Live Streaming TV Questionnaire

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Mar 272015

As part of the ICoSOLE playout client research, we are currently in the process of designing a novel Smart TV application that enables people to experience – live – the atmosphere and events at a music festival from the comfort of their living room. The application is intended to enable users to stay in touch with friends and interact with those present at the festival.

To steer our design and development efforts, an online survey has been drafted to gauge user interest in a Smart TV application for remotely experiencing music festivals. At the same time, the survey probes respondents with regard to the functional features that such a Smart TV application should encompass for them to adopt it.

By filling in the survey, respondents will help us in designing the right kind of Smart TV application for remotely experiencing music festivals. Respondents can also indicate their willingness to take part in a follow-up interview at EDM (Hasselt University – campus Diepenbeek, Belgium) to further fine-tune the design.

The survey is available both in Dutch and in English. It will take about 15 minutes to complete the survey.

10 registered participants will be picked randomly and will be rewarded with two weekend tickets for the Dranouter Festival during August in Belgium.

Virtual Acoustic Scene Acquisition by Smart Phones

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Mar 192015

At the German annual conference of Acoustics (DAGA) in Nuremberg ICoSOLE presented the paper Virtual Acoustic Scene Acquisition by Smart Phones by J.-M. Batke and J. Schmidt (both Technicolor R&I, Hannover).

The paper firstly outlined the European research project ICoSOLE, in which the generation and aggregation of user generated content into the professional workflow is the focal point of scope. After elaborating on the differences between professional acquisition techniques and the limited possibilities to make recordings with user style devices (smart phones, tables, digital cameras etc.) the paper concentrated on the possibilities to capture immersive sound scenes involving distributed acoustic sensors, such as smart phones at different locations. Thanks to the ICoSOLE concept, these locations are well known and traced, and each of them is representing one acoustic object, which contributes to a three-dimensional scene when combined together. Possible approaches for generating and coding such sound scenes are either based on sound channels or as Higher Order Ambisonics signals. Both schemes have recently been specified in the MPEG-H standardization process.
Mobile user devices involved in sound acquisition

Mobile user devices involved in sound acquisition

The main scope of the paper, however, was to present first results of user generated recordings, which had been acquired at the occasion of the “Fete de la Musique 2014” in Hannover. Several recording devices, i.e. smart phones, portable audio recorder and digital cameras have been used for capturing the sound in a pedestrian area in close proximity to live music stages (see Figure). Mainly voice recordings had been performed in order to test the speech intelligibility after appropriate signal processing. It could be shown that speech intelligibility could be improved through enhancing the original signal with ambient sound, thus leading to a better spatial perception.

Successful demonstrations in Hasselt

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Jan 142015

The ICoSOLE team recently had the opportunity to present the outcomes of the first year. For its initial annual project review ten technical demos were selected and successfully shown at the event in Hasselt, Belgium.

Each of the individual demonstrators represents an aspect of the ICoSOLE system and proves the validity of the chosen approach and technologies.

Wall of Moments

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The Wall of Moments displays short video fragments (“Moments”) captured by peers attending the festival in order to deliver a unique festival experience to remote users.

The selection of Moments is based on popularity, friends, music preference and custom filters.

Venue Explorer

VenueExplorer-300x164 The Venue Explorer is a web-based client for interactive scene navigation using DASH adaptive streaming of video tiles from 4k overview.

It supports graphical data overlays, full pan & zoom control from touch screen and the audio is mixed dynamically based on the viewport.

Visual Location & Alignment

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Based on measured sensor data and visual information the overlap and alignment of incoming video streams is determined

Also the temporal redundancy of (compact) local descriptors was studied.

Core System

CoreSystem-300x165 The ICoSOLE Core System is based on a Composite Pattern Scene Representation.

Its uses a REST interface and feature an Editor, Creator and the Processing Engine.

Quality Analysis

Quality-Analysis-300x167 A Quality Analysis App for Android Phones was developed for technical quality assurance for UGC.

The app automatically measures Noise Level, Luminance variations and Blurriness.

Object-based binaural rendering

binauralRendering-300x185 BWF files with object-based audio meta-data using the ADM are uploaded.

The object-based audio programme is rendered in real-time using the Web Audio API, metadata is visualized. The rendering method can be switched; for the binaural mode head tracking is used.

3D audio rendering

3dAudioRendering-300x173 The recordings of the Salford test shoot were mixed to achieve professional 3D audio using different main microphones and mixing techniques.

Rendering was done to loudspeakers and headphones (using BBC Audio Toolbox libraries).

Playout server

PlayoutServer-300x176 The Playout Server is a GStreamer-based mixing engine running on Linux server for mixing & monitoring live video with graphic overlays

A Cocoa GUI is running on OSX client, communication is performed via zeroMQ and JSON.

Content Pre-Caching

PreCaching-300x172 Content Pre-Caching is used to accelerate media stream switching in MPEG-DASH-based distribution environments.
It mitigates latency issues when zapping in DVB setups and optimizes time-to-first-picture.

In the future it will be integrated in playout clients for live playback on TV.

bitdash HD Streaming

bitDASH-300x181 bitdash features platform agnostic MPEG-DASH clients for smooth content consumption. It supports live/catch-up and on-demand streaming and is HTML5/JS based – no plugins needed!

Marconi Moments test shoot

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Oct 242014

2014_10_19_VRT_OI_MarconiMoments_Amongster-6528-1024x683

In the weekend of 18-19th of October, VRT Research & Innovation organised two concerts in the Marconi studios on VRT’s premises in order to test prototypes for the ICoSOLE project. The two performing bands, JFJ on Saturday and Amongster on Sunday, have been chosen from the contest ‘De Nieuwe Lichting’ organised by VRT’s radio station Studio Brussel.

In the afternoon, a professional multi-channel audio capture of two hours took place using a wide variety of microphones. These recordings will later be used to create a 3D audio scene of the concert.

In the evening, a small audience (40 on Saturday and 110 on Sunday) was invited to attend a full concert which was covered by a big number of devices.

2014_10_19_VRT_O&I_MarconiMoments_A 2014_10_19_VRT_OI_MarconiMoments_Amongster-6533-200x300 mongster-6533Firstly, four TV camera’s were present with a director who created a live cut. The separate camera feeds have also been stored, in order to enable users to switch to another camera view in a future app.

iMinds experimented with a novel camera setup: fifteen cameras were installed on five strategic positions to film the concert at high resolution. This included a 360° camera at the middle of the stage. All together, the camera’s produced 32.4 million pixels, 25 times a second.

JOANNEUM RESEARCH created a native app with which they are able to record video as well as sensor data. They handed some devices to the audience, which made videos during the concert.

Bitmovin brought a Google Glass, with which they tested live wireless streaming to a base station during the concert.

VRT Research & Innovation tested (a little teaser of) the Wall of Moments, in which the audience played a big part. They were given the task to make as much short videos (Moments) as possible with their own smartphone or tablet. They were able to directly upload these videos files over a private WiFi network with a small web app. Two big screens were installed alongside the stage, which showed a (nearly) live feed of incoming Moments in a two-by-two matrix (a slimmed down version of the Wall of Moments). In total, we received 736 Moments, accounting for 4 hours of video material.

The next step is to incorporate the gathered material in our first demonstrators.

Watch the Marconi Moments aftermovie!

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Upcoming test shoot: Marconi Moments

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Sep 242014

Music Maestro

It doesn’t really sound like a combination you’d expect from a Research & Innovation department. Nevertheless, you can throw away all your cliches about researchers, because Life is Music for VRT R&I on Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 October.

Come and discover the “De Nieuwe Lichting” bands JFJ and Amongster in the Marconi studio at VRT.

More than a concert

This won’t be a usual concert. By attending the event, you’re participating in the creation of the festival app of the future. During the recording we’ll be testing innovative technologies developed in ICoSOLE, and you can participate.

Line-up
Saturday 18 oktober: JFJ
Sunday 19 oktober: Amongster
Doors open at 19:00.

Tickets

Free tickets are available. Stay informed and the Marconi Moments Facebook page.

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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