Welcome to the VR Industry Forum Newsletter
Keeping you updated about our activities! Here we highlight our latest work and focus on areas which are most critical.
A Message from the President
As we come to the middle of 2021 we find ourselves still meeting virtually. In spite of this, our work at the VRIF is steadily moving forward as we continue to progress our mission. In an effort to keep you informed, this newsletter offers a glimpse of our current work as well as our plans for the near future.
Our high-level roadmap is divided into four tracks (see figure below). From 2017 to 2020 we focused strongly on VR360 (3DOF), with many guidelines released around this track. VR360 will continue to be our strongest track; we see a steady adoption of live VR services, especially in sports broadcasting.
Volumetric (6DOF) is already important in the entertainment industry, especially in the production domain. This year, VRIF has started to work on the guidelines around this track with our main activity focused on Volumetric streaming and distribution, see further in this newsletter for more details. Our goal is to release Guidelines 3.0, which will cover the volumetric track, during the second half of 2021.
We are also actively planning for 2022. Our initial focus is to continue the work on new video codecs (like VVC) for VR360 and Volumetric. And, although we may be too soon for market adoption, we see the need to address the effect on the video codec landscape in the VR/AR domain.
5G Cloud is an important development for all XR adoption, we will soon start to address this track and it will be part of an updated guidelines version.
I’m also proud of our second VRIF Open online session that took place in April, more details are shared below. We plan to host another open session duringthe second half of 2021. We’re looking for interesting guest speakers and topics, so please contact us if you’d like to participate!
Mauricio Aracena
VRIF President
VRIF Working Group Activity
Highlights from the Guidelines WG
The Guidelines WG is progressing steadily on the Volumetric streaming use case as part of the VRIF’s Volumetric track.
- We have agreed on an end-to-end Volumetric workflow including production, distribution and consumption.
- The main work is focused on distribution using Point Cloud Compression (PCC). The WG is currently selecting a few video compression profiles based on the V3C V-PCC MPEG standard. The profile selection is based on two criteria: provide high quality volumetric asset encoding and availability of video codec support in devices.
- We expect to release a new version of the Guidelines by the end of 2021.
Also,
we are glad to share that 3GPP SA4 has finalized the Release 17 work
item on “Operation Points for 8K VR360 video over 5G” (8K_VR_5G).
The VRIF has liaised with 3GPP on various occasions to help define 8K VR360 video operation points.
These achievements are expected to be implemented into the respective
Release-17 3GPP specifications after 3GPP SA plenary approval in June
2021.
VRIF 2nd Open Event: Recorded Session
On the 22 of April, VRIF held its 2nd VR Technology Open Session with presentations from:
- Mauricio Aracena, VRIF President on the work of 5G volumetric video in the VRIF Guidelines
- Dr. Oliver Schreer and Dr. Cornelius Hellge from Fraunhofer HHI on interactive volumetric video
- Gilles Teniou from Tencent and vice-chair 3GPP SA4 on XR over 5G and 3GPP latest developments around immersive media
- Jae Maloney from Air France/KLM on KLM’s XR challenges
Missed it? Watch the recorded session:https://www.vr-if.org/events/vr-industry-forum-second-open-industry-event/
VRIF Member Testimonial – Viaccess-Orca (VO)
Viaccess-Orca, part of the Orange group, is a leading global solutions provider of OTT and TV platforms, content protection, and advanced data solutions for a personalized TV experience.
Virtual Reality solutions are one of the key technologies of the enabler portfolio of Viaccess-Orca, as it appears to be a very valuable ecosystem to engage viewers around premium immersive video experiences and increase monetization.
This adventure started with early developments (i.e. 2016 PoCs) focusing on 360 immersive video experiences trials integrating off-the-shell VO products (e.g. VO Secure Player, Analytics platform, OTT platforms, etc.).
VRIF membership has been essential to foster the innovation impact to be portrayed as a genuine industrial development. Thanks to a deep expertise to draw and promote state-of-the-art VR industrial standards as well as leveraging VRIF network contacts to build strategical partnerships, the VRIF gives the opportunity to develop and integrate research-applied work into industrial projects.
Such collaboration in VRIF gave us the opportunity to share some efforts and results with the Streaming Video Alliance (SVA) VR WG. They are leading a VR 360 streaming PoC1 aiming at evaluating network architecture impacts on the QoS where VRIF and VO are involved. In here, VRIF has provided the reference 360 content dataset and VO is supplying the 360 Player. On top of that, VR360 8K HEVC profile updates have been promoted and liaised to multiple peers (e.g. 3GPP, MPEG) to nurture video streaming standards in VR context.
| ________________________________ 1 https://www.streamingvideoalliance.org/proof-of-concept/mitigating-latency-in-vr-streaming-workflows/ |
If you’re not already a Member – Join Today!
Membership Information
The VRIF is an organization built by the VR community and maintained by it. As a valuable member of this community, we ask you to consider joining the VRIF organization. Yearly membership already starts at $1000. More details can be found on our website: https://www.vr-if.org/membership-benefits/
Some key member benefits:
- Contribute to the future of immersive video and drive the Guidelines by participating in our various Work Groups
- Define VRIF priorities
- Promote your leadership through speaking and other opportunities
- Network with industry experts
- Full access to MPEG standards and working documents
- Participate in interoperability testing with early access to guidelines, content and other tools
Many industry leaders already see the importance and value of VRIF. Join today and add your voice. We welcome your participation and look forward to meeting soon.
