Page 34 - 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

challenges towards making immersive media the accessibility, interaction and personalization
accessible. These challenges are not only related to requirements. The insights from the user-centric
the specification of technological aspects and activities in turn determined the necessary
presentation modes for the access services, but to technological solutions to meet these requirements,
adopt the most appropriate interaction modalities and the specific services and scenarios to be
(e.g., voice control, gestures), assistive technologies provided.
(e.g., zoom, guiding methods) and user interfaces An oveview of the end-to-end platform developed in
(UIs). Moreover, the work in [17] provides a set of ImAc to achieve the targeted goals is provided in
14 tools to enhance the interaction of people with Fig. 1. The platform includes all the necessary parts,
low vision with VR environments, by means of components and steps from media
augmentati.
ingest/authoring to media consumption. It has been
designed with the premise of keeping backward
4. IMAC: END-TO-END PLATFORM FOR compliance with current technologies, formats,
IMMERSIVE ACCESSIBILITY infrastructures and practices in the broadcast
ImAc (Immersive Accessibility) is an European ecosystem. Next, its key parts and components are
H2020 project (www.imac-project.eu) that has briefly explained with the goal of providing a proof
explored how accessibility services and assistive of concept of how worldwide deployed services, like
technologies can be efficiently integrated with TV and online video, can be extended to
immersive media, focusing on VR360 video and accommodate accessible immersive experiences.
spatial audio. For each of the components and parts, potential
standardization opportunities and contributions
The project has been carried out by a cross- are indicated.
disciplinary consortium, composed of international
experts in the fields of content creation and service 4.1 Content production / authoring
provisioning (e.g., broadcasters), multimedia The scenarios envisioned in ImAc include classic
systems and accessibility, with the goal of audiovisual content to be broadcast, and both
contributing with appropriate solutions and immersive and accessibility content are to be also
guidelines to the identified limitations and needs in delivered via broadband (see Fig. 1). However, only
this field. The project has adopted a user-centric the authoring and production of access service
methodology where end users, professionals and content has been addressed in the project, assuming
stakeholders are involved at every stage of the that the classic and immersive content has already
project through the organization of workshops, been produced (e.g., by using existing tools, like the
focus groups, tests, and the attendance at events. ones in [15]), although their preparation for media
This elicited a bottom-up approach to determining delivery is supported.

BROADCASTER / PROVIDER ACCESSIBILITY CONTENT MANAGER (ACM) ACCESS SERVICE EDITORS
Catalogue (List of Content)
Production
Management HQ Subtitles
Broadcaster Management Immersive Metadata Access Service Language Editor
LQ
Sign
Media Asset
Content
Content
Audio
CONTENT
Publication &
Integration DISTRIBUTION Description
DASH Conversion + Signaling Cloud
Renderer
Encoding Packaging
CDN / Server(s) (Spatial) Audio
Processing &
Metadata Generation Mixing
Broadcast
(DVB, Broadband CONTENT PREPARATION
HbbTV) (HTTP, DASH) Scenario B
ImAc Portal
Multi-Screen Scenario
Scenario A (with Scenario A or B)
ImAc player ImAc player Consumer
HbbTV Player Sync Sync
Access Access
Broadcast Immersive Access Immersive Service
Content Service Service Content
Content Content Content Content
CONTENT CONSUMPTION

Fig. 1 – Overview of an end-to-end platform
12 © International Telecommunication Union, 2020