions is not diminished .”
Transport
Oggel sees three key challenges that the industry must address , including data rates , in particular the requirement to transport much
“ There ’ s a general sense that VR still has some barriers to immersion , and the quality can still improve .” – Nelson Rodriguez , Akamai |
“ It will not be until we get 4Kp60 and 90Hz performance that the viewer will feel truly immersed .” – Charles Cheevers , ARRIS |
“ Storage challenges are similar to those of other forms of UHD content – large files and high bitrates .” – Steve Plunkett , Ericsson |
“ We need to define the right technology for production , encoding , networking and rendering .” -Thierry Fautier , Harmonic |
14 EUROMEDIA |
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