Page 16 - ITU Journal, ICT Discoveries, Volume 3, No. 1, June 2020 Special issue: The future of video and immersive media

ITU Journal: ICT Discoveries, Vol. 3(1), June 2020

Multi-viewpoint and overlays in the MPEG OMAF standard

Pages 17-24

Igor D.D. Curcio, Kashyap Kammachi Sreedhar, Sujeet S. Mate
Recent developments in immersive media have made possible the rise of new multimedia applications and
services that complement the traditional ones, such as media streaming and conferencing. Omnidirectional
video (a.k.a. 360-degree video) is enabling one of such new services that are progressively made available also
by large media distribution portals (e.g., YouTube). With the aim of creating a standardized solution for 360-
degree video streaming, the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) has developed the Omnidirectional
MediA Format (OMAF) second edition, or version 2, which is close to completion. The major new features of
OMAFv2, compared to the first version, include (but are not limited to) the capability of using overlays and
multiple omnidirectional cameras situated at different physical points (i.e., viewpoints). This paper focuses on
the description of two of the new OMAFv2 features, the overlays and the multi-viewpoints, including the 360-
degree video use cases enabled by these two features.
View Article

Data-driven intra-prediction modes in the development of the versatile video coding
standard

Pages 25-32
Jonathan Pfaff, Philipp Helle, Philipp Merkle, Michael Schäfer, Björn Stallenberger, Tobias Hinz, Heiko
Schwarz, Detlev Marpe, Thomas Wiegand
In this paper, intra-prediction modes for video coding that were designed using data-driven methods are
presented. These predictors were incorporated into a test model of the emerging versatile video coding (VVC)
standard and yield compression benefit over state-of-the-art intra-prediction tools. However, most of the use
cases for video coding require severe complexity and memory restrictions, in particular at the decoder side. As
data-driven methods typically result in predictors that are described by a large set of parameters and operations,
satisfying these constraints turned out to be a difficult task. The purpose of this paper is to outline key steps in
the complexity reduction of the trained intra-prediction modes that were discussed in the VVC standardization
activity. These simplifications finally led to matrix-based intra-prediction (MIP) which is part of the current
VVC draft international standard.
View Article

Arena-style immersive live experience (ILE) services and systems: Highly realistic
sensations for everyone in the world

Pages 33-41
Jiro Nagao, Kiyoshi Tanaka, Hideo Imanaka

Immersive Live Experiences (ILEs) enable audiences at remote sites to feel real-time highly realistic sensations,
as if they are at the event site. This article provides a key feature of an implementation of ILE services, called
Kirari! for Arena, as a use case of arena-style ILE, and its technical elements developed by NTT Labs. The
major functionalities are object extraction from an arbitrary background, object tracking with depth sensors,
low-latency synchronized data transport and four-sided pseudo-3D image presentation with depth expression.
It also provides evaluations on the experience of Kirari! for Arena audiences, as well as its conformance to
International Telecommunication Union, Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) standards for
ILE.
View Article

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