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StatusOngoing
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Status date2011-02-10
3D@SAT will review and investigate the potential of future 3D Multiview (MVV) / Free viewpoint Video (FVV) technologies, build up a simulation system for 3D services over satellite and disseminate its findings to relevant fora (e.g. DVB 3D-SM, DVB TM–AVC, ITU-T/VCEG, ISO/MPEG, SMPTE, 3D@Home etc.).
The objectives for this study are as follows:
- To perform a comprehensive understanding of the state-of-the-art for 3D MVV/FVV technologies,
- To describe the 3D MVV/FVV broadcasting and interactive video services requirements,
- To define a 3D TV/FTV end-to-end system through:
- A format agnostic production frame work,
- A scripting system that will enable from one scene capture multiple simultaneous programs for various terminals,
- Terminals and services implementing content based scalability.
- To assess the end-to-end (e2e) system performance for selected use cases in order to:
- Properly size the candidate transport satellite infrastructures,
- Propose suitable MVV/FVV settings enabling practical 3D TV/FTV system configurations targeting the different displays population in order to commercially exploit the new TV system,
- Statistically evaluate the results and assess QoS/QoE performance.
- To investigate whether there are any deficiencies in DVB based satellite networks with regards to exploitation of 3D MVV/FVV and identify potential solutions,
- To assess the commercial implications of 3D TV/FTV technologies on future satellite service exploitation plans.
The scope of the activity is to pave the way to a completely new satellite TV system with the creation of a format agnostic production framework, which is multi-target; capable of addressing disparate user terminals and displays’ spatial resolutions up to HD and Super HD, and assess the role and competitiveness of satellite based networks in this new TV system.
The impact on production, transmission (i.e. bandwidth demand), 3D rendering and display technologies will be analysed. The study will cover also aspects like scalability and compatibility, i.e. the coexistence of monoscopic, stereoscopic and 3D MVV/FTV technologies.
3D-Video enables new immersive application such as 3DTV, 3D movies, immersive events, surround video, public 3D theatres, and new forms of immersive video communication. Especially recent advances in 3D display technology and Hollywood’s commitment to produce 3D content have stimulated R&D as well as standardization initiatives in this area.
3D systems will become an important part of the entertainment industry, which is growing worldwide with rates between 5% and 20%. Even higher growth rates can be observed in the area of 3D cinema. These developments have of course an influence on the home market, because secondary distribution (DVD, Blu-ray) of movies has become an important market segment.
3D film, 3DTV, Free Viewpoint Video and Super HDTV require the recording, storage, transmission and display of much more pixels than traditional TV or film. This means, that 3DTV and other immersive video services such as Free Viewpoint Video (FVV) or Super HDTV require very high transmission rates, which exceed the capabilities of classical digital transmission media such as DVB-C, DVB-T or xDSL. Only satellites for Fibre to the Home systems are able to provide enough capacity for such new services. Therefore, this study is considering a technological area, which will become a key area in future data transmission systems.
In this project, a simulation system will be setup which is based on the integration of the SATEM software simulator and the application layer simulator of Fraunhofer HHI.
It will consist of a server containing off-line encoded multiple video + depth (MVD) streams, a channel simulator simulating the transmission chain, a decoder for decoding the MVD streams and a display adaptation unit, which will render the output formats for the mono, stereoscopic and auto stereoscopic displays.
The 3D@SAT project plan is as follows:
- State-of-the-art review of the 3D video technologies and related standards (Month1 – Month2),
- Scenario definition of 3D satellite systems and review of 3D technologies, 3D signal compression/coding and display/STBs technologies (Month2 - Month4),
- Definition of a format agnostic content production format for 3D and a set of metadata required for realization of a generic 3D representation format (Month2 - Month4),
- Design and implementation of a 3D system simulator (Month5 - Month8),
- Performing system simulations (Month9 - Month11),
- Complexity and cost assessment of a satellite based 3D system (Month12),
- Derivation of recommendations and identification of potentials for standards evolution (Month1 - Month12).
The project has finished all activities and a final review was held on July 1, 2010. The main outcomes of the project are as follows:
- A complete state-of-the-art review on existing 3D video formats, multi-view encoding, 3D display technologies, set top boxes,
- Definition of service requirements for future 3D satellite services,
- Development of an end-to-end 3DTV broadcast satellite simulator, performing of transmission test of multi-view video streams under different conditions for a variety of scenarios,
- Investigation of degradation of 3D percept on current multi-view display at different level of 3D quality,
- Commercial cost benefit/complexity assessment of future 3D broadcast services via satellite,
- Definition of guidelines for future 3DTV broadcast services regarding multi-view encoding/decoding, satellite transmission and 3D displays.