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Successful Field Trial at Dranouter Festival

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Aug 142015
 

jw7DxyIJ-96x96On 7-9 of August ICoSOLE performed its first field trial at the Dranouter “Festival of new Traditions” in Belgium. In collaboration with the festival organisers Flemish broadcaster VRT organised the test in which 60 visitors could test the latest developments of ICoSOLE.

The test users got a special app (Dranouter Moments) installed on their Android phones and were able to record and upload shorts sequences of video, the so-called Moments. These clips were displayed on the Wall of Moments, a video wall next to the central stageand were also provided via a web-page. This way content was captured which is usually not covered by professional camera teams on-site and it could also be shared with the friends at home.

The content of the Wall of Moments was curated by a system that automatically assessed the technical quality (exposure, blurriness etc.) of the uploaded clips.

In addition to the Wall of Moments there was also a live stream (via MPEG-DASH) available fed by conventional TV cameras and a panoramic camera system. We were also able to demonstrate BBC’s IP-based end-to-end broadcasting system.

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The festival site with our Wall of Moments booth

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Screenshot of the Wall of Moments

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Festival impressions

We are very happy that the field trial was considered a huge success by visitors, festival organisers and participating ICoSOLE partners. The next opportunity to see our developments will be at IBC’s Future Zone (booth 8.F14) in Amsterdam on 11-15 September, 2015. We are looking forward to seeing you there!

Looking for Dranouter Test Reporters!

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Jul 102015
 

Do you like movies on your smartphone and sharing them with your friends?

Do you want to do that at the Dranouter Festival on the weekend 7-9 August?

Do you have a state-of-the-art smartphone with Android 4.4 or higher?

Then you may become an ICoSOLE test reporter!

The Dranouter Moments App provides a total experience of the festival, as seen through the eyes of selected visitors. They capture short clips of their experiences – moments a professional camera might not see. A web platform combines these clips with professional content of the performances, together forming a unique mobile festival experience.

Wall of Moments

To test the Dranouter Moments ICoSOLE project has 40 free tickets available for reporters with smartphones who want to capture their festival experience. These one-minute clips show moments professional cameras might miss, the atmosphere in the audience, a party at the camp, a special moment…

Using the app test reporters can send their clips live to a web platform, where an automatic screening on content and quality occurs. Friends of the test reporters can log on to a secure site from home or on the road, and use the Dranouter Moments app there. They experience the Dranouter Festival as if they were there in person.

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VRT is now looking for test reporters for ICoSOLE‘s first major demonstration at the Dranouter festival in Belgium. If you are interested in becoming a test reporter using the ICoSOLE Dranouter Moments app you can apply now at WallOfMoments.be!

Links:

Demo @ BBC’s ‘Sound: Now and Next’

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Jun 162015
 

The BBC hosted a conference called Sound: Now and Next at Broadcasting House in London on the 19th and 20th May 2015. The event brought together content creators, broadcasters, engineers and academics to share knowledge about leading-edge broadcast audio technology.

There were a selection of presentations and keynote speeches covering topics ranging from organising the sound production at the Olympics to a live electronic music performance. There was also a set of live demonstrations that showed off the latest sound reproduction methods, and a tech fair that showed many smaller demos.
Sound: Now and Next @ BBC Broadcasting House

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Sound: Now and Next @ BBC Broadcasting House

One of the live demonstrations was presented by BBC R&D, and showed off some of the audio streaming and rendering developed in ICoSOLE. This demo consisted of a live object-based audio being mixed and streamed from Salford using the BBC’s IP Studio technology. This stream was received in on of the event’s demo room where it was rendered and played back over a 17 loudspeaker rig. The visitors were treated to an immersive audio experience that could be interacted with locally.

The demo received a positive reaction from the audience, impressed with the immersive sound and that it was streamed the length of the country. This demo also provided a proving ground for the on-going work in ICoSOLE that will be realised in future events involving capturing and delivering immersive and interactive audio. The BBC also demonstrated binaural rendering over headphones of object-based audio which is also one of the developements from the ICoSOLE project.
Demonstration of ICoSOLE‘s audio streaming and rendering technologies

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Demonstration of ICoSOLE’s audio streaming and rendering technologies

VRT gave a demonstration of the Wall of Moments at the tech fair. This is a key part of the ICoSOLE project, which allows user-generated short videos (the Moments) captured by festival attendees smartphones to be uploaded and displayed as a mosaic of videos on a large display (the Wall).
Rik Bauwens (VRT) demonstrating the Wall of Moments

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Rik Bauwens (VRT) demonstrating the Wall of Moments

This generated a fair amount of interest among event organisers and researchers on related projects. This could lead to some test cases for field trials in 2016, when the final integrated test is taking place. There was also a lot of excitement about the upcoming filter app for user-generated content -and how we plan to deal with it- as it’s an essential link in the content chain. The BBC Sound Now & Next event proved we’re still on the right track with user-generated content, and we’re thrilled to put our ideas to the test for the first time next summer.

Overall the event was very successful, with a positive reaction from the attendees. The presentations were well attended and warmly received, and the demos worked successfully and proved very popular. It was professionally and enthusiastically hosted by LJ Rich, a music hacker, classical composer and presenter on BBC Click.

ICoSOLE & Dranouter – Research Meets Music Festival

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Jun 042015
 

The Dranouter music festival offers more than a pair of ears and eyes are able to hear and see. Through the media platform created by the ICoSOLE research project visitors can share the experience and catch up on what they missed!

When seven research and media organisations from across Europe team up with a music festival state-of-the-art gets a double meaning. This year the visitors of the Dranouter festival not only get to experience top bands performing at Dranouter but will literally also have the latest media technology in their hands improve their own experiences – and those of their friends at home.

The European research project ICoSOLE developed a video platform that lets users experience live events which are geographically spread out. This way festivals, parades or marathons can be experienced in an immersive way. “High-quality spatial video and audio is combined with user generated content”, Georg Thallinger, the project’s coordinator, explains. ICoSOLE stands for Immersive Coverage of Spatially Outspread Live Events.

Innovating the Festival Experience

The Wall of Moments presents the clips uploaded by the visitors through a dedicated app. The so-called “Moments” are short video clips made by people attending an event and are displayed on a large screen on the festival site and on the internet as an incentive. These clips catch something a professional camera would probably miss, something personal, something visitors would like to share.

Poor quality video clips are a thing of the past! With such a large audience at Dranouter several people will share a video of the same scene. The ICoSOLE system automatically measures the quality of the video and chooses the best quality clips. Further, these clips are reviewed by an editor using efficient filtering tools.

ICoSOLE provides the latest in immersive audio and video experiences, including 360º video and spatial audio.

Download press release and background information

Demos at Sound: Now and Next

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May 142015
 

BBC will be hosting an event called Sound: Now and Next – The future of broadcast audio on May 19-20 in London. Two ICoSOLE demos will be shown at this event.

Wall of Moments

wom01-300x168The Wall of Moments is a prototype of a use case defined in the ICoSOLE project. It aims to combine user generated content with professional content, in order to create an immersive experience for people who can’t attend an event. The demo uses a wom02-300x168selection of content recorded at the Marconi Moments, a small-scale test shoot in the Marconi studio at the VRT campus.wom02
Moments are short video clips -maximum 30 seconds in length- made by people attending an event. These clips should show something unique, catch something a professional camera would probably miss. Together, they tell a story through the eyes wom03-300x168of friends and create a personal experience for people at home. The Wall combines these Moments in a mosaic, and acts as the home screen. It’s a constantly refreshing feed of the latest and most interesting Moments and is highly personalized.wom03A Moment on the Wall can be zoomed into, making it playing synchronised with professional content picture-in-picture. A timeline is shown as well: every other interesting Moment is annotated, and can be jumped to. Hence, a user experiences the event in a social way, rather than the classic linear way (e.g. song by song).Lastly, a Moment can be added to My Experience, which generates a personal aftermovie afterwards (by adding an intro, outro and background music).

Object-based audio

BBC R&D will demonstrate object-based audio streamed over IP from their Salford lab to Broadcasting House. It will use their IP Studio technology which facilitates production of broadcast content over IP networks. This demonstration will stream an object-based audio production, being mixed in Salford, to Broadcasting House where it will be locally rendered into immersive audio. The audio will be played out over a 17 speaker rig providing a high quality three-dimensional output.

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The research leading to the presented results has received funding from the European Union's
Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 610370. - Imprint