3D CineCast

Large-Sensor Camcorders and DSLRs

2012-01-30T06:22:00.002-08:00

When Canon announced its EOS C300 camcorder, which has a 4K2K sensor but does not record 4K2K video, the company also announced it was developing a DSLR that will record 4K2K video. Although it may seem a bit strange that a camcorder designed to employ high-quality cinema lenses is limited to full HD video recording yet a still camera will be able to record 4K2K video, it's not strange given the history of DSLRs.

When large CCD and CMOS chips replaced an SLR's 35mm film, the next logical step was to place an LCD on the digital camera so one could review shots in the field. The next logical step was a “live view” mode that allowed one to view what was being recorded. It was only a small step to compress live view images and record them as video.

Large-sensor digital camcorders have evolved from DSLRs. It is primarily a marketing decision whether to release digital motion picture technology in a still camera package, a camcorder package or both. However, one clear advantage of a camcorder package is space for a mic jack (even XLRs), a headphone jack and manual audio controls.

When a potential buyer who is in the process of learning about 4K2K production and post production encounters the same technology in two different packages, it may prove confusing.

When a videographer shoots with a still camera, he or she will find expected camcorder functions missing. For example, every professional camcorder has some form of ND filtration; DSLRs do not.

A primary differentiator of DSLRs and traditional camcorders is their optical system. This is true for current HD and future 4K2K products.

Frame Size
While video cameras have frame sizes that relate directly to sensor size, such as 2/3in, DSLR frame size relates to 35mm film — in particular, 35mm still film. When shooting 35mm slide or negative film, each 36mm × 24mm image is placed with perforations above and below the frame.

DSLRs with 36mm × 24mm sensors are called full-frame cameras. The Canon EOS-1D X, announced for March 2012, employs an 18-megapixel 28.7mm × 19.1mm sensor. Canon calls it an APS-H sensor.

There are small variations in APS frame size: Canon APS-C (22.2mm × 14.8mm), and Nikon/Sony-C (23.4mm × 15.6mm). Both full-frame and APS sensors, when taking photos, have a 3:2 (1.50:1) aspect ratio. Panasonic uses a slightly smaller sensor for its AF100 camcorder and GH2 still camera called Micro Four Thirds (M43), which has a 1.33:1 aspect ratio and a frame size of 17.3mm × 13mm.

Sensors smaller than a full-frame sensor reduce the potential minimum DOF. Minimum DOF, of course, is a function of the maximum aperture size. A large-sensor camera does not directly provide a shallow DOF.

When a lens designed for a full-frame camera is mounted on a camera with a smaller sensor, the lens' focal length is multiplied by the lens crop factor. (Crop factor equals the ratio of a 35mm frame's 43.3mm diagonal to the diagonal of the image sensor.) A Sony APS-C camera, for example, has a crop factor of 1.5. A 50mm “normal” lens becomes a 75mm tele lens.

When shooting video, a 16:9 window on the sensor is employed. This has three ramifications. First, the viewfinder image will shrink when switching a DSLR to video mode. (This shift can be minimized by shooting 16:9 photos.) Second, the number of pixels read out will be reduced, which is a positive. Third, the lens crop factor will slightly increase. For example, when a Sony APS-C camera is switched to video mode, the crop factor increases to 1.8, thus a 50mm lens acts as a 90mm lens.

The earliest 35mm movie film had a 22mm × 18mm image, with perforations on the sides of each frame. In 1929, the Academy ratio was established. It has a 21mm × 15mm image that has a 1.37:1 aspect ratio. To obtain wide-screen, but not anamorphic, images, a Super 35 frame can be employed.

A 24.9mm × 13.9mm Super 35 frame has a native aspect ratio of 1.79:1 — a perfect match to 1.78 (16:9) HD. It also matches Quad-HD (3840 × 2160 pixels) and almost matches 4K2K, which is 4096 × 2160 pixels — a 1.90:1 aspect ratio. Not surprisingly, frame sizes that come from cinema cameras do not require the use of a 16:9 window when shooting video.

A 24.9mm x 13.9mm Super 35 frame has a native aspect ratio of 1.79:1

Lens Zoom System
While the videographer likely knows that DSLR lenses do not have power zoom, he or she may not know that photo lenses have other issues. For example, the zoom ring may have high friction because of the need to significantly extend the lens when zooming. Pressure exerted to start a zoom while shooting can easily cause a visible disturbance.

Better Sony lenses, such as A-mount lenses that use micro ball bearings, may cause noise that will be picked up by an on-camera mic.

AF System
Photographers are used to trusting auto-focus — even on action shots where the shooter is following a moving subject. When a DSLR's mirror is in the 45-degree-position in order for the shooter to see the subject, AF is possible. A portion of the image passes through a semitransparent area of the mirror, reflects off a small mirror mounted on the back of the mirror and is cast onto a small sensor at the bottom of the camera. The sensor, in conjunction with a processor, sends commands to the lens' AF motor to move to a position calculated to be correct for precise focus. This system is called phase detection AF.

A phase detection AF system uses a series of mirrors, a small sensor at the bottom of the camera
and a processor to calculate precise focus.

DSLRs employ a different AF system when shooting video because the mirror must be continuously up. The processor, therefore, obtains information from the CMOS image sensor, which is why it is called contrast detection AF.

Mirrorless cameras such as the Panasonic GH2 and Sony NEX-5N must use contrast detection AF. (Strictly speaking, digital cameras without a mirror do not have a reflex system and, therefore, are not DSLRs.)

Contrast detection AF systems work by having a microprocessor rapidly command the lens servomotor to step forward and backward by a tiny amount. The processor notes whether contrast increases or decreases. If contrast increases, then current focus is not perfect. Therefore, stepping forward and backward continues. When there is no change in contrast, the current focus is the best possible.

Contrast detection tends to be slower than phase detection and becomes slower at low light levels. And, unless the lens is designed to be quiet, AF noise may be recorded.

Aperture System
Photography lenses are designed to click into key f-stops: f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16 and f/22. Cinema and video lenses are designed so the aperture changes in a continuous manner. One solution is to use camera lenses designed by the camera's manufacturer for video shooting. The other solution is to use cinema lenses.

ND Capability
To obtain a shallow DOF with a large-chip camera under bright light — at the slow shutter speed required for the correct amount of video motion blur — an ND is a must. (ND filtration also will be required to keep the aperture under f/11 to minimize diffraction.) When a camcorder does not have a built-in filter, a shooter has three choices: mount the camera on rails on which a matte box is mounted, attach one of several ND filters to the lens or employ a vario-ND filter.

Lens Mount Type
Both cameras and camcorders that employ large sensors use a lens mount designed to work with their brand of lenses. For example, Sony's NEX family — including the FS100 and VG20 camcorders — uses Sony's E-mount. Sony markets the LA-EA2 adaptor, which enables the use of Sony and Minolta A-mount lenses. The LA-EA2 has a translucent mirror system that provides phase detection AF to many A-mount lenses.

For most interchangeable lens cameras, third-party adaptors are available. These enable you to use your favorite photo lenses on a new camera or camcorder. For example, a Sony NEX camera can use Nikon F, Canon 5D, Leica M, Leica R, Pentax, Konica Minolta MD, Olympus and Contax/Yashica lenses by using an E-mount adaptor.

Only a few adaptors, such as the LA-EA2, provide electrical signals to a lens. Without electrical connections, in-lens optical stabilization, AF and aperture control cannot function and no information from the lens is received by the camera. Therefore, modern photo lenses that send the aperture ring's setting to the AE system cannot do so.

Solutions to these issues include working with still camera and cinema lenses in a fully manual way (which may be a camera operator's first choice) or using a manufacturer's lenses that have electrical contacts.

Bringing it Home
No matter whether you shoot with a still camera or camcorder, images from the sensor must be compressed and recorded. Currently, two codecs are used for recording 4K2K: the Sony F65RAW (16-bit RAW) codec to a docking SRMaster field recorder that records to SRMemory cards or the RED R3D wavelet codec to a REDMAG solid-state drive.

Future 4K2K codec options include H.264 (as a single stream or as four HD streams) and 4K2K versions of current HD formats.

By Steve Mullen, Broadcast Engineering

DPP Unveils Technical & Metadata Standards for File-based Programme Delivery

2012-01-27T01:13:00.004-08:00

The Digital Production Partnership (DPP) – a partnership between ITV, Channel 4 and the BBC – has unveiled its new Technical and Metadata Standards for File-based programme delivery in the UK.

Through the DPP, seven major broadcasters (BBC, ITV, C4, Sky, Channel Five, S4C and UKTV), have all agreed the UK’s first common file format, structure and wrapper to enable TV programme delivery by digital file. These new guidelines will complement the common standards already published by the DPP for tape delivery of HD and SD TV programmes.

Working closely with the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AWMA) in the US, the DPP has been the driving force behind the creation of the organisation’s ‘AS-11,’ a new international file format for HD Files. The new DPP guidelines will require files delivered to UK broadcasters to be compliant with a specified subset of this new, internationally recognised standard.

By implementing one set of pan-industry technical standards for the UK, the DPP aims to minimise confusion and expense for programme-makers, and avoid a situation where a number of different file types and specifications proliferate.

The new DPP standards aim to remove any ambiguity during the production and delivery process. A key aspect is the inclusion of editorial and technical metadata, which will ensure a consistent set of information for the processing, review, and scheduling of programmes, as well as their onward archiving, sale and distribution.

As part of the file-based guidelines, the DPP’s member broadcasters have agreed a minimum set of common metadata to be delivered with a file-based programme. And, in a bid to encourage international adoption of its metadata standards, the DPP has worked closely with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), mapping its minimum set of common metadata to existing ‘EBU-Core’ and ‘TV-Anytime’ metadata sets.

Alongside these new standards, the DPP is currently building a free-to-use, downloadable, metadata application to enable production companies to enter the required editorial and technical metadata easily. The new application is due to launch in spring 2012.

The agreement of these new file based technical standards does not signal an immediate move to file based delivery. Instead, the DPP seeks to provide clarity around digital delivery that will become the expected standard in the future.

During 2012 BBC, ITV and Channel 4 will begin to take delivery of programmes on file on a selective basis. Production companies wishing to deliver by file should discuss this at the point of commission, and seek formal agreement with their broadcaster at the outset of production. After a period of selective piloting, file based delivery will be the preferred delivery format for these Broadcasters by 2014.

Source: Digital Production Partnership

AS-11: MXF for Contribution

2012-01-26T04:33:00.000-08:00

AS-11 is a vendor-neutral subset of the MXF file format to use for delivery of finished programming from program producers and distributors to broadcast stations. AS-11 files are intended to be complete and ready for playout.

AS-11 supports playout while the file transfer is in progress, a workflow is referred to as “late delivery”. It is preferable for AS-11 files to be used by playout servers directly without rewrapping of the MXF data structures.

The content may be delivered at the ultimate bit-rate, picture format and aspect ratio, or it may be transcoded at the broadcast station to the required bit-rates and formats. Similar transcoding may be applied to audio and captions; additionally, specific audio and caption tracks may be selected for different broadcast channels.

The content may be pre-packaged for broadcast without further splicing or it may be segmented for ease of insertion or replacement of interstitials.

AS-11 supports SD video encoded as D-10, 50Mbit/s, and HD as AVC-Intra Class 100. Audio can be PCM, AC-3 or Dolby E.

AS-11 defines a minimal core metadata set required in all AS-11 files, a program segmentation metadata scheme, and permits inclusion of custom shim-specific metadata in the MXF file.

Source: Advanced Media Workflow Association

EBU-TT Subtitling Format Published for Industry Comments

2012-01-18T03:01:00.002-08:00

The EBU has published a new Subtitling Format specification (EBU Tech 3350). The new format is called EBU Timed Text (EBU-TT) and provides an easy-to-use method to interchange and archive subtitles in XML.

EBU-TT is based on the W3C Timed Text Markup Language (TTML) specification. The EBU format can be seen as a constrained version of the W3C spec, aimed at providing a solution more tailored to broadcast operation. This is especially relevant as broadcasters are increasingly moving to file-based HDTV facilities, where subtitles are created, edited, exchanged and archived together with the content.

The previous EBU subtitling format was EBU STL (Tech 3264), developed at a time when information was still exchanged on floppy discs. However, as many broadcasters still use STL or have archived STL files, great care was taken in the development of EBU-TT to make sure that it provides backwards compatibility with its predecessor.

The EBU is also providing an XML Schema for EBU-TT.

Source: EBU

Tech Upstarts Kicking Glasses in 3D

2012-01-13T03:31:00.001-08:00

There's no shortage of innovation from the major TV manufacturers on display at the huge booths at CES: OLED, 4K -- even 8K -- resolution, new interfaces, connectivity, exclusive content. What's absent here, though, are any prototypes to indicate that glasses-free (autostereo) 3D TV is anywhere close to market.

That's not to say that autostereo TV can't be found at CES. It's just coming from smaller companies in smaller booths -- one with barely a booth at all. They are pressing ahead with -- and showing off -- autostereo screens for television, tablets and smartphones while the big makers remain oddly quiet on the topic.

"Consumer electronics companies wanted to get into the home market quickly," said Raja Rajan, chief operating officer of Stream TV, whose booth in Central Hall, of the mammoth Las Vegas Convention Center, is not far from Sony's. "The consumer electronics companies have tremendous financial pressures to get to market with the fastest, easiest technologies."

That is echoed by one of Rajan's competitors, Stephen Blumenthal of 3D Fusion, a late addition to the floor that has one of its models tucked into the 3D Bee booth at the periphery of Central Hall.

"They brought (3D with glasses) to the market as a very straightforward consumer play, and until they burn through the opportunity to make as much revenue off of it as possible, this adventure with the next step is on the back burner," Blumenthal said.

His partner Ilya Sorokin noted, "The 3D with glasses technology was much easier to incorporate into their existing infrastructure because it was already there, and just lying on a shelf."

Both 3D Fusion and Stream TV are using advanced, lens-based tech that, according to Rajan, was abandoned by the big companies.

Rajan said he toured Asia showing Stream TV's screens and its real-time 2D-to-3D converter to major hardware makers, who responded enthusiastically. Stream TV is looking to be a technology provider, not to manufacture under its own name.

"We expect in the next few weeks to start announcing some of the first brands and products rolling out," Rajan said.

He said there is strong interest from Hollywood in the converter box, because it can be built into cable and satellite boxes, enabling all channels to be in 3D. At the same time, Stream's units come with controllers so the consumer can turn the 3D down, or off altogether, for comfort or personal preference.

"Our cost is incrementally 10% to 15% max over the cost of goods for a 2D television," Rajan said. "That's significant because a big re-seller can get into the consumer market at a cost consumers can afford."

MasterImage 3D, which has a solid worldwide business projecting 3D in theaters, is in the South Hall. It has been in the autostereo screen business for some time, and this year is at CES with two screens aimed straight at state-of-the-art mobile devices: a 720p 4.3-inch smartphone display and a WUXGA (1920x1200) display for tablets.

Royston Taylor, exec VP and general manager for MasterImage, said he welcomes the competition from Stream TV, which is also showing tablet screens.

"First, it validates what you're trying to do," Taylor said. "Being on your own is nice in terms of no competition, but it's very lonely in terms of being the only voice saying how great something is. The second thing is competition is always good for the consumer."

Despite strong sales of the Nintendo 3DS, the poor critical response to the 3DS, the HTC Evo 3D phone and the LG Optimus 3D phone have made some makers nervous, Taylor said. He now expects to be making announcements of deals with consumer electronics companies by April and to have gear with MasterImage 3D screens in stores by Thanksgiving.

One hurdle that had to be overcome was the lack of technical standards for judging the quality of a 3D display.

"Right now it's almost entirely subjective," he said. "Big companies won't risk a $250 million phone line on 3D just because it looks nice."

But a French company, Eldim, has come up with a product for testing 3D displays on objective, technical measurements. With standards in place, it will be possible to compare products and establish quality control in manufacturing.

3D Fusion is already selling autostereo TVs for use in digital signage. Blumenthal said the company is selling its turnkey solution, which includes a 42-inch autostereo display, at CES. Cost is $8,000. His sales are to retailers, small mom-and-pop chains, malls. Blumenthal and Sorkin recognize that their company is small and they're in no position to ramp up to consumer volumes on their own. Like Stream TV, they'd be happy to license their technology.

By David S. Cohen, Variety

3-D Cameras for Cellphones

2012-01-11T05:59:00.002-08:00

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a system that uses specially designed algorithms to produce a detailed 3D image with just a cheap photodetector and the processor power found in a smartphone.

Like other sophisticated depth-sensing devices, CoDAC uses the “time of flight” of light particles to gauge depth: A pulse of infrared laser light is fired at a scene, and the camera measures the time it takes the light to return from objects at different distances.

Traditional time-of-flight systems use one of two approaches to build up a “depth map” of a scene. LIDAR (for LIght Detection And Ranging) uses a scanning laser beam that fires a series of pulses, each corresponding to a point in a grid, and separately measures their time of return. But that makes data acquisition slower, and it requires a mechanical system to continually redirect the laser.

The alternative, employed by so-called time-of-flight cameras, is to illuminate the whole scene with laser pulses and use a bank of sensors to register the returned light. But sensors able to distinguish small groups of light particles — photons — are expensive: A typical time-of-flight camera costs thousands of dollars.

The MIT researchers’ system, by contrast, uses only a single light detector — a one-pixel camera. But by using some clever mathematical tricks, it can get away with firing the laser a limited number of times.

The first trick is a common one in the field of compressed sensing: The light emitted by the laser passes through a series of randomly generated patterns of light and dark squares, like irregular checkerboards. Remarkably, this provides enough information that algorithms can reconstruct a two-dimensional visual image from the light intensities measured by a single pixel.

In experiments, the researchers found that the number of laser flashes — and, roughly, the number of checkerboard patterns — that they needed to build an adequate depth map was about 5 percent of the number of pixels in the final image. A LIDAR system, by contrast, would need to send out a separate laser pulse for every pixel.

To add the crucial third dimension to the depth map, the researchers use another technique, called parametric signal processing. Essentially, they assume that all of the surfaces in the scene, however they’re oriented toward the camera, are flat planes. Although that’s not strictly true, the mathematics of light bouncing off flat planes is much simpler than that of light bouncing off curved surfaces. The researchers’ parametric algorithm fits the information about returning light to the flat-plane model that best fits it, creating a very accurate depth map from a minimum of visual information.

Click to watch the video

Indeed, the algorithm lets the researchers get away with relatively crude hardware. Their system measures the time of flight of photons using a cheap photodetector and an ordinary analog-to-digital converter — an off-the-shelf component already found in all cellphones. The sensor takes about 0.7 nanoseconds to register a change to its input.

That’s enough time for light to travel 21 centimeters, Vivek Goyal from MIT’s Research Lab of Electronics, says. “So for an interval of depth of 10 and a half centimeters — I’m dividing by two because light has to go back and forth — all the information is getting blurred together”.

Because of the parametric algorithm, however, the researchers’ system can distinguish objects that are only two millimeters apart in depth. “It doesn’t look like you could possibly get so much information out of this signal when it’s blurred together,” Goyal says.

The researchers’ algorithm is also simple enough to run on the type of processor ordinarily found in a smartphone. To interpret the data provided by the Kinect, by contrast, the Xbox requires the extra processing power of a graphics-processing unit, or GPU, a powerful special-purpose piece of hardware.

“This is a brand-new way of acquiring depth information,” says Yue M. Lu, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Harvard University. “It’s a very clever way of getting this information.” One obstacle to deployment of the system in a handheld device, Lu speculates, could be the difficulty of emitting light pulses of adequate intensity without draining the battery.

But the light intensity required to get accurate depth readings is proportional to the distance of the objects in the scene, Goyal explains, and the applications most likely to be useful on a portable device — such as gestural interfaces — deal with nearby objects. Moreover, he explains, the researchers’ system makes an initial estimate of objects’ distance and adjusts the intensity of subsequent light pulses accordingly.

Telecoms company Qualcomm has awarded the research team one of $100,000 Innovation Fellowship grants to continue the research.

By Larry Hardesty, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

BetterView

2012-01-02T09:42:00.004-08:00

BetterView's up-conversion technology utilizes Super-Resolution (SR) reconstruction that performs a fusion of low quality images into a higher quality result with improved optical resolution. This task encompasses scaling-up of the visual content by introducing true (optical) resolution enhancement.

Several low-resolution images of the same scene. Note they are slightly different from each other.

One HR image (with more pixels, better optical resolution, and less noise), obtained by fusing the previous images.

It has been known for the past 20 years that, in principle, one could take several low-quality images and fuse them into a single, higher-resolution outcome. This has been demonstrated by scientists, adopting various techniques and algorithms. This process became a hot field in image processing, with thousands of academic papers published during the past two decades on the problem and ways to handle it. The classical approach to fuse the low-quality images requires finding an exact correspondence between their pixels, a process known as "motion estimation".

BetterView technology is based on a recently developed and patent-pending novel family of SR algorithms, proposed by a world-leader in this field, Prof. Michael Elad (Technion – Israel Institute of Technology). Elad and his collaborator, Dr. Matan Protter devised the first method that overcomes the requirement for very accurate and explicit motion estimation in previous SR technologies.

Exact motion estimation has been a crucial stage in every earlier SR algorithm, considerably limiting the scenes that can be handled. The new family of SR techniques avoids the exact motion estimation and replaces it by a probabilistic estimate. This enables handling successfully general content scenes containing extremely complex motion patterns. The results are impressive, with no visual artifacts, and the process is completely robust.

Click to watch the video

iPlayer3D Update

2011-12-23T11:40:00.001-08:00

The Digital Service Development group led by Phil Layton in BBC R&D was involved in the previous trial of 3D at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships this year and also the recently broadcast Strictly Come Dancing Grand Final. In this post Dr Peter Cherriman and Paul Gorley outline the work they did to determine if it was possible to put 3D content onto the Freeview and Freesat versions of TV iPlayer.

Generally 3D requires a high bitrate to achieve good stereoscopy. If the video bitrate is too low, depth cues are lost and the 3D becomes tiring to watch. However, due to varying Internet speeds, the higher the bitrate on iPlayer, the less people that are able to watch it. So we had the challenging task of trying to producing high quality 3D at as low a bitrate as possible.

Our 3D television broadcasts on Freeview, Freesat, Sky and Virgin all use a side-by-side frame-compatible format. This combines the Left and Right eye views into a single HD signal, by anamorphically squashing horizontally each eye's view into half of the HD frame, so they appear side-by-side. This HD signal was compressed at resolution of 1920x1080i25, which means 25 interlaced frames per second each of which is comprised of 1920 pixels across and 1080 lines. Each interlaced frame comprised of two fields, each field is 1920x540 pixels, and the fields are captured 1/50th of a second apart.

In order to produce the best quality 3D we decided to use a recording made in Blackpool, rather than use the broadcast feed received via satellite. This had a number of advantages, it meant we weren't limited to the side-by-side 3D format and the recording would have less compression artefacts.

We did a number of experiments with different resolutions and determined the best compromise for bitrate and quality was to convert the recorded 1920x1080i25 interlaced signal for each eye into a non-interlaced 1280x720p50 signal using a professional cross-converter. The intermediate signal created is at 50 frame per second, where each frame is 1280x720 pixels for each eye.

We then needed to convert the pair of 1280x720p50 signals into a standardised frame-compatible format. The preferred frame-compatible format for 1280x720p50 signals is to anamorphically squash vertically each eye signal into half the HD frame, the so-called top-bottom or over-under format. This results in 1280 by 360 pixels per eye per frame.

Our broadcasts use side-by-side format, however this requires horizontal squashing of the picture which degrades the stereoscopic depth cues. These would be further degraded for a 1280x720 image format. Vertical squashing used in the top-bottom format preserves more of this depth information, but the rescaling required in a receiver is much harder for the interlaced broadcast format which is why it's not used.

We found that our broadcast video encoders were much more efficient at encoding this 1280x720p50 signal than the existing software encoders. The bespoke workflow of this experiment allowed us to trial the use of broadcast encoders for iPlayer content. We tested with a wide range of 3D material, but the most challenging of which was the Strictly Come Dancing 3D footage, shown in cinemas, for last year's Children in Need. By using HE-AAC audio encoding we were able to minimise the audio bitrate required. This enabled us to create good quality 3D at a constant total bitrate of less than 5Mbit/s. You should notice the improved quality of the iPlayer 3D pictures in terms of less compression artefacts, and smoother motion due to the 50 frames per second, which is twice the framerate of standard iPlayer.

The next challenge was to modify the file to be suitable to upload to the iPlayer platform. The Freesat receivers required a MPEG Transport Stream (ISO/IEC 13818-1), which is produced directly by the broadcast video encoders.

However, FreeviewHD receivers require a mp4 file. When we used our standard software tool to create the mp4 files we found that the audio and video was not in-sync on some receivers. The mp4 files contain metadata to indicate how to synchronise the video and audio. However, it seems some receivers assume the first frame of video should be synchronised with the first frame of audio and don't make use of this metadata. Using a alternative tool, we were able to create mp4 files which played in-sync on all receivers available to us, including those which previously seemed to ignore this synchronisation metadata.

We don't yet know what the future of 3D will be, but these experiments have demonstrated another platform on which 3D content can be delivered to viewers.

By Ant Miller, BBC R&D

JPEG 2000

2011-12-22T13:25:00.006-08:00

JPEG 2000 has caught the attention of the professional media world for good reason. First, it closely matches some workflows, where the production process operates on each frame of a video stream as a discrete unit. This is different from MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC Long-GOP flavors, where, during the reconstruction process, algorithms reference frames before and after the frame being reconstructed.

The ability to compress each frame as a free-standing unit has made it popular in the digital intermediate space in Hollywood. JPEG 2000 is also of interest to those who want lossless compression. It can provide a bit-perfect reconstruction of the original compressed image, although at a cost in terms of bandwidth. Also, the wavelet compression used in JPEG 2000 provides some unique opportunities that are not available in other compression methods.

The wavelet transform separates the image into four sub-bands. The first sub-band is a lowpass horizontal and lowpass vertical (LL). Images that have gone through this separation are basically lower-resolution images of the original. The other sub-bands are as follows: lowpass horizontal and highpass vertical (LH); highpass horizontal and lowpass vertical (HL); and highpass horizontal and highpass vertical (HH).

Using wavelet transforms and some clever thinking, implementers can do some interesting things. For example, they can send only the LL image, if they know that they are feeding a low-resolution display. Or they can send the LL sub-band in a highly-protected stream, in order to ensure the original image arrives intact. That said, they can then send the higher-resolution sub-bands unprotected since a momentary loss of these sub-bands is not likely to be noticed.

Given JPEG 2000's popularity, it is not surprising there have been some developments that make it particularly interesting for professional applications. First, the ITU has created an amendment (1) that outlines specific configurations for broadcast contribution applications. These configurations are intended to establish interoperability points for those implementing JPEG 2000 in professional applications. This is important because, until the amendment was released, there were so many variables in the compression tool set that interoperability was unlikely. The second important development, Amendment 5 to the MPEG 2 standard (2), provides a mapping of the JPEG 2000 Program Elementary Stream (PES) onto the MPEG-2 Transport Stream (TS).

Finally, some time ago, the Pro-MPEG Forum started to develop a standardized way to transport MPEG-2 TS over IP networks. The Video Services Forum picked up on this work and continued to develop it, finally submitting a draft for standardization within the SMPTE. This standard, SMPTE 2022-2 (3), describes a method for mapping MPEG-2 Transport Streams onto IP networks using RTP and UDP. The document was approved in 2007 and is the most common standard deployed today for professional video transport applications.

So these three developments — development of broadcast profiles; a mapping of JPEG 2000 Program Elementary Streams to MPEG 2 Transport Streams; and wide availability of MPEG-2 TS over IP transport equipment — mean now it is possible to transport JPEG 2000 over IP networks.

JPEG 2000 over IP relies on three critical developments:
broadcast contribution profiles, JPEG 2000 PES to MPEG-2 mapping,
and SMPTE 2022-2 for MPEG-2 transport over IP networks.

Starting with a video source, the image is compressed using a compression engine. This engine is configured to one of the Broadcast Contribution profiles in ITU-T Amendment 3. The compression engine produces a JPEG 2000 PES. This stream is then fed to an MPEG-2 encapsulator. The encapsulator uses the mapping rules established in the MPEG-2 specification, Amendment 5, to map the PES onto an MPEG-2 TS. This MPEG-2 TS is fully compliant with MPEG-2 specifications because, from the outside, it looks just like a normal MPEG-2 Transport Stream. As such, the output of the MPEG-2 encapsulator can be fed into a SMPTE 2022-2 compliant video transport device. This device encapsulates the MPEG-2 TS in standard RTP and UDP packets, and then those packets are wrapped in IP packets. These IP packets can now be fed into an IP network.

You might wonder why we take a relatively new compression algorithm such as JPEG 2000 and encapsulate it in MPEG-2. There are several reasons for this. First and foremost, there are already a number of specifications for how to encapsulate a number of different audio formats into MPEG-2 Transport Streams. Remember: JPEG 2000 says nothing about audio. Using MPEG-2 TS allows us to transport and present the audio alongside the JPEG 2000 compressed video using well-known audio standards. Also, this approach allows us to leverage the existing SMPTE 2022-2 MPEG-2 TS over IP standard. Finally, there are no technical issues in MPEG-2 TS that need to be fixed in this application space, so re-use of Transport Streams rather than inventing something entirely new seems like a good solution.

So, the good news is that the time is ripe for development of an interoperable, open solution for the transport of JPEG 2000 video and audio over IP networks. The standards exist, and there is a clear path forward. But, there are a few issues that need addressed.

JPEG 2000 has been around for quite some time. As such, some proprietary JPEG 2000 over IP transport solutions have already been created. Of course, these were developed in response to customer demand, so existing implementations may need to be changed. Another issue is that while the broadcast contribution profiles in Amendment 3 go a long way toward interoperability in the JPEG 2000 PES space, recent analysis suggests, without further definition, implementations based upon these profiles will not be interoperable. Finally, until the industry actually tries to connect devices from different manufacturers together, interoperability cannot be assured.

Fortunately, the industry is becoming aware of these issues, and steps are being taken to begin work in earnest on interoperable, open transport of professional JPEG 2000 images over IP networks. I would expect to see some developments around this in the first half of the coming year.

Footnotes:

“Profiles for Broadcast Applications” ISO/IEC 15444-1:2004 Amd.3-2010 (ISO/IEC, Geneva, Switzerland: 2010) |Rec. ITU-T T.800 Amd.3 (06/2010) (ITU, Geneva, Switzerland:2010)
Amendment 5: Transport of JPEG 2000 Part 1 (ITU-T Rec T.800 | ISO/IEC 15444-1) video over ITU-T Rec H.222.0| ISO/IEC 13818-1
SMPTE ST20 22-2:2007 “Unidirectional Transport of Constant Bit Rate MPEG-2 Transport Streams on IP Networks”

By Brad Gilmer, Broadcast Engineering

Streaming Standards for Worship

2011-12-16T07:36:00.001-08:00

If you produce streaming video in the worship market and have your ear to the ground, you may be experiencing sensory overload right now. HTML5 is being promoted as a panacea for all plug-in-related woes; Adobe threw the mobile market into turmoil by ceasing development of the Flash Player, and there’s a new standard called DASH that supposedly will create a unified approach for adaptive streaming to all connected devices. Seems like getting that sermon out over the Internet has gotten a lot more complicated.

Well, maybe not. In this article I’ll describe what’s actually happening with HTML5, Flash, and DASH, and make some suggestions as to how to incorporate these changes into your video-related technology plans.

About HTML5
Let’s start with HTML5, which has one potential show stopper for many houses of worship: the lack of a live capability. Apple has a proprietary technology called HTTP Live Streaming that you can use to deliver to iDevices and Macs but not Windows computers. So if live video is a requirement, HTML5 is out—at least for the time being.

If on-demand video is your sole requirement, HTML5 is a tale of two marketplaces: desktops and mobile. By way of background, HTML5-compatible browsers don’t require plug-ins like Flash or Silverlight to play web video. Instead, they rely on players that are actually incorporated into and shipped with the browser. Integrating video into a webpage for HTML5 playback uses a simple tag rather than a complicated text string to call a plug-in.

Today, the installed base of HTML5-compatible browsers on desktop computer is only around 60 percent, which makes it an incomplete solution, particularly for houses of worship whose older parishioners may be technology laggards who don’t quickly upgrade to new browsers. However, in the link that you use to display your video, it’s simple to query the browser used by the viewer to test for HTML5-playback capabilities. If the viewer’s browser is HTML5-compatible, the video will play in the HTML5 player. If not, you can code the page to “fall back” to the existing Flash Player or other plug-in, which will then load and play normally. While this sounds complicated, Flash fallback is totally transparent to the viewer and occurs in just a millisecond or two.

Why HTML5 first? Because as we’ll see in a moment, this is a very solid strategy for supporting Apple and Android devices. However, before jumping in, keep in mind that HTML5 is not as mature as Flash in several important respects. First, it lacks true streaming, or the ability to meter out video as it’s played, which is more efficient than progressive download. HTML5 also can’t adaptively stream or dynamically distribute multiple streams to your target viewers to best suit their connection speed and CPU power. It’s these two issues that the aforementioned DASH standard hopes to address.

However, the DASH standard doesn’t address HTML5’s biggest implementation hurdle, which is that all HTML5 browsers don’t support a single compression technology or codec. Specifically, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 and Apple Safari include an HTML5 player for the H.264 codec, while Mozilla Firefox and the Opera browser support only Google’s open-source codec, WebM. Today, Google Chrome browser includes both codecs, but Google has stated that they intend to remove the H.264 codec sometime in the future. It’s actually a bit worse than this sounds because Firefox version 3.6, which is still more than 5 percent of the installed base of desktop browsers, only supports a third codec, Ogg Theora.

To fully support the universe of HTML5-compatible browsers, you’d have to encode files in three formats and still fall back to Flash for viewers without HTML5-compatible browsers. Or you could just continue to solely support Flash and wait a year or two (or more) until the penetration rate of HTML5 browsers exceeds 95 percent, and then reevaluate.

If your only concern was desktop players, this might be a good strategy. Include mobile in the equation, however, and creating an HTML5 player with fallback to Flash might be a great strategy for your on-demand streams.

HTML5 on Mobile Devices
In the two key mobile markets, Apple and Android, HTML5 support is ubiquitous, as is support for the H.264 codec. So the simplest way to enable on-demand playback for Apple and Android devices is to add an HTML5 player on your website using only the H.264 codec, with fallback to Flash. Android and Apple devices would use the HTML5 player, as would desktop viewers running HTML5 browsers that support H.264 playback. All other desktop viewers would fall back to Flash.

While on the topic of mobile, let’s talk about Adobe’s recent mobile-related decision, starting with precisely what they decided to do. Here’s a quote from the Adobe blog that discusses this decision:

“Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook.”

Adobe will discontinue development of the Flash Player on mobile devices, pushing their key content producers to produce native apps for the mobile platforms. According to the blog post, Adobe will also continue development of the Flash Player on the computer desktop, focusing on markets where Flash “can have most impact for the industry, including advanced gaming and premium video.”

Why the decision to cease development for mobile? There are a number of reasons. The sheer number of Android device configurations made it very expensive to provide device-specific support. Now Adobe has passed the problem of ensuring device compatibility to its app developers. In addition, Adobe was locked out of the iOS market—which doesn’t support Flash—and Microsoft has also said that they won’t enable plug-ins like Flash in its upcoming Windows 8 tablet OS.

In contrast, Android, iOS and Windows 8 all support HTML5, making it the best multiple-platform solution for deploying browser-based content to the mobile market. Adobe saw the writing on the wall and decided to exit a market that they couldn’t affordably and adequately serve.

What’s the key takeaway? At a higher level, simple video playback of on-demand content is becoming commoditized, and it can be performed just as well in HTML5 as in Flash. In addition, HTML5 also has much greater reach, allowing one player to serve mobile and desktop markets—though Flash fallback is clearly necessary on the desktop.

Adobe is positioning Flash as a premium technology that offers many advantages that HTML5 can’t offer, including all those mentioned above. Other noteworthy features that HTML5 doesn’t offer include multicasting and peer-to-peer delivery, which are particularly important in enterprise markets. However, if these features aren’t important to your organization, it’s time to start implementing HTML5 for your on-demand streams—if only with H.264 support to serve the iOS and Android markets.

DASH
DASH stands for Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP, and it’s an International Standards Organization (ISO) standard that one day may provide standards-based live and on-demand adaptive streaming to a range of platforms—including mobile, desktop, and over the top (OTT) television consoles. It’s a web producer’s dream, since by supporting a single technology, your video can play on all these platforms. The specification enjoys significant industry support, with more than 50 companies contributing to the specification.

Unfortunately, there are some implementation hurdles that may delay or even derail some of this promise. First, at this point, it’s unclear whether DASH will be royalty free. Many companies have contributed intellectual property to the specification. Many companies—such as Microsoft, Cisco, and Qualcomm—have waived any royalties from their contributions, though this is not yet universal. In fact, the current status of DASH in this regard is so uncertain that Mozilla has announced that it’s “unlikely to implement at this time.” Obviously, taking Firefox out of the equation limits the effectiveness of DASH in the HTML5 marketplace.

In addition, while some companies such as Microsoft have publicly announced that they will support DASH once finalized, two critical companies—Adobe and Apple—have not done the same. This isn’t unusual in its own right since neither company typically discusses unannounced products. Still, because these companies dominate the mobile and desktop browser plug-in markets, it’s tough to plot a strategy until you know their intent.

The Bottom Line?
If you’re broadcasting live, HTML5 isn’t an option in the short term. DASH may change things in early 2012, but until we’re certain which platforms will support it and when, you shouldn’t change your existing strategy. For most producers, live broadcasting means one stream (or set of streams) for Flash and another for iOS devices using Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). In this regard, Flash should be available for Android devices for the foreseeable future, and Android 3.0 devices should be able to play HLS streams.

For your on-demand streams, it may be time to consider switching over to an HTML5 first with H.264 support with Flash fallback. This is the most efficient mechanism for reaching iOS, Android, and other HTML5-compatible mobile devices while continuing to support legacy desktop browsers.

By Jan Ozer, Sound & Video Contractor

Netflix Sees Cost Savings in MPEG DASH Adoption

2011-12-16T06:27:00.002-08:00

"The biggest advantage to us of a standard like MPEG DASH is that everything can be encoded one way and encapsulated one way, and stored on our CDN servers just once. That's a benefit both in terms of saving our CDN costs from a storage perspective and a benefit because you have greater cache efficiency," said Mark Watson, senior engineer for Netflix.

Watson made his comments in a red carpet interview at the recent Streaming Media West conference in Los Angeles, shortly before taking part in a panel on the MPEG DASH specification. MPEG DASH would be a great help to Netflix, he said, because then it could avoid saving several different copies of its entire movie and TV show library.

While there are several different profiles defined in MPEG DASH, Netflix will use the on-demand profile, Watson said, because all of its online content is on-demand. Between the two types of stream segments defined -- MPEG-2 Transport Streams and fragmented MP4 files -- Netflix sides with fragmented MP4. It works well for adaptive streaming and is simpler, he offered.

Netflix, Watson said, contracts with multiple CDNs and allows the client devices to determine which works best for them at any time. The company is also sensitive to the amount of traffic it's putting across networks.

video platform video management video solutions video player
Click to watch the video
By Troy Dreier, Streaming Media

The MPEG-DASH Standard for Multimedia Streaming Over the Internet

2011-12-16T05:24:00.000-08:00

A white paper by Microsoft.

Watching Video Over the Web

2011-12-16T03:28:00.003-08:00

Two interesting white papers by Cisco: part 1 and part 2.

Forget 3D, Here Comes the QD TV

2011-12-14T05:17:00.001-08:00

Researchers have developed a new form of light-emitting crystals, known as quantum dots, which can be used to produce ultra-thin televisions.

The tiny crystals, which are 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, can be printed onto flexible plastic sheets to produce a paper-thin display that can be easily carried around, or even onto wallpaper to create giant room-size screens.

The scientists hope the first quantum dot televisions – like current flat-screen TVs, but with improved colour and thinner displays – will be available in shops by the end of next year. A flexible version is expected to take at least three years to reach the market.

Michael Edelman, chief executive of Nanoco, a spin out company set up by the scientists behind the technology at Manchester University, said: "We are working with some major Asian electronics companies. The first products we are expecting to come to market using quantum dots will be the next generation of flat-screen televisions.

"The real advantage provided by quantum dots, however, is that they can be printed on to a plastic sheet that can rolled up. It is likely these will be small personal devices to begin with.

"Something else we are looking at is reels of wallpaper or curtains made out of a material that has quantum dots printed on it. You can imagine displaying scenes of the sun rising over a beach as you wake up in the morning."

Although Mr Edelman was unable to reveal which companies Nanoco are working with due to commercial agreements, it is believed that electronics giants Sony, Sharp, Samsung and LG are all working on quantum dot television technology.

Most televisions now produced have a liquid-crystal display (LCD) lit by light-emitting diodes (LED), with the screen two to three inches thick. Replacing the LEDs with quantum dots could reduce the thickness.

Shortages of rare earth elements needed in these displays have driven up production costs, driving electronics firms to look for new ways of making them. Quantum dots are made from cheaper semi-conducting materials that emit light when energised by electricity or ultraviolet light.

By changing the size of the crystals, the researchers found they can manipulate the colour of light they produce.

Placing quantum dots on top of regular LEDs can also help to produce a more natural coloured light and Nanoco working to produce new types of energy efficient light bulbs. They also hope to produce solar powered displays using quantum dots.

Professor Paul O'Brien, an inorganic materials chemist at the University of Manchester who helped top develop the quantum dot technology, said: "By altering the size of the crystals we are able to change the colour they produce.

"It is rather like when you twang a ruler on a desk and the noise changes, the same is happening with the light produced by the quantum dots.

"As the colours are very bright and need little energy it has generated huge excitement in the electronics industry – the quality of display they can produce will be far superior to LCD televisions."

By Richard Gray, The Telegraph

Gracenote Readies its Own Second-Screen Platform

2011-12-14T01:55:00.000-08:00

Gracenote is about to introduce its very own second-screen content recognition platform at CES. The company, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony three years ago, aims to compete with similar solutions from Yahoo’s IntoNow and social check-in services like Miso and GetGlue.

Gracenote’s advanced content recognition technology makes it possible to identify both on-demand movies as well as live TV content. Gracenote President Stephen White gave me a quick demo of the technology last week in San Francisco.

Click to watch the video

Gracenote’s service is comparable to IntoNow in that it uses a tablet’s microphone to listen to the audio track of what’s playing on TV. It then checks the resulting fingerprint against a growing database of video content to deliver information to the tablet — a process that takes five seconds or less, according to White.

He told me Gracenote’s service will eventually be able to deliver rich scene-level metadata for tens of thousands of movies, going as far as offering links to buy any of the products shown on-screen. Information for hundreds of movies will be available when the service launches in earnest next March.

Contextual information for live TV isn’t quite as deep, but Gracenote uses its partnership with Tribune Media Services to cross-reference TV Guide data with what a user is currently watching. Gracenote wants to offer its advanced content recognition platform to CE manufacturers, broadcasters and developers of second screen apps, White explained.

This is technically not the first time the company has been powering this kind of second-screen experiences: Gracenote’s subsidiary Gravity Mobile built the technology behind the ABC second-screen apps that are powered by Nielsen. However, those apps are based on watermarks incorporated into the shows ABC build its apps for, which obviously requires the cooperation of the broadcaster.

Gracenote’s fingerprinting approach, on the other hand, works with any kind of content. That means third parties could also use this kind of technology to sell ads against content they don’t own or control. “It’s definitely disruptive,” admitted White. However, he said broadcasters for the most part are very interested in second-screen solutions, if only to defend their own ad dollars. Said White: “The broadcasters realize that it’s gonna happen with our without them.”

By Janko Roettgers, GigaOM

1080p and 3-D Developments

2011-12-09T08:43:00.002-08:00

Viewers and producers both seek a more realistic viewing experience from cinema and television systems. There are several ways to make the television more immersive. Three paths that are being followed include increasing the field of view, adding depth perception and improving motion rendition.

Wider Field of View
We view television as a small 2D window on the world restricting us to the role of a voyeur rather than “being there.” The cinema has toyed with Cinerama, IMAX and Omnimax to give a very wide field of view. In the case of Omnimax, the field of view matches our peripheral vision.

Current HDTV was originally conceived to increase the field of view of 10 degrees with SD to around 30 degrees. However, binocular human vision subtends over 120 degrees. The UHDTV or Super Hi-Vision (SHV) project aims to increase the field of view to 80 to 100 degrees by raising the resolution to 8K.

Current HDTV originally increased the field of view to about 30 degrees.
Super Hi-Vision aims to improve it up between 80 and 100 degrees.

Depth Perception
One route to increased realism and immersion is to add depth information to video, with stereoscopic 3-D (S3D) being the first implementation. S3D is a long way from true 3-D, in that it creates a planar presentation at a fixed viewpoint and reproduces depth through binocular disparity. The depth budget of the production has to be managed as to avoid the eyestrain that results from objects being placed away from the display plane.

To achieve true representation of depth in the scene, the television system would have to reproduce the light field. Conventional flat-panel displays only carry intensity and color information at each pixel. A light field display also carries information about the direction of light rays, which allows objects to be viewed in front or behind the plane of the display. However, S3D is an affordable compromise, and consumer versions of light field systems are a long way off.

Scanning Rates
One side effect of increasing the field of view is that our eyes are more sensitive to flicker at the periphery of vision. Scanning rates of 24fps, 25fps or 30fps date back to pre-World War II technologies in film and television cameras. Those were the minimum rates that would work but still have always suffered motion artifacts.

With film, it is temporal aliasing (the car wheel rotating the wrong way), and with television the well-known artifacts of interlace. For high-resolution systems, 25fps is simply just not adequate. We have already seen the way forward with 720p/60 broadcasts in the U.S. and high-frame rate cinema — pioneered by Douglas Trumball with the 60fps Showscan film system. It has now become much easier with digital cinema.

The current recommended EBU HDTV systems include system 4, 1080p/50, although broadcasters have not yet adopted the system for transmission. Research by the Super Hi-Vision team at NHK indicates a minimum frame rate of 120fps would have to happen in order to avoid flicker on the large screen of their system and to give motion portrayal worthy of the static resolution.

As viewers' expectations of picture quality increase, current 1080i/25 systems are showing the extent of their limitations. The biggest is interlace, a 1920s technology that is stubborn in its refusal to lie down. We have the curious situation where receiver manufacturers market sets as 1080p; however, decoders only support 1080i/25 or 720p/50. Sure, the panels are progressive, but that is how they work.

Looking Forward
We are where we are with the crude technology of interlace and all its attendant artifacts. Even if it could be argued that viewers don't notice the artifacts, one fact is inescapable: It is more complex to encode to MPEG standards with the result of a lower compression efficiency than progressive scan video. Interlaced systems must also reduce the vertical resolution of graphics — anti-aliasing — to avoid interline twitter, with the result that the potential resolution of the system is halved.

Comprehensive viewing tests by the EBU have demonstrated that 1080p/50 can be transmitted at the same bit rate as existing 1080i/25 services, but with a better picture quality on large displays.

Most television receivers do not have the necessary performance in the decoder to support the AVC Level 4.2 that is required for 1080p/50 signals, and this remains an obstacle for migration to all-progressive services. It will change as receivers become more sophisticated and add support for DVB-T2 and for AVC level 4.2.

Producers look to maintain the value of their investments into the future. We already see SD channels commissioning HD programming with a eye on the future. New formats like S3D are gaining a niche following among viewers, but Super Hi-Vision — 4K and 8K — is going to set a new benchmark for video quality.

3Gb/s
Many broadcasters have an infrastructure that is largely 1.5Gb/s, for 1080i/25 or 720p/50, or even 270Mb/s standard definition. New builds are now predominately 3Gb/s, so the world is gradually moving to a position where 1080p/50 is supported by acquisition and post-production equipment. However, there remains a huge legacy of interlaced material in the program archives.

Mastering in 1080p/50 provides a file that can be transformed to 1080i/25 and 720p/50 without the artifacts inherent in crossconverting current interlaced or 720-line masters. Furthermore, much television content is consumed on inherently progressive devices like LCD TVs, PCs and tablets.

The 3Gb/s infrastructure also lends itself to the carriage of stereo signals, as a 3Gb/s can operate as two SMPTE292 1.5Gb/s links, for left and right. These could be 720p/50, 1080p/25 or 1080i/25.

SHV
As the NHK-sponsored project to find new levels of realism progresses, every aspect of the production chain, from cameras to displays, is evolving to support this high-res standard. There are many obstacles yet to overcome, with the delivery of such high-data rates to the viewer being perhaps the most challenging. The uncompressed SHV signal is around 48Gb/s, and using current compression techniques would need a bandwidth of up to 400MHz, beyond current satellite transponders, FTTH systems or optical discs.

3-D Reproduction
The most basic form of 3-D television is fixed view stereoscopic. It gives the illusion of depth, but every viewer gets the same view, irrespective of his or her position relative to the display. Stereo 3D effectively delivers a single view from a pair of cameras directly to the left and right eyes via separate, respective channels. Potential advances in technology could realize a free viewpoint, where the scene changes as the viewer moves from side-to-side.

Early coding schemes have used simple delivery of the left-right streams of a stereoscopic system to a display by spatially multiplexing left and right signals into the existing television frame. The display demultiplexes and displays the two channels using temporal multiplexing and shuttered eyewear, or though passive techniques based on polarization.

Frame Compatible S3D
Two general forms of spatial multiplexing are used, called Side-by-Side (SbS) and Top-and-Bottom (TaB). This is called Frame Compatible Plano-Stereoscopic 3D-TV.

Frame-compatible S3D sacrifices horizontal resolution (SbS) or vertical resolution (TaB) in the process of spatially multiplexing the L and R images streams. Frame-compatible in the first-generation implementation is not compatible with a 2D service, so it requires a simulcast to serve 3-D and 2D viewers. Extensions to standards to add support for signaling, which already exist within AVC standards, would allow future STBs to select, say, the left channel for the 2D viewer.

Service Compatible S3D
There are alternative methods of transmission that provide a service compatible with 2D viewers. One is the Scalable Video Coding (SVC), which forms part of AVC. This allows additional data to be carried that basic decoders can ignore.

The depth difference information could be carried as an additional channel to the base 2D channel, and suitable STBs could use that to reconstruct the left and right signals. MPEG-C Part 3 (ISO/IEC 23002-3) specifies a 2D+Depth coding scheme.

There is much redundancy between the left and right views, and this can be exploited in compression schemes much in the same way as the interframe compression in long-GOP MPEG.

The DVB has released a 3DTV specification (A154) detailing frame-compatible 3DTV service standards. Future compliant receivers could utilize signaling carried in the AVC supplemental Enhancement Information (SEI) to automatically manage mixed 2D and 3-D broadcasts to 3-D, or to 2D-only receivers. The specification is aligned with HDMI 1.4 and supports TaB and SbS multiplexing.

Multiview Video Coding (MVC)
Another extension to AVC, the Multiview Video Coding (MVC), allows multiple viewpoints to be encoded to a single bit stream, and then decoded to 2D, stereo or multi-view to suit the display device. Typically, this can be used with two viewpoints (stereo high profile), with true multiple viewpoint capture (multiview high profile) to be used in the future. MVC uses temporal and inter-view prediction to remove redundant information across views.

The Blu-Ray Disc Association updated its specification to support 3-D using MVC encoding. The format allows existing players to decode a 2D signal from 3-D discs. Through the use of MVC, the BDA claims it can achieve the quality of separate L/R stream at 75 percent of the data rate.

Summary
As broadcasters move to a 3Gb/s infrastructure, and if and when a large proportion of receivers support H.264 level 4.2, the way is clear to move to 1080p/50.

The pace of change is accelerating, and for consumers each change — DVB-T to T2, MPEG-2 to AVC and 2D to 3-D — involves a new STB. The devices are rarely forward-compatible, and they are designed to a price where every cent counts. The days of a receiver lasting for a decade or more look set to be placed with constant obsolescence. Issues remain as to how the data rates of an 8K system can be delivered to consumers, although many would say 4K would suffice for the foreseeable future.

By David Austerberry, Broadcast Engineering

Online Video Services and DRM Technology

2011-12-09T07:35:00.002-08:00

Major contemporary trends in online video services:

Multiscreen: anytime access from any device.
A variety of business models: many options to access video content (online viewing, pay-per-view, download, in-stream ads).
Technological complexity – a variety of video platform modules and features (content load, processing, protection and delivery; video load balancing, video playback, etc.).
Providing customers with access to the premium content and the related need in security tools: the major movie studios impose heavy demand on security as they offer very expensive content (multi-million-dollar budgets are common for today’s movies).

A simplified design of a modern video platform for Internet broadcast involves content preparation, protection and distribution to the end user devices. Usually, the source content first enters a transcoding system (ingestion) that generates a set of videos for different end-user devices and bitrates for each device (to enable dynamic bit rate). The prepared content is sent to the operator’s in-house video delivery network or the CDN provider external infrastructure.

A simplified online video platform design

There are several most popular options for delivery of content to the user:

Downloading a video file to be viewed in a special application (HTTP Download).
Live streaming using ad-hoc protocols and playback of the video stream (RTSP, RTMP, MPEG2-TS).
Downloading a file in fragments, gluing of the fragments together in the video player and viewing of the video content in the process of download (Adaptive Streaming over HTTP).

If the content needs high-quality protection, prior to transferring it to the delivery network it has to be encrypted with a DRM solution. On the attempt of incoming content playback, the video player can detect the encrypted data and request authentication and a decryption key from the license server. At the level of a video player run on a client device, video analytics is very often implemented. It includes collection of detailed viewing data, monitoring of quality parameters, etc.

Specifics of Content Protection
Almost all DRM solutions are built on a unified architecture and consist of two parts: the server part (business logic) and the client part (player). The server part also consists of two modules: the encoder which prepares (encrypts) the content and the license server which issues content playback licenses to the users (players).

In terms of content delivery networks, there is no difference between the secure and open content. DRM solutions usually use asymmetric encryption algorithms, in this case, the content is encrypted with the master key, but users have to apply their unique session-specific keys.

In the case of LIVE streaming, to enable a more robust content protection, key rotation mechanisms are typically used. A key is changed at a predefined time interval. In case of VOD, different keys are used for different content units and, if the copyright holder has taken care of this, license caching is also performed. That is, the key is stored on the local machine for a certain amount of time or a given number of views, so that the application does not have to contact the license server at each viewing.

All these parameters usually mentioned as a Content Protection Policy which could be different for different major copyright holders and even for different content units.

Major DRM Vendors
There are many Digital Rights Management systems on the market. Each of them has its strengths and weaknesses. The situation is exacerbated by a high degree of segmentation on the end-user device market: Windows (with multiple browsers), MacOS, iOS, Android, TV sets and set-top boxes with their relevant operating systems and technologies.

With such a variety of market players, it is pretty difficult to agree on common standards and technologies. Therefore, multiple groups of technical solutions emerge, deferring creation of the universal technology for a certain while.

The most popular content protection tools used by the online video services are the following:

Adobe Flash Access. Due to its popularity (most videos on the Web are based on Adobe Flash). This is the perfect solution to protect content in Web browsers, on PCs, and on the Android devices.
Microsoft PlayReady is a successor of Windows Media DRM, one of the first content protection solutions. That’s why the Microsoft PlayReady SDK has got installed on most of Connected TV devices (LG, Samsung, etc.) and, of course, on the Windows operating systems (Media Player).
Widevine, now part of Google, is a developer of content protection solutions. Its popularity is due to the support of a broad range of consumer devices (TVs, game consoles, iOS devices).
Marlin is one of the few DRM solutions supported in Philips TVs, Sony PS3 and PSP devices. It is notable by its reliance on open standards and SaaS model support (paying per transaction for obtaining licenses).

Adobe Protected Streaming deserves special attention. It implements RTMPE (RTMP Encrypted) to enable secure streaming. This is an alternative to DRM. In contrast to DRM, security is implemented at the transport level rather than at the content level. It includes encryption of multimedia content between Flash Media Server and Flash Player.

However this is not the most reliable solution, but still it is approved by most major copyright holders. RTMPE involves additional mechanisms for content protection at the application level, such as: tokenization of links to content (i.e., preventing of direct content access bypassing the video service logic), and user authentication.

Compared to full-scale DRM, this approach combines a several times lower cost and ease of launch (a minimum configuring complexity). In addition, no user actions to install the DRM component are required. However, as new distribution technologies are spreading (such as the Adaptive Streaming ove HTTP), operators use to give up this approach in favor of DRM that is more universal. In addition, there are certain tools capable of cracking RTMPE.

DRM Solution Architecture
Almost any DRM solution consists of three parts:

The service of content encryption (server) pre-encrypts the content for distribution via the open Web channels in the protected format only. Most of solutions use AES-128. Many vendors have supported HSM modules to optimize encryption and offload the main CPU.
Licensing service (server) is a solution making a decision whether to issue a video content decryption key, in accordance with the business logic (content distribution rules). This includes identification of a pending payment or checking of viewer balance sufficiency. In most cases, this is the application server (for instance, it can be Java-based).
SDK (i.e., a set of software libraries) to handle protected content in the video player. It integrates the logic of interacting with the licensing service into the video player, and decodes the video before playback. Also, the SDK tools implement additional security features: control of access to the video player memory, protection of analog and digital outputs, and detection of hacker attacks. SDK validates all technical and logical restrictions set on the server for the content and a particular user, such as the ability to record to a disk or mobile device.

So, at the DRM input, the content is received and access restriction business rules are applied to it. The output video can then be played back on a wide range of consumer devices.

As it has already been noted above, DRM content delivery is independent of its protection method and is determined primarily by the business model. Hence, the same protected content can be made either downloadable (e.g., via the P2P networks, to minimize the cost) or presented for online streaming or viewing. However, when selecting a DRM system, you should check which delivery models and access restriction models are enabled by a given solution.

DRM algorithm for streaming video

DRM algorithm for downloadable video

The above figures show that, in terms of DRM there is no difference between streaming and video on demand. As a rule, it all comes down to using of different alternative authentication algorithms (identifying whether the download or just online viewing has been paid).

DRM Vendor Selection
A critical issue in choosing a content protection solution is the range of consumer devices supported. Each online video service has its own priority of consumer platforms. Here we would like to discuss just the very basics of running content security solutions on various platforms:

Web browsers on Windows / MacOS / Linux
Desktop applications
Web browsers on Android
Android applications
Web browsers on iOS
iOS-applications
Connected TV

The key differences between the various content protection solutions consist in supporting the above technological platforms. For instance, Adobe Flash Access offers user-friendly tools of content protection that do not require installation of additional plugins, as Flash Player is already installed almost anywhere (according to Adobe, on 99% of computers and 80% of mobile devices).

The need to install additional plugins can filter off those potential service users that possess no administrator rights or have a low level of computer literacy. In addition, there is a great community of Flash developers leveraging the Adobe technology. They have multiple years of experience in creating of cross-platform applications with rich interactive interfaces (which is pretty important for online video services).

Other technologies rely on less abundant players and feel an acute deficit of technical experts. Still, it is worth noting that the Widevine based solutions provide efficient content protection for Samsung and LG TV sets and iOS devices. Historically, the solutions based on Windows Media DRM have been supported on an even greater number of Connected TVs. Also, Verimatrix is unequaled among the STB vendors.

Recently, Adobe has shook the industry by announcing discontinuation of Flash plugin in mobile browsers (in fact, this means Android mostly), explaining it by their focus on mobile AIR application development and HTML5. To clarify its stand, just the other day Adobe announced that it is now working on HTML5 DRM.

It looks like we are in for something fascinating to come. The rapid spread of the new HTML5 video format is prevented by absence of uniform standards of video codecs (such as H.264, WebM, Ogg Theora) across a variety of browsers and lack of a single reliable DRM system to meet the copyright holder requirements. Different DRM solutions are used to support various video containers (mp4, wmv, ogg, mkv). Now, most of video on the Web is using mp4, so all the DRM vendors are concerned with supporting mp4. But with HTML5, mp4 is far from ubiquitous support.

In the case of Desktop applications the situation is much simpler: the vendors offer various SDKs to integrate DRM into video applications.

Content protection for iOS devices is a separate big topic. The issue is that Apple went its own way and preferred Flash to HTML5 with H.264 video. For video service developers, only one method of content protection is available: blockwise stream encryption with AES-128. This scheme is supported, for example, in the latest version of Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5.

However, the developers have to implement their own license management mechanisms or use an SDK from Widevine or other vendors. In case of browser playback, license management has to be implemented in JavaScript, which posits a substantial vulnerability. In case of playback from an application, Objective C SDK has to be used to enable a much higher level of protection.

In the world of music, DRM solutions showed no viability, especially after Apple iTunes abandoned FairPlay DRM. In our opinion, this is due to a significantly lower cost of audio content as compared to Hollywood blockbusters. As a result, copyright holders take a substantially harder stand with videos. The well-known western movie studios present a long list of technical requirements to companies seeking to distribute their digital content. Practically all solutions of IPTV operators and the major Runet websites with premium content are the examples of content protection systems.

All DRM solutions are scalable and consume roughly the same resources, as the encryption algorithms used are uniform. When choosing the DRM solutions, we recommend you to make a list of user devices based on their priorities. Supported devices (as well as containers and codecs), price, user experience, business models and technologies for content delivery: all these make up the applicable selection criteria.

Source: DENIVIP Media

HDMI Alternative MHL: Your Phone’s Best-Looking Secret

2011-12-09T06:40:00.003-08:00

A technology that’s cool, useful and about to be supported by millions of handsets – but no one has ever heard about it? Welcome to Tim Wong’s world. Wong is the president of the MHL Consortium, which is trying to establish Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) as a new standard to connect mobile phones to big-screen TVs and other display devices. Think of it as a replacement for HDMI that’s especially suited for mobile, if you will.

MHL’s Awareness Problem
Wong’s chances to compete with HDMI aren’t actually all that bad: The MHL Consortium was founded by industry heavyweights like Nokia, Toshiba and Sony. It has about 80 licensees, and the technology is embedded in more than a dozen of new handsets from Samsung, HTC and LG. Walk into any AT&T store in the U.S., and you’ll see seven MHL-capable devices on display, Wong told me.

But talk to the salespeople, and you’ll find that no one has ever heard of MHL. Handset manufacturers don’t advertise the feature, and CE makers don’t even bother to label the MHL port on their TV sets.

“This is my fundamental problem,” Wong told me this week. It’s also the reason why he is practically in non-stop campaign mode, traveling to Germany, China and throughout the U.S. to get the word out. “The awareness just isn’t there today,” Wong admitted.

Gaming, Presentations, 1080p Video
Wong is trying hard to change that, and I caught up with him in San Francisco during yet another day of press briefings. He gave me a demo of MHL, and the technology is actually pretty impressive: MHL-enabled handsets basically repurpose their micro USB port to connect to big screen TVs through special MHL cables. A few select TV sets already support MHL natively through a port that doubles as an HDMI input.

Once connected, MHL doesn’t just offer mirroring, but up to 1080p video playback and the capability to control your handset through your TV’s remote control. Essentially, your phone becomes something of a mobile set-top box. Don’t have an MHL-compatible TV yet? No worries, MHL-to-HDMI adapters that connect to any HD TV are readily available for around $15. Wong told me that MHL cables could eventually be as cheap as your plain old USB cable. Oh, and MHL is powered, so your phone gets charged while connected to the TV.

So why would you need a mobile set-top box? First of all, showing off your videos and photos everywhere you go is nice, and plugging a Netflix-capable device into your hotel TV sounds like a great idea as well. Wong also ran his presentation off his phone when we met, and showed me that the technology is great for bringing games like Angry Birds to the big screen.

Click to watch a quick demo of MHL featuring the Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Great for Emerging Markets
But the really interesting use cases may be beyond simple screen mirroring. CE manufacturers and cable companies like Comcast have long tried to get people to use Skype on their TV set, but using the big screen for videoconferencing usually requires the purchase or rental of a separate webcam. Virtually all modern smart phones on the other hand already have a front-facing camera. Connect them to your TV via MHL, and you got yourself a video conferencing setup on the cheap.

Wong also told me that BMW is looking to use MHL in the car, where the port could be used for entertainment as well as emergency services. Phone makers are looking to extend the experience to the big screen beyond mirroring, so you’d have multiple or extended desktops, just like when you connect your laptop to a second monitor. And MHL is a very interesting proposition for emerging markets, where cell phones increasingly replace computers, and people don’t have much money to spend on additional home entertainment devices.

Wireless isn’t Really All That Wireless
Of course, MHL also has its downsides. For one, phones are very intimate devices. You use them to carry around your own media and playlists and get alerts for personal messages on them. Sharing all of that on the big screen can be a daunting proposition. Secondly, your phone is somewhat out of reach when connected to the TV, even if you have a really long cord.

Apple’s Airplay, DLNA and various wireless display technologies don’t have that stigma, but Wong dismissed them as battery drainers, especially when watching HD video.

“Fundamentally, wireless isn’t wireless,” he said. At some point, you always have to plug it in, if only to recharge. So why not just plug them into the TV?

Of course, battery issues haven’t stopped Apple from gaining huge mind share with Airplay. Heck, even iPad HD mirroring is getting more attention than MHL, despite being less advanced and much more expensive. Going up against that won’t be an easy feat, even though MHL seems in a very good position to reach millions of consumers in 2012.

“Getting people excited about it is easy,” Wong told me. “Getting people to know about it is hard.”

Mobile devices that support MHL, as of December 2011:
Samsung: Infuse, Galaxy S2 Galaxy Note, Galaxy Nexus, Epic 4G Touch
HTC: Sensation, Sensation XE, Sensation XL, Rezound, Vivid, EVO 3D, Amaze, Raider, Flyer, EVO View 4G, JetStream
LG: Optimus LTE (Nitro HD)
Meizu: Meizu MX
By Janko Roettgers, GigaOM

Transcoding Strategies for Adaptive Streaming

2011-12-07T04:38:00.000-08:00

An interesting white paper by ARRIS.

Argentine TV in 3D HD over DTT Breakthrough

2011-12-07T02:57:00.003-08:00

A team of scientists and engineers in Argentina have carried out the world's first successful experimental transmission of a 3D Full HD video signal over a digital terrestrial television (DTT) channel.

According to technology website RedUSERS, at 17:31 local time on Friday engineers Francisco Carrá and Oscar Nuncio (technical manager and technical sub-manager of Argentine public broadcaster Channel 7) were able to verify the reception of the 3D signals. These had been broadcast via one of the new antennas being erected in the country, and transmitted through a regular ISDB-T channel.

A video compression catalyser designed and developed by Mario Mastriani, head of the Images and Signals Laboratory at the National University of Tres de Febrero (UNTREF), was at the heart of the system.

The device boosts the video compression level of H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 (or AVC) codecs by a factor of four. With the help of this component, the team was able to broadcast the 3D signals in 1080p (Full HD) quality, but critically using the same bitrate currently utilised to transmit a 2D HD channel (in 1080i) via DTT. No additional latency to that typically seen in H.264 transmissions was observed during the tests.

The images were captured with a Panasonic 1080p-3D camera, while a NEC encoder was also used. The arriving signal was decoded with an ISDB-T USB device connected to a PC fitted with Nvidia SDI and Nvidia Quadro 6000 input/output video cards. The obtained signal was routed into a 3D HDTV video activity monitor, while the output signal was routed into a standard 3D screen.

According to RedUSERS, the same receiving setting could be easily replicated in a conventional set-top box, whose only additional requirement would be the incorporation of a 3D image processing chip.

Back in January 2011, British firm Motive Television had announced the development of set-top box software able to deal with 3D TV content broadcast via DTT. The Motive technology, branded as 3VOD, was first deployed in Italy by Silvio Berlusconi's broadcaster Mediaset.

By Juan Pablo Conti, RapidTVNews

The Trials and Tribulations of HTML Video in the Post-Flash Era

2011-11-30T09:22:00.001-08:00

Adobe reversed course on its Flash strategy after a recent round of layoffs and restructuring, concluding that HTML5 is the future of rich Internet content on mobile devices. Adobe now says it doesn’t intend to develop new mobile ports of its Flash player browser plugin, though existing implementations will continue to be maintained.

Adobe’s withdrawal from the mobile browser space means that HTML5 is now the path forward for developers who want to reach everyone and deliver an experience that works across all screens. The strengths and limitations of existing standards will now have significant implications for content creators who want to deliver video content on the post-flash Web.

Apple’s decision to block third-party browser plugins like Flash on its iOS devices played a major role in compelling Web developers to build standards-based fallbacks for their existing Flash content. This trend will be strengthened when Microsoft launches Windows 8 with a version of Internet Explorer that doesn’t support plugins in the platform’s new standard Metro environment.

Flash still has a significant presence on the Internet, but it's arguably a legacy technology that will decline in relevance as mobile experiences become increasingly important. The faster pace of development and shorter release cycles in the browser market will allow open standards to mature faster and gain critical mass more quickly than before. In an environment where standards-based technologies are competitive for providing rich experiences, proprietary vendor-specific plugins like Flash will be relegated to playing a niche role.

Our use of the phrase “post-Flash” isn’t intended to mean that Flash is dead or going to die soon. We simply mean that it’s no longer essential to experiencing the full Web. The HTML5 fallback experiences on many Flash-heavy sites still don’t provide feature parity with the Flash versions, but the gap is arguably shrinking—and will continue to shrink even more rapidly in the future.

Strengths and Weaknesses of HTML5 Video
HTML5 has much to offer for video delivery, as the HTML5 video element seamlessly meshes with the rest of the page DOM and is easy to manipulate through JavaScript. This means that HTML5 video offers significantly better native integration with page content than it has ever been possible to achieve with Flash. The open and inclusive nature of the standards process will also make it possible for additional parties to contribute to expanding the feature set.

A single company no longer dictates what can be achieved with video, and your video content is no longer isolated to a rectangle embedded in a page. HTML5 breaks down the barriers between video content and the rest of the Web, opening the door for more innovation in content presentation. Three are some really compelling demonstrations out there that showcase the use of video in conjunction with WebGL and other modern Web standards. For example, the video shader demo from the 3 Dreams of Black interactive film gives you a taste of what’s possible.

Click to watch the video

Of course, transitioning video delivery in the browser from Flash to HTML5 will also pose some major challenges for content creators. The standards aren’t fully mature yet and there are still a number of features that aren’t supported or widely available across browsers.

For an illustration of how deep the problems run, you need only look at Mozilla’s Firefox Live promotional website, which touts the organization’s commitment to the open Web and shows live streaming videos of Red Panda cubs from the Knoxville Zoo. The video is streamed with Flash instead of using standards-based open Web technologies.

In an FAQ attached to the site, Mozilla says that it simply couldn’t find a high-volume live streaming solution based on open codecs and open standards. If Mozilla can’t figure out how to stream its cuddly mascot with open standards, it means there is still work to do.

Flash is required to see the Red Panda cubs on Mozilla's website

Two of the major technical issues faced by HTML5 video adopters are the lack of adequate support for adaptive streaming and the lack of consensus surrounding codecs. There is currently an impasse between backers of the popular H.264 codec and Google’s royalty-free VP8 codec. There’s no question that a royalty-free video format is ideal for the Web, but the matter of whether VP8 is truly unencumbered by patents—and also meets the rest of the industry’s technical requirements—is still in dispute.

There is another major issue that hasn’t been addressed yet by open Web standards that could prove even more challenging: content protection. The vast majority of Flash video content on the Internet doesn’t use any kind of DRM and is trivially easy to download. Flash does, however, provide DRM capabilities and there are major video sites that rely on that technology in order to protect the content they distribute.

Can DRM Be Made to Play Nice with Open Standards?
DRM is almost always bad for regular end users and its desirability is highly debatable, but browser vendors will have to support it in some capacity in order to make HTML5 video a success. Many of the content creators who license video material to companies like Netflix and Hulu contractually stipulate a certain degree of content protection.

Mozilla’s Robert O’Callahan raised the issue of HTML5 video DRM in a recent blog entry shortly after Adobe’s announcement regarding mobile Flash. He expressed some concern that browser vendors will look for a solution that is expedient rather than inclusive, to the detriment of the open Web.

“The problem is that some big content providers insist on onerous DRM that necessarily violates some of our open Web principles (such as Web content being equally usable on any platform, based on royalty-free standards, and those standards being implementable in free software),” O'Callahan wrote. “We will probably get into a situation where Web video distributors will be desperate for an in-browser strong DRM solution ASAP, and most browser vendors (who don’t care all that much about those principles) will step up to give them whatever they want, leaving Mozilla in another difficult position. I wish I could see a reasonable solution, but right now I can’t. It seems even harder than the codec problem.”

O'Callahan also pointed out in his blog entry that the upcoming release of Windows 8, which will not support browser plugins in its Metro environment, means that the lack of DRM support in standards-based Web video is no longer just a theoretical concern. Microsoft may need to furnish a solution soon, or risk frustrating users who want to watch commercial video content on the Web in Windows 8 without installing additional apps or leaving the Metro shell.

Netflix Stands Behind DASH
Flash evangelists may feel that the limitations of HTML5 video and the problems that content creators are sure to face during the transition are a vindication of the proprietary plugin model. But the advantages of a truly open, vendor-neutral, and standards-based video solution that can span every screen really dwarf the challenges. That is why major stakeholders are going to be willing to gather around the table to try find a way to make it work.

Netflix already uses HTML5 to build the user interfaces of some of its embedded applications, including the one on the PS3. The company has soundly praised the strengths of a standards-based Web technology stack and has found that there are many advantages. But the DRM issue and the lack of suitably robust support for adaptive streaming have prevented Netflix from dropping its Silverlight-based player in regular Web browsers.

The company has committed to participating in the effort to make HTML5 a viable choice for all video streaming. Netflix believes that the new Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) standard being devised by the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) will address many of the existing challenges and pave the way for ubiquitous adoption of HTML5 for streaming Internet video.

DASH, which is expected to be ratified as an official standard soon, has critical buy-in from many key industry players besides Netflix, including Microsoft and Apple. An early DASH playback implementations is already available as a plugin for the popular VLC video application.

The DASH standard makes video streaming practical over HTTP and addresses the many technical requirements of high-volume streaming companies like Netflix, but it doesn’t directly address the issue of DRM by itself. DASH can be implemented in a manner that is conducive to supporting DRM, however.

DASH and DRM
Ericsson Research, which is involved in the DASH standardization effort, has done some worthwhile preliminary research to evaluate the viability of DRM on DASH. Ericsson produced a proof-of-concept implementation that uses DRM based on the Marlin rights management framework.

Marlin, which was originally created by a coalition of consumer electronics vendors, is relatively open compared to alternate DRM technologies and makes use of many existing open standards. But Marlin is still fundamentally DRM and suffers from many of the same drawbacks, and adopters have to obtain a license from the Marlin Trust Management Organization, which holds the keys.

The architecture of the Marlin rights management framework

Ericsson explains in its research that it chose to experiment with Marlin for their proof-of-concept implementation because it’s available and mature—other similar DRM schemes could also easily be adopted. Existing mainstream DRM schemes would all likely pose the same challenges, however, and it’s unlikely that such solutions will be viewed as acceptable by Mozilla. More significantly, an implementation of HTML5 video that relies on this kind of DRM would undermine some of the key values and advantages of openness that are intrinsic to the open Web.

The ease with which solutions like Marlin can be implemented on top of HTML5 will create pressure for mainstream browser vendors to adopt them quickly. This could result in the same kind of fragmentation that exists today surrounding codecs. As O’Callahan said, it’s easy to see this issue becoming far more contentious and challenging to overcome than the codec issue.

What Next?
The transition to HTML5 and standards-based technology for video delivery will bring many advantages to the Web. There are some great examples that show what can be achieved when developers really capitalize on the strengths of the whole open Web stack. The inclusiveness of the standards process will also give a voice to additional contributors who want to expand the scope of what can be achieved with video on the Web.

There are still some major obstacles that must be overcome in order for the profound potential of standards-based Web video to be fully realized in the post-Flash era. Open standards still don’t deliver all of the functionality that content creators and distributors will require in order to drop their existing dependence on proprietary plugins. Supplying acceptable content protection mechanisms will prove to be a particularly bitter challenge.

Despite the barriers ahead, major video companies like Netflix recognize the significant advantages of HTML5 and are willing to collaborate with other stakeholders to make HTML5 video a success. The big question that remains unanswered is whether that goal can be achieved without compromising the critically important values of the open Web.

By Ryan Paul, Ars Technica

IMF for a Multi-Platform World

2011-11-30T02:11:00.004-08:00

Among other things, the looming arrival of the Interoperable Master Format (IMF) is illustrating that the digital media industry is now capable of moving "nimbly and quickly" to create technical standards to address and evolve the ways that it packages, moves, and protects precious content in the form of digital assets in a world where the technology used to do all that, and the very industry itself, is fundamentally changing at a startling rate. The term "nimbly and quickly" comes from Annie Chang, Disney's VP of Post-Production Technology who also chairs the SMPTE IMF work group (TC-35PM50).

Six Hollywood Studios through the University of Southern California Entertainment Technology Center (USC ETC) started to develop IMF in 2007, and in early 2011, they created an input document that the SMPTE IMF working group is now using as the basis of the IMF standardization effort. Over time, IMF has developed into an interchangeable, flexible master file format designed to allow content creators to efficiently disseminate a project's single master file to distributors and broadcasters across the globe.

Chang reports that progress has moved quickly enough for the work group to expect to finalize a basic version of the IMF standard in coming months, with draft documents possibly ready by early 2012 that focus on a core framework for IMF, and possibly a few of the potential modular applications that could plug into that framework.

Once that happens, content creators who have prepared for IMF will be in a position to start feeding all their distributors downstream far more effectively than has been the case until now in this world of seemingly unending formats. They will, according to Chang, be able to remove videotape from their production workflow, reduce file storage by eliminating the need for full linear versions of each edit or foreign language version of their content, and yet be able to take advantage of a true file-based workflow, including potentially automated transcoding, and much more.

The rollout will still need to be deliberate as various questions and unanticipated consequences and potential new uses of IMF begin to unfold. But that said, Chang emphasizes that the goal of being able to streamline and improve the head end of the process—creating a single, high quality, ultimate master for all versions is real and viable, and with a little more work and input, will be happening soon enough.

"Today, we have multiple versions, different resolutions, different languages, different frame rates, different kinds of HD versions, standard-definition versions, different aspect ratios—it's an asset management nightmare," she says, explaining why getting IMF right is so important to the industry.

"Everyone creates master files on tape or DPX frames or ProRes or others, and then they have to create mezzanine files in different formats for each distribution channel. IMF is designed to fix the first problem—the issue of too many file formats to use as masters."

Therefore, IMF stands to be a major boon for content creators who repeatedly and endlessly create different language versions of their material.

"For a ProRes QuickTime, you are talking about a full res version of a movie each time you have it in a new language," Chang says. "So 42 languages would be 42 QuickTime files. IMF is a standardized file solution built on existing standards that will allow people to just add the new language or whatever other changes they need to make to the existing master and send it down the chain more efficiently."

Chang emphasizes the word "flexible" in describing IMF, and the word "interoperable" in the name itself because, at its core, IMF allows content distributors to uniformly send everybody anything that is common, while strategically transmitting the differences only to where they need to go. In that sense, IMF is based on the same architectural concept as the Digital Cinema specification—common material wrapped together, combined with a streamlined way to package and distribute supplemental material. Eventually, each delivery will include an Output Profile List (OPL) to allow those transcoding on the other end a seamless way to configure the file as they format and push it into their distribution chain.

Unlike the DCI spec, however, IMF is not built of wholly new parts. Wherever possible, the file package will consist of existing pieces combined together in an MXF-flavored wrapper. This should, Chang hopes, make it easier for businesses across the industry to adapt without huge infrastructure changes in most cases as IMF comes to fruition.

"With IMF, we are using existing standards—a form of MXF (called MXF OP1A/AS-02) to wrap the files, and parts of the Digital Cinema format and other formats that many manufacturers already use," she says. "So, hopefully, there is not much of a learning curve. We hope that most of the big companies involved in the process won't be caught unaware, and will be able to make firmware or software upgrades to their systems in order to support IMF. Hopefully, companies will not have to buy all new equipment in order to use IMF.

"And with the concept of the Output Profile List (OPL), which essentially will be global instructions on output preferences for how to take an IMF file and do something with it relative to your particular distribution platform, companies that are doing transcoding right now will have an opportunity to use that to their advantage to better automate their processes. IMF has all the pieces of an asset management system and can use them all together to create standardized ways to create packages that fit into all sorts of other profiles. It's up to the content owners to take these OPL's and transcode the files. As they do now, they could do it in-house or take it to a facility. But if transcoding facilities get smart and use IMF to its potential, they can take advantage of IMF's capabilities to streamline their processes."

Chang says major technology manufacturers have been extremely supportive of the SMPTE standardization effort. Several, such as Avid, Harmonic, DVS, Amberfin, and others have actively participated and given input on the process, which is important because changes to existing editing, transcoding, and playback hardware and software, and the eventual creation of new tools for those tasks, will eventually need to happen as IMF proliferates. After all, as Chang says, "what good is a standard unless people use it?"

She emphasizes that manufacturer support is crucial for IMF, since it is meant to be a business-to-business tool for managing and distributing content, and not a standard for how consumers will view content. Therefore, outside of the SMPTE standardization effort, there is a plan to have manufacturers across the globe join in so-called "Plugfests" in 2012 to create IMF content out of draft documents, interchange them with each-other, and report on their findings.

As Chang suggests, "it's important to hit IMF from multiple directions since, after all, the first word in the name is 'interoperable.' " As a consequence of all these developments, it's reasonable to assume that IMF will officially be part of the industry's typical workflow chain where content distributors can start sending material to all sorts of platforms in the next year. Some studios and networks are already overhauling their infrastructures and workflow approaches to account for IMF's insertion into the process, and encoding houses and other post-production facilities should also, in most cases, have the information and infrastructure to adapt to the IMF world without any sort of fundamental shift. But the post industry will be somewhat changed by IMF, especially if some facilities or studios decide on processes for automating encoding at the front end of the process that changes their reliance on certain facilities currently doing that kind of work.

However, Chang adds, the broadcast industry specifically will probably have the most significant learning curve in terms of how best to dive into IMF since, unlike studios, which have been discussing their needs and pondering IMF since about 2006, the broadcast industry was only exposed more directly to IMF earlier this year when SMPTE took the process over. IMF was originally designed and intended as a higher bit-rate master (around 150-500MB/s for HD, possibly even lossless, according to Chang), but broadcasters normally use lower bit-rate files (more like 15-50MB/s).

"However, I feel that broadcasters would like to have that flexibility in versioning," Chang says. "But because they need different codecs and lower bit-rates, there is still discussion in SMPTE about what those codecs should be. Broadcasters are only now starting to evaluate what they need out of IMF, but there is still plenty of time for them to get involved."

Of course, as the explosion of mobile devices and web-enabled broadcasting on all sorts of platforms in a relatively short period of time illustrates, viewing platforms will inevitably change over time, and therefore, distribution of data will have to evolve, as well. As to the issue of whether IMF is relatively future-proofed, or merely the start of a continually evolving conversation, Chang is confident the standard can be in place for a long time because of its core framework—the primary focus to date. That framework contains composition playlists, general image data, audio data (unlimited tracks, up to 16 channels each), sub-titling/captioning data, any dynamic metadata needed, and so on.

Modular applications that could plug into that framework need to be further explored, Chang says, but the potential to allow IMF to accommodate new, higher compressed codecs, new or odd resolutions or frame rates, and all sorts of unique data for particular versions is quite high.

"The core framework we created with documents is something we tried to future proof," she says. "The question is the applications that might plug into that core framework (over time). We are trying to make it as flexible as possible so that if, in the future, even if you have some crazy new image codec that goes up to 16k or uses a new audio scheme, it will still plug into the IMF framework. So image, audio, or sub-titling could be constrained, for example, but as long as the sequence can be described by the composition playlist and the essence can be wrapped in the MFX Generic Container, the core framework should hold up for some time to come."

To connect with the SMPTE IMF effort, you can join the SMPTE 35PM Technology Committee, and then sign up as a member of 35PM50. The IMF Format Forum will have the latest news and discussions about the status of the IMF specification.

More information about IMF:

Overview of the IMF presentation at NAB 2011's Post Pit event.
Amberfin's Bruce Devlin SMPTE PDA Now Educational Webcasts, discussing MXF application designs coming out of the IMF Work Group.

By Michael Goldman, SMPTE Newswatch

A VLC Media Player Plugin Enabling DASH

2011-11-29T02:21:00.002-08:00

This poster describes an implementation of the emerging Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) standard which is currently developed within MPEG and 3GPP. Our implementation is based on VLC and fully integrated into its structure as a plugin.

Furthermore, our implementation provides a powerful extension mechanism with respect to adaptation logics and profiles. That is, it should be very easy to implement various adaptation logics and profiles.

Future versions of the plugin will provide an update to the latest version of the standard (i.e., a lot of changes have been adopted recently, e.g., Group has changed to AdaptationSet), add support for persistent HTTP connections in order to reduce the overhead of HTTP streaming (e.g., compared to RTP), and seeking within a DASH stream.

By Christopher Mueller and Christian Timmerer, Alpen-Adria-Universitaet Klagenfurt

DASHEncoder

2011-11-29T02:04:00.004-08:00

DASHEncoder generates the desired representations (quality/bitrate levels), fragmented MP4 files, and MPD file based on a given config file or by command line parameters respectively. Given the set of parameters the user has a wide range of possibilities for the content generation, including the variation of the segment size, bitrate, resolution, encoding settings, URL , etc.

The DASHEncoder steps are depicted here:

Current features and restrictions:

Generation of video only, audio only or audio+video DASH content.
H.264 encoding based on x264: Constant and variable bitrate encoding.
Supported profile: urn:mpeg:dash:profile:isoff-main:2011.
PSNR logging and MySQL interface for storing in a database (only for common resoltution representations).
There are currently problems with the playback of the content containing Audio with the DASH VLC plugin.

The DASHEncoder is available as open source with the aim that other developers will join this project.

Source: Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt via Video Breakthroughs

Energy Efficient and Robust S3D Video Distribution Enabled with Nomad3D CODEC and 60 GHz Link

2011-11-29T00:23:00.003-08:00

This white paper describes a 3D Video Distribution scheme using the new wireless 60 GHz standard for connectivity and Nomad3D 3D+F 3D CODEC. It will be shown that a specially dedicated Video Delivery System using 60 GHz Modems and the 3D+F CODEC is very efficient in overall system power consumption and more robust to channel impairments.

Source: Nomad3D

Getting Machines to Watch 3D for You

2011-11-28T02:35:00.001-08:00

The advantages of automatic monitoring of multiple television channels are well known. There are just not enough eyeballs for human operators to see what is going on. With the advent of stereoscopic 3D in mainstream television production and distribution, the benefits of automatic monitoring are even greater, as 3D viewing is even less conducive to manual monitoring.

This paper, presented at IBC 2011, gives a comprehensive introduction to a wide range of automatic monitoring possibilities for 3D video. There are significant algorithmic challenges involved in some of these tasks, often involving careful high-level analysis of picture content. Further challenges arise from the need for monitoring to be robust to typical processing undergone by video signals in a broadcast chain.

By Mike Knee, Consultant Engineer, R&D Algorithms Team, Snell

MPEG Analysis and Measurement

2011-11-25T06:49:00.001-08:00

Broadcast engineering requires a unique set of skills and talents. Some audio engineers claim the ability to hear the difference between tiny nuisances such as different kinds of speaker wire. They are known as those with golden ears. Their video engineering counterparts can spot and obsess over a single deviate pixel during a Super Bowl touchdown pass or a “Leave it to Beaver” rerun in real time. They are known as eagle eyes or video experts.

Not all audio and video engineers are blessed with super-senses. Nor do we all have the talent to focus our brain’s undivided processing power to discover and discern vague, cryptic and sometimes immeasurable sound or image anomalies with our bare eyes or ears on the fly, me included. Sometimes, the message can overpower the media. Fortunately for us and thanks to the Internet and digital video, more objective quality and measurement standards and tools have developed.

One of those standards is Perceptual Evaluation of Video Quality (PEVQ). It is an End-to-End (E2E) measurement algorithm standard that grades picture quality of a video presentation by a five-point Mean Opinion Score (MOS), one being bad and five being excellent.

PEVQ can be used to analyze visible artifacts caused by digital video encoding/decoding or transcoding processes, RF- or IP-based transmission systems and viewer devices like set-top boxes. PEVQ is suited for next-generation networking and mobile services and include SD and HD IPTV, streaming video, mobile TV, video conferencing and video messaging.

The development for PEVQ began with still images. Evaluation models were later expanded to include motion video. PEVQ can be used to assess degradations of a decoded video stream from the network, such as that received by a TV set-top box, in comparison to the original reference picture as broadcast from the studio. This evaluation model is referred to as End-to-End (E2E) quality testing.

E2E exactly replicates how so-called average viewers would evaluate the video quality based on subjective comparison, so it addresses Quality-of-Experience (QoE) testing. PEVQ is based on modeling human visual behaviors. It is a full-reference algorithm that analyzes the picture pixel-by-pixel after a temporal alignment of corresponding frames of reference and test signal.

Besides an overall quality Mean Opinion Score figure of merit, abnormalities in the video signal are quantified by several Key Performance Indicators (KPI), such as Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratios (PSNR), distortion indicators and lip-sync delay.

PVEQ References
Depending on the data made available to the algorithm, video quality test algorithms can be divided into three categories based on available reference data.

A Full Reference (FR) algorithm has access to and makes use of the original reference sequence for a comparative difference analysis. It compares each pixel of the reference sequence to each corresponding pixel of the received sequence. FR measurements deliver the highest accuracy and repeatability but are processing intensive.

A Reduced Reference (RR) algorithm uses a reduced bandwidth side channel between the sender and the receiver, which is not capable of transmitting the full reference signal. Instead, parameters are extracted at the sending side, which help predict the quality at the receiving end. RR measurements are less accurate than FR and represent a working compromise if bandwidth for the reference signal is limited.

A No Reference (NR) algorithm only uses the degraded signal for the quality estimation and has no information of the original reference sequence. NR algorithms are low accuracy estimates only, because the original quality of the source reference is unknown. A common variant at the upper end of NR algorithms analyzes the stream at the packet level, but not the decoded video at the pixel level. The measurement is consequently limited to a transport stream analysis.

Another widely used MOS algorithm is VQmon. This algorithm was recently updated to VQmon for Streaming Video. It performs real-time analysis of video streamed using the key Adobe, Apple and Microsoft streaming protocols, analyzes video quality and buffering performance and reports detailed performance and QoE metrics. It uses packet/frame-based zero reference, with fast performance that enables real-time analysis on the impact that loss of I, B and P frames has on the content, both encrypted and unencrypted.

The 411 on MDI
The Media Delivery Index (MDI) measurement is specifically designed to monitor networks that are sensitive to arrival time and packet loss such as MPEG-2 video streams, and is described by the Internet Engineering Task Force document RFC 4445. It measures key video network performance metrics, including jitter, nominal flow rate deviations and instant data loss events for a particular stream.

MDI provides information to detect virtually all network-related impairments for streaming video, and it enables the measurement of jitter on fixed and variable bit-rate IP streams. MDI is typically shown as the ratio of the Delay Factor (DF) to the Media Loss Rate (MLR), i.e. DF:MLR.

DF is the number of milliseconds of streaming data that buffers must handle to eliminate jitter, something like a time-base corrector once did for baseband video. It is determined by first calculating the MDI virtual buffer depth of each packet as it arrives. In video streams, this value is sometimes called the Instantaneous Flow Rate (IFR). When calculating DF, it is known as DELTA.

To determine DF, DELTA is monitored to identify maximum and minimum virtual depths over time. Usually one or two seconds is enough time. The difference between maximum and minimum DELTA divided by the stream rate reveals the DF. In video streams, the difference is sometimes called the Instantaneous Flow Rate Deviation (IFRD). DF values less than 50ms are usually considered acceptable. An excellent white paper with much more detail on MDI is available from Agilent.

Figure 1 - The Delay Factor (DF) dictates buffer size needed to eliminate jitter

Using the formula in Figure 1, let’s say a 3.Mb/s MPEG video stream observed over a one-second interval feeds a maximum data rate into a virtual buffer of 3.005Mb and a low of 2.995Mb. The difference is the DF, which in this case is 10Kb. DF divided by the stream rate reveals the buffer requirements. In this case, 10K divided by 3.Mb/s is 3.333 milliseconds. Thus, to avoid packet loss in the presence of the known jitter, the receiver’s buffer must be 15kb, which at a 3Mb rate injects 4 milliseconds of delay. A device with an MDI rating of 4:0.003, for example, would indicate that the device has a 4 millisecond DF and a MLR of 0.003 media packets per second.

The MLR formula in Figure 2 is computed by dividing the number of lost or out-of-order media packets by observed time in seconds. Out-of-order packets are crucial because many devices don’t reorder packets before handing them to the decoder. The best-case MLR is zero. The minimum acceptable MLR for HDTV is generally considered to be less than 0.0005. An MLR greater than zero adds time for viewing devices to lock into the higher MLR, which slows channel surfing an can introduce various ongoing anomalies when locked in.

Figure 2 - The Media Loss Rate (MLR) is used in the Media Delivery Index (MDI)

Watch That Jitter
Just as too much coffee can make you jittery, heavy traffic can make a network jittery, and jitter is a major source of video-related IP problems. Pro-actively monitoring jitter can alert you to help avert impending QoE issues before they occur.

One way to overload a MPEG-2 stream is with excessive bursts. Packet bursts can cause a network-level or a set-top box buffer to overflow or under-run, resulting in lost packets or empty buffers, which cause macro blocking or black/freeze frame conditions, respectively. An overload of metadata such as video content PIDs can contribute to this problem.

Probing a streaming media network at various nodes and under different load conditions makes it possible to isolate and identify devices or bottlenecks that introduce significant jitter or packet loss to the transport stream. Deviations from nominal jitter or data loss benchmarks are indicative of an imminent or ongoing fault condition.

QoE is one of many subjective measurements used to determine how well a broadcaster’s signal, whether on-air, online or on-demand, satisfies the viewer’s perception of the sights and sounds as they are reproduced at his or her location. I can’t help but find some humor in the idea that the ones-and-zeros of a digital video stream can be rated on a gray scale of 1-5 for quality.

Experienced broadcast engineers know the so-called quality of a digital image begins well before the light enters lens, and with apologies to our friends in the broadcast camera lens business, the image is pre-distorted to some degree within the optical system before the photons hit the image sensors.

QoE or RST?
A scale of 1-5 is what ham radio operators have used for 100 years in the readability part of the Readability, Strength and Tone (RST) code system. While signal strength (S) could be objectively measured with an S-meter such as shown in Figure 3, readability (R) was purely subjective, and tone (T) could be subjective, objective or both.

Figure 3 - The S-meter was the first commonly used metric to objectively
read and report signal strength at an RF receive site

Engineers and hams know that as S and or T diminish, R follows, but that minimum acceptable RST values depend almost entirely on the minimum R figure the viewer or listener is willing to accept. In analog times, the minimum acceptable R figure often varied with the value of the message.

Digital technology and transport removes the viewer or listener’s subjective reception opinion from the loop. Digital video and audio is either as perfect as the originator intended or practically useless. We don’t need a committee to tell us that. It seems to me the digital cliff falls just south of a 4x5x8 RST. Your opinion may vary.

By Ned Soseman, Broadcast Engineering

What is MPEG DASH?

2011-11-23T08:59:00.002-08:00

MPEG DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) is a developing ISO Standard (ISO/IEC 23009-1) that should be finalized by early 2012. As the name suggests, DASH is a standard for adaptive streaming over HTTP that has the potential to replace existing proprietary technologies like Microsoft Smooth Streaming, Adobe HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS), and Apple HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). A unified standard would be a boon to content publishers, who could produce one set of files that play on all DASH-compatible devices.

The DASH working group has industry support from a range of companies, with contributors including critical stakeholders like Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, Netflix, Qualcomm, and many others. However, while Microsoft has indicated that it will likely support the standard as soon as it’s finalized, Adobe and Apple have not given the same guidance, and until DASH is supported by these two major players, it will gain little traction in the market.

A more serious problem is that MPEG DASH doesn’t resolve the HTML5 codec issue. That is, DASH is codec agnostic, which means that it can be implemented in either H.264 or WebM. Since neither codec is universally supported by all HTML5 browsers, this may mean that DASH users will have to create multiple streams using multiple codecs, jacking up encoding, storage, and administrative costs.

Finally, at this point, it remains unclear whether DASH usage will be royalty-free. This may impact adaption by many potential users, including Mozilla, who has already commented that it’s “unlikely to implement” DASH unless and until it’s completely royalty-free. With Firefox currently sitting at around 22% of market share, this certainly dims DASH’s impact in the HTML5 market.

Introduction to MPEG DASH
Adaptive streaming involves producing several instances of a live or on-demand source file and making them available to various clients depending upon their delivery bandwidth and CPU processing power. By monitoring CPU utilization and/or buffer status, adaptive streaming technologies can change streams when necessary to ensure continuous playback or to improve the experience.

One key difference between adaptive streaming technologies is the streaming protocol utilized. For example, Adobe’s RTMP-based Dynamic Streaming uses Adobe’s proprietary Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP), which requires a streaming server and a near-continuous connection between the server and player. Requiring a streaming server can increase implementation cost, while RTMP-based packets can be blocked by firewalls[.

A near-continuous connection means that RTMP can’t take advantage of caching on plain-vanilla servers like those used for Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) delivery, the delivery protocol used by Apple’s HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), Microsoft’s Smooth Streaming, and Adobe’s HTTP-based Dynamic Streaming (HDS). All three of these delivery solutions use standard HTTP web servers to deliver streaming content, obviating the need for a streaming server.

In addition, HTTP packets are firewall friendly and can utilize HTTP caching mechanisms on the web. This latter capability should both decrease total bandwidth costs associated with delivering the video, since more data can be served from web-based caches rather than the origin server, and improve quality of service, since cached data is generally closer to the viewer and more easily retrievable.

While most of the video streamed over the web today is still delivered via RTMP, an increasing number of companies will convert to HTTP delivery over time.

All HTTP-based adaptive streaming technologies use a combination of encoded media files and manifest files that identify alternative streams and their respective URLs. The respective players monitor buffer status (HLS) and CPU utilization (Smooth Streaming and HTTP Dynamic Streaming) and change streams as necessary, locating the alternate stream from the URLs specified in the manifest file.

HLS uses MPEG-2 Transport Stream (M2TS) segments, stored as thousands of tiny M2TS files, while Smooth Streaming and HDS use time-code to find the necessary fragment of the appropriate MP4 elementary streams.

DASH is an attempt to combine the best features of all HTTP-based adaptive streaming technologies into a standard that can be utilized from mobile to OTT devices.

MPEG DASH Technology Overview
As mentioned, all HTTP-based adaptive streaming technologies have two components: the encoded A/V streams themselves and manifest files that identify the streams for the player and contain their URL addresses. For DASH, the actual A/V streams are called the Media Presentation, while the manifest file is called the Media Presentation Description.

As you can see in Figure 1, the Media Presentation is a collection of structured audio/video content that incorporates periods, adaptation sets, representations, and segments.

Figure 1. The Media Presentation Data Model

The Media Presentation defines the video sequence with one or more consecutive periods that break up the video from start to finish. Each period contains multiple adaptation sets that contain the content that comprises the audio/video experience. This content can be muxed, in which case there might be one adaptation set, or represented in elementary streams, as shown in Figure 1, enabling features like multiple language support for audio.

Each adaptation set contains multiple representations, each a single stream in the adaptive streaming experience. In the figure, Representation 1 is 640x480@500Kbps, while Representation 2 is 640x480@250Kbps.

Each representation is divided into media segments, essentially the chunks of data that all HTTP-based adaptive streaming technologies use. Data chunks can be presented in discrete files, as in HLS, or as byte ranges in a single media file. Presentation in a single file helps improve file administration and caching efficiency as compared to chunked technologies that can create hundreds of thousands of files for a single audio/video event.

The DASH manifest file, called the Media Presentation Description, is an XML file that identifies the various content components and the location of all alternative streams. This enables the DASH player to identify and start playback of the initial segments, switch between representations as necessary to adapt to changing CPU and buffer status, and change adaptation sets to respond to user input, like enabling/disabling subtitles or changing languages.

Other attributes of DASH include:

DASH is codec-independent, and will work with H.264, WebM and other codecs.
DASH supports both the ISO Base Media File Format (essentially the MP4 format) and MPEG-2 Transport Streams.
DASH does not specify a DRM method but supports all DRM techniques specified in ISO/IEC 23001-7: Common Encryption.
DASH supports trick modes for seeking, fast forwards and rewind.
DASH supports advertising insertion.

In terms of availability, DASH should be completed and ready for deployment in the first half of 2012.

MPEG DASH Intellectual Property Issues
At this point, it’s unclear whether DASH will be encumbered by royalties, and where they might be applied. For example, the MPEG-2 video codec comes with royalty obligations for encoders, decoders, and users of the codec. Many of the participants who are contributing intellectual property to the effort—including Microsoft, Cisco, and Qualcomm—have indicated that they want a royalty-free solution. While these three companies comprise the significant bulk of the IP contributed to the specification, not all contributors agree, so the royalty issue is unclear at this time.

Other issues include whether browser-vendor Mozilla can integrate DASH into their Firefox browser if the underlying media that a DASH MPD reference uses royalty-bearing components to play back. This is one of the key reasons that the company didn’t integrate H.264 playback into the Firefox browser in the past, along with the potential $5 million dollar per year royalty obligation.

We asked Mozilla about their intentions regarding DASH, and they sent this statement from Chris Blizzard, Director of Web Platform:

“Mozilla has always been committed to implementing widely adopted royalty-free standards. If the underlying MPEG standards were royalty free we would implement DASH. However, MPEG DASH is currently built on top of MPEG Transport Streams, which are not royalty free. Therefore, we are unlikely to implement at this time.”

According to website NetMarketShare, as of November 18, 2011, Firefox enjoyed a 22.5% market share in the desktop browser market. Without support from Firefox, DASH obviously doesn’t represent a standard that will unify the approach to adaptive streaming in the HTML5 market.

In addition, as a codec-agnostic technology, DASH also does nothing to resolve the HTML5 codec issue, so even if it was fully adopted by all HTML5-compatible browsers, content producers would still have to encode in both H.264 and WebM for universal playback.

Obviously, this doesn’t preclude DASH from being integrated into plug-ins like Flash or Silverlight or being implemented in mobile or OTT devices, and playing a significant role in these markets. However, as things exist today, it’s hard to see DASH as the cure-all solution for the current lack of live, adaptive streaming, and DRM support in desktop HTML5 browsers.

And, in the absence of affirmative statements from Apple or Adobe that they will adopt the standard once finalized, it’s unclear how much immediate traction DASH will gain in the mobile and plug-in markets. Let’s see why.

MPEG DASH Competitive Issues
To a great degree, DASH levels the playing field among competitive players in the adaptive streaming space. For example, Apple’s HLS provides a distinct competitive advantage over other mobile platforms as it’s a widely adapted specification that allows all connected iDevices to play adaptive streams. That’s why Google decided to implement HLS in Android 3.0. Distributing video to Apple iOS devices has been relatively straightforward because of HLS, while the lack of a technology standard and the diversity of devices has made distributing video to Android, Blackberry, and other mobile markets very challenging.

If Apple adopts DASH and implements it on all existing connected iDevices, this competitive advantage disappears, and all DASH-enabled mobile devices are on a level playing field respecting video playback. To be clear, Apple representatives have been active in creating the specification and there is no indication that they won’t support it when it’s released. However, none of the Apple representatives that we contacted were able to comment on Apple’s intent, which is not unusual given that Apple seldom comments on unreleased products. Still, Apple is not known for its competitive graciousness, and adapting DASH would clearly make their products less competitive vis a vis other mobile platforms, at least in the short term.

On the flip side, content publishers want a distribution mechanism with flexible and complete DRM, which iDevices don’t currently provide. If enough content producers support DASH-enabled platforms, but not iDevices, that will obviously motivate Apple to support the spec. However, unless and until Apple supports DASH, it’s unlikely that producers without DRM concerns will stop producing HLS streams, which may lesson the attractiveness of supporting DASH.

To a lesser degree, the same principle holds true for Adobe since the Flash Player’s ubiquity on the desktop is a key competitive advantage over Microsoft’s Silverlight and even HTML5. Though Adobe participated in the standards work, they haven’t committed to supporting DASH in future versions of the Flash Player. Again, Adobe seldom comments on future products, so you can’t draw any conclusion from their silence.

Conclusion
DASH is an extraordinarily attractive technology for web producers, a single standard that should allow them to encode once, and then securely distribute to a universe of players, from mobile to OTT, and to the desktop via plug-ins or HTML5. In addition to not resolving the HTML5 codec issue, it’s also unclear whether publishers will be charged for the privilege of producing files using the DASH spec, which could be a significant negative.

Mozilla has already indicated that they probably won’t support the specification as currently written, and Apple and Adobe have not affirmed if or when they will support the technology. An optimist would assume that the value of DASH to the streaming media marketplace would compel all stakeholders to make their contributes royalty free, and convince Apple, Adobe and Mozilla to support the specification soon after its release. Until all this plays out, though, DASH may play a significant role in some markets, but won’t reach its full potential.

By Jan Ozer, Streaming Media

DPP to Release Metadata App

2011-11-23T05:16:00.001-08:00

The Digital Production Partnership (DPP) will release a metadata application next year to help production companies comply with proposed file-based delivery requirements. The web-based app will allow production companies to enter a required set of metadata that is associated with a completed TV programme and wrap it into MXF files that are compliant with the cross-broadcaster group’s common standards.

“This will enable the creation of finished file-based TV programmes by independent producers for onward delivery to major UK broadcasters,” the DPP said.

The app, which was described as being compatible with common PC and laptop operating systems, is set to be rolled out during “spring/summer” next year.

From 2012 the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 will begin to take delivery of programmes as files on a selective basis. File-based delivery will be the broadcasters preferred delivery format by 2014. The common standard for the delivery of file-based programmes is set to be announced in by January.

Source: Broadcast

Video Search Coming to X-box Live

2011-11-23T02:18:00.001-08:00

On the march to Microsoft’s transition of X-box from simple game console device to living room entertainment hub, the company announced the acquisition of yet another piece of the total solution to entertainment nirvana-video search technology. VideoSurf, whose technology "sees" frames inside videos to make discovering content fast, easy and accurate, will now be integrated into the X-box.

Video content analytics is a keystone addition to the mix of services Microsoft plans to provide. It should do for video and the literal ocean of voice and image data locked in its frames, what text-based search did for the written word online. With this technology, it’s now possible to do both visual and audio searches from web sites, as well as premium content providers like Bravo and HBO, to find specific videos in real-time. There’s even a mobile app available from VideoSurf as well.

You can see a cool VideoSurf video that covers the four critical components of the technology; identify, surf, watch, and share. For example, there is a social component to the technology that offers personal profile, my search, and also allows user to "like" a show and actually post a specific video scene along with the comments. That’s sure to get interaction flowing in the social space.

Click to watch the video

The video ID technology is at the cutting edge of next generation search, delving into the video in meaningful ways for viewers. Voice and image recognition software can be applied to video frames to identify specific people and objects.

The implications are not only a richer viewing experience, but commerce will use the technology to recognize and tag images, offering new and compelling ways to connect advertisers with customers interactively with a growing base of content.

One look at the X-box content page tells the story with key players lined up in U.S. and worldwide that include ESPN, HuluPlus and Netflix. Microsoft claims up to 40 providers including Bravo, Cinemanow, HBOGo and many others will be available to the MS Live network "at some future point in time." Regionally, Microsoft announced content partnerships with BBC in the U.K.; Telefónica in Spain; Rogers On Demand in Canada; Televisa in Mexico; ZDF in Germany; and Mediaset in Italy.

The picture is becoming more lucid, as Microsoft has continued to introduce new and compelling technology to improve its X-box offering. Kinect gesture driven input is one good example, along with Bing voice enabled search, which extends the human input range beyond mouse and keyboard to the growing base of content the X-box Live system is building for its 35M subscribers.

When technologies are added up, Microsoft has a compelling offering to bring to the living room. This includes gesture (Kinect) and voice activated input, video phone features (Skype) combined with the power of text based search, (Bing) and now video search (VideoSurf) all conceivable accessible from both the Xbox game console and potentially, Windows Mobile O/S in the future. And perhaps the best lesson for Apple and Google TV offerings, never count out Microsoft; they keep swinging until they get it right.

By Steve Sechrist, Display Daily

FIMS and SOA

2011-11-21T01:47:00.001-08:00

Broadcasters no longer have the monopoly on the delivery of A/V entertainment to the home. In the fiercely competitive world of media and entertainment, companies have to deliver more versions and formats, but without increasing their costs. A channel is now expected to have a Web presence, as well as mobile and tablet versions of their content.

Organizations like the EBU and Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) are promoting the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) as a route to provide the interoperable media services that can serve the new business requirements.

For the seasoned video engineer, the world of SOA introduces terms and concepts that at first encounter seem foreign and more suited to the IT specialist. As video processing migrates to the file domain, there is no option but to become familiar with what at first sight may appear alien.

Broadcast systems have evolved around the imposed workflow of the serial processing steps of videotape operations. Over time, many processes have moved from dedicated hardware boxes with SDI in and out to software applications on a network. A typical broadcast operation is now a hybrid of SDI and IP connections.

In many cases, the workflow remains as the original tape-based flow. Over time, other applications like asset and workflow management are layered over the entire process chain. The system has grown by accident, not by design, and become a web of custom or proprietary interfaces linking the many applications.

Sure it works, it was designed that way, but when the time comes to replace a component part — say the playout automation — the inflexibility of the system rapidly comes apparent. The parts of the system are linked by a web of custom APIs, often restricted to a specific release of a specific software application. It is just not possible to swap out the automation for the latest product without attending to the web of interfaces.

To meet the demands for new services to the public, the broadcaster must add facilities for a mobile news service, a 3-D channel and interaction with a social media website. Along comes CES and some new consumer device to consume content. How do you add support for this new device? Will it mean more custom interfaces or more special workflow applications? The EBU and AMWA are developing a Framework for Interoperable Media Services (FIMS), which aims to provide a new technology platform that leverages current IT practices, like the use of the SOA, to provide business agility and to control costs.

The legacy system architectures suffer from many problems, and these scenarios serve to illustrate just two.

Scenario One: Ingest
Take the example of ingest. A VTR connects to a video noise reducer via HD-SDI. This then connects again via HD-SDI to an encoder card. The card encodes to a suitable codec for editing and also creates a low-resolution proxy.

At some point this is updated so that the encoder card ingests directly from the VTR and encodes to an uncompressed format. The noise reduction is performed in software. The uncompressed file is saved in a watch folder and picked up by transcoder software, which creates files in the wanted resolutions and codecs.

Imagine more control is needed over the clean up, and the file is passed to an operator who will apply craft skills to the clean-up and repair process. Any changes to the process flow involve wiring changes and software reconfiguration.

The system is just not flexible or agile enough for the constant changes needed to serve today's requirements.

Each evolution of the ingest system needs wiring and configuration changes

Scenario Two: System Upgrades
A broadcaster has a transcoder that is interfaced to a DAM. The broadcaster starts with Transcoder A and DAM A. The transcoder is replaced by a later model from a different vendor, Transcoder B. This requires a new interface to the DAM. The broadcaster migrates to a new DAM B, so the interface to Transcoder B must be rewritten.

The broadcaster liked the compression quality of Transcoder A and decides to move back, but must pay for another interface to the new DAM. Next, the vendor for Transcoder A has to redesign its product to move from a 32-bit to 64-bit operating system. In the process, the API is upgraded, and a new SDK is issued. The custom interface must be similarly upgraded.

Using two transcoder vendors and two DAMs has required the development of five custom interfaces over time. This adds up to costs for professional services, and for the manufacturer, the opportunity cost of not using software resource to develop new products. It is an unsustainable business model.

Each upgrade needs a new custom API

Integrating an SOA
The implementation of an SOA in a media business must take into account the special needs of the processes that manage A/V files. Off-the-shelf IT products do not cater for these additional requirements without extensive customization. The work to develop FIMS will create a set of standards for vendors to create compliant products and save unnecessary professional services.

This melding of IT with a media-savvy system means that the video engineer and IT specialist can collaborate and share their skills in the creation of products and systems that meet the new demands of the media and entertainment sector.

Services
The linear nature of legacy production is implemented by serial processes acting on the content: ingest, editing, transcoding, distribution, playout and archive being typical. It may be that content is transcoded at ingest — AVC-Intra to DNxHD, for example — and then transcoded after editing to different delivery formats. This could be done by a transcoder in the edit bay and a transcoder in master control.

In a file-based environment, devices all sit on the media network. It makes sense to pool all the transcoders as a central resource and make them available as a transcode service. It could even be that cloud transcoding could be used. This offers much more efficient use of transcoder resources, but for it to work, the service should be reusable at any point in the workflow and should interoperate with all the necessary equipment in the organization, whatever make or model.

This calls for standardization so that a transcode service has a common interface, whatever make or model, and capabilities. A given transcoder may not support all codecs, but the interface can still be common. If demand increases, new transcoders can be added; the architecture scales easily.

The move to an SOA involves a change of mind-set to view processes within the organization as services. Since most post houses have a rate card of services they offer, it is not a great leap to understand this concept. The services include ingest editing, grading, dubbing, encoding, sound mixing, etc. Note that some services require extensive and lengthy use of creative staff; services are not only computer processing operations like transcoding.

Encapsulation
A post facility can take a videotape and return a copy of the tape encoded on a Blu-ray disc. All the detail of the process is hidden. You don't need to know which tape deck was used or what software was used to burn the disc. It is all abstracted from the client. The facility performs a service and bills for that service; it is a business transaction.

In an SOA, this concept of abstracting, or encapsulating, the detail of the process is key. If the post house starts using different software, or a different VTR, you don't care as long as the disc is a faithful copy of the tape.

An SOA uses loose coupling for services, possibly a foreign concept for video engineers used to real-time systems. But many services are already loosely coupled. Captioning is one example. A low-resolution proxy is sent out to the captioning facility, and at some point in the future a caption file is returned. The process is managed at a business level by a scheduling department.

Service Adaptors
Many existing products need the user to control the service via a custom API using an SDK provided by the vendor. In an SOA, services are linked to the middleware via service adaptors. These provide the abstraction from the implementation of the service — how it works — to deliver the service at the business level.

The FIMS project is working to define standard interfaces for common media services. A system with FIMS components contains two broad service categories: workflow services able to realize a given business goal (media workflow services), and infrastructure services that are essential components of the media SOA system (media infrastructure services).

The first three workflow services to be developed are:

Transfer (moving files)
Transform (changing essence or metadata)
Capture (ingest stream to file)

It is envisaged further services will be added to the list as dictated by demand from vendors and users.

The first three SOA services for FIMS are: transfer, transform and capture

Building an SOA
In all but the smallest facility, some middleware is required to manage the services, scheduling resources and the workflow. To link services together to implement broadcast workflows, the SOA middleware orchestrates job requests, calling appropriate services to satisfy a request. There are many SOA middleware systems, but few are “media aware.” It is hoped that FIMS will make it easier for several manufacturers to offer compliant products.

One important term is “web services.” Web services are used for communications between the many components of the SOA implementation. SOA is just an architecture — a methodology; it is not a software application.

Web services have become a commodity, with companies like Amazon and Google offering storage, processing and many other services in the cloud. Web services are not exclusive to the Web, but can equally be used on the company LAN.

Web service standards have two interaction styles: SOAP/WSDL and RESTful. RESTful only operates over HTTP. SOAP is agnostic to transport protocol, so it can use other protocols like TCP. SOAP was designed for distributed computing, whereas RESTful is a lightweight protocol for point-to-point communications. Both can be used to bind a service provider with a service consumer. FIMS uses an object model described by XML schemas, which provides independence from the method used to bind services.

Media-Centric Issues
File-based media systems need to allow for certain issues not found in typical SOA implementations. One is the very large size of media files, terabytes in some cases. Media files cannot travel as attachments on a conventional enterprise service bus, the interconnection bus of an SOA. Instead a separate media service bus is used. This concept is common in broadcast facilities where a high-bandwidth media network carries files separately from the main network, which carries control messages, e-mails etc.

A typical SOA service, like converting a Word document to PDF, happens in seconds. Media processes can take hours or even days. Such operations must happen asynchronously from other processes. Operations such as transcoding must be scheduled to business rules to ensure resources are not used for a low-priority job, holding up a high-priority job.

A resource manager service must manage use of services according to business rules that manage the needs of broadcast operations.

The media bus is a potential bottleneck to scaling of services, so SLA monitoring is vital to ensure efficient running of the media systems. To the video engineer, used to non-blocking systems, with dedicated circuits and crosspoint routers, it is easy to keep track of bandwidth requirements. In a file-based environment, care has to be taken over the use of the media bus though continual monitoring of capacity and performance.

Summary
The AMWA and EBU have now joined with SMPTE to move forward standardization of the framework. After formalization by AMWA and EBU, the work will be submitted to SMPTE.

The standards work is not following a big-bang approach, but progressing in steps, with usable specifications released at regular intervals so that vendors and media companies can start deploying systems immediately, rather than waiting for a long, drawn-out standards process, which has been the case in the past. Businesses have to move now; there is no option to wait for an all-encompassing answer to everything in the media factory. By releasing the framework, and then key adaptors, further work will proceed as the demand arises from the community.

The move to an SOA, and to follow the FIMS route, promises many advantages to the broadcaster. The architecture is more flexible and scalable than legacy systems. The broadcaster can more easily outsource to external services or cloud provision. And finally, the system — through the dashboard — gives management a better view of key performance indicators of the business. The system agility and the better control gives management the ability to invest in new services and to improve the efficiency of existing operations.

By David Austerberry, Broadcast Engineering

Archive eXchange Format

2011-11-20T23:56:00.002-08:00

The long-awaited AXF open format for long-term preservation and storage is designed to support interoperability among systems and ensure future access to valuable, file-based assets regardless of type or how they are stored.

Thanks to technology, we've now got more ways than ever to communicate with each other through audio and video. However, the same proliferation of technology that creates so much opportunity also has resulted in a multitude of formats and systems for storing digital media. However, those formats and systems often are not compatible with one another. Here we are not talking about interoperability of the media files themselves (as has long been the dream of MXF), but rather the actual operating system, file system, storage technology and devices used to capture, store and protect these valuable media assets now and in the future.

This diversity and potential long-term incompatibility makes reliable and guaranteed access to these assets complicated, expensive and sometimes downright impossible. Solving the problem means establishing a common format for digital media storage that works not only with any existing system, but also systems that have yet to evolve — an open standard for the long-term storage and preservation of media assets.

Although this may seem unnecessary on the surface, there are many documented cases today where important files stored on dated technology using non-standardized methods have become inaccessible and are therefore lost forever. We will likely be able to recreate an MPEG-2 software decoder on whatever platforms exist 100 years from now, but are we certain we'll be able to find a system compatible with FAT32 to be able to recover the MPEG-2 content itself?

The answer to this daunting problem lies in the new Archive eXchange Format (AXF), an open format that supports interoperability among disparate content storage systems and ensures the content's long-term availability no matter how storage or file system technology evolves. AXF inherently supports interoperability among existing, discrete storage systems irrespective of the operating and file systems used and also future-proofs digital storage by abstracting the underlying technology so that content remains available no matter how these technologies evolve.

What is AXF?
At its most basic level, AXF is an IT-centric file container that can encapsulate any number of files, of any type, in a fully self-contained and self-describing package. The encapsulated package actually contains its own file system, which abstracts the underlying operating system, storage technology and original file system from the AXF object and its valuable payload. It's like a file system within a file that can store any type of data on any type of storage media.

The Embedded File System
This innovative embedded file system approach is AXF's defining attribute. It allows AXF to be both content- and storage-agnostic. In other words, because the AXF object itself contains the file system, it can exist on any generation of data tape, spinning disk, flash, optical media or other storage technology that exists today or might exist tomorrow.

Because of this neutrality, AXF certainly supports the modern generation of data tape technologies (LTO5, TS1140 and T10000C, for example) and because there is no dependency on the features of the storage technology itself, it supports all legacy storage formats as well.

What Makes AXF Better?
AXF offers many significant advantages over other formats and approaches such as Tape ARchive (TAR) and Linear Tape File System (LTFS) for long-term storage, protection and preservation.

AXF can scale without limit, which distinguishes it sharply from legacy container formats like TAR. Like AXF, TAR uses a file container approach that works on any file type of any individual or total file size with support for multiple operating systems. However, TAR's age and tape-based roots yield inevitable limitations. For example, it incorporates neither descriptive metadata support nor a central index for file payload information, which makes random access to files challenging and slow. In large TAR archives, the performance penalty is significant, effectively making the format unsuitable for any situation where random access to individual files is required, let alone random access to portions of the contained files as required by operations such as timecode-based, partial restore.

Certainly, TAR has evolved over the decades, but it has done so typically in divergent paths that lead away from its open-source origins. As a result, it is difficult, or impossible, to recover some TAR packages today, rendering them lost forever.

Also in contrast to TAR, AXF incorporates resiliency features that make it possible to recover object contents, descriptive metadata and media catalogs in a multitude of failure and corruption situations. AXF also incorporates comprehensive fixity and error-checking capabilities in the form of multiple per-file and per-structure checksums. TAR lacks these features that should be considered mandatory for modern systems.

The embedded file system enables AXF to translate between any generic set of files and logical block positions on any storage medium, whether the medium has its own file system or not. This essentially abstracts the underlying file system and storage technology and allows systems that comprehend AXF to ignore any of their complexities and limitations.

While AXF can work in harmony with LTFS, it also has advantages over it. LTFS relies on storage technology elements — such as partitioning and file marks on data tape — that hinder both its storage capabilities and its performance. Likewise, a format such as LTFS is ineffective for complex file collections with tens of thousands or even millions of related elements as it lacks any form of encapsulation and instead relies on simplistic file and path arrangements.

AXF can support any number and type of files in a single, encapsulated package, which inherently means these AXF objects can grow exponentially in size. With its inherent support for spanning objects across media (such as over multiple data tapes), AXF offers significant advantages over LTFS, which offers no spanning support — rendering it ineffective in large-scale archives typical in media operations.

For the preservationist community, AXF offers support for the core OAIS (Open Archival Information System) reference model with built-in features such as fixity (per-file checksums and per-structure checksums), provenance, context, reference, open metadata encapsulation and access control. This adherence to established industry practices is another significant benefit of AXF over LTFS.

Once content is stored in the system, the media itself can be transported directly to any other system that also comprehends AXF offering the same “transport” capabilities of LTFS with the additional features highlighted above.

Front Porch Digital is currently working with SMPTE to standardize AXF and promote it as an industry-wide method for storage and long-term preservation of media assets. Further, the committee hopes its work will extend far outside of the media and entertainment space and into the broader IT community because of its wide-reaching applicability and unparalleled features.

These factors are key to AXF's ability to support large-scale archive and preservation systems as well as simple, standalone applications.

How Does AXF Work?
AXF is designed so that each AXF Object (or package) is comprised of three main components regardless of what technology is used to store them (spinning disk, flash media, data tape without a file system, data tape with a file system, etc.).

The structure of an AXF object includes a header, the payload and a footer

The first part is that each AXF Object originates with an Object Header — a structure containing descriptive XML metadata such as the AXF Object's unique identifier (UUID and UMID), creation date, object provenance and file-tree information, including file permissions, paths, etc. Following the AXF Object Header is any number of optional AXF Generic Metadata packages. The AXF Generic Metadata Packages are self-contained, open metadata containers in which applications can include AXF Object-specific metadata. This metadata can be structured or unstructured, open or vendor-specific, binary or XML.

The second component of the Object construct is the File Payload — the actual byte data of the files encapsulated in the object. The payload consists of any number of triplets — File Data + File Padding + File Footer. File padding, which ensures alignment of all AXF Object elements on storage medium block boundaries, is key to the AXF specification. The File Footer structure contains the exact size of the preceding file, along with an optional file-level checksum designed to be processed on-the-fly by the application during restore operations with little or no overhead.

The final portion of an AXF Object is the Object Footer, which repeats the information contained in the Object Header and adds information captured during the Object's creation, including per-file checksums and precise file and structure block positions. The Object Footer is important to the resiliency of the AXF specification because it allows efficient re-indexing by foreign systems when the media content is not previously known, offering media transport between systems that follow AXF specification.

Because of this standardized approach to the Object construct, which abstracts the underlying complexities of the storage media itself, simple access to the content is ensured regardless of the evolution of technology now and into the future.

Special Structures for Use with Linear Data Tape
When used with linear data tape typical in large-scale archives today, an AXF implementation includes three additional structures to incorporate key, self-describing characteristics on the medium itself, ensuring full recoverability and transportability:

ISO/ANSI standard VOL1 volume label: The first structure, which appears on the medium, is an ISO/ANSI standard VOL1 volume label. This label indentifies a tape volume and its owner. This is included for compatibility purposes with legacy applications to ensure they do not erroneously handle AXF formatted media and to signal applications that do understand AXF to proceed with accessing the objects contained on the medium.
Medium Identifier: The second structure is the Medium Identifier, which contains the AXF volume signature and other information about the storage medium itself. The implementation of the Medium Identifier differs slightly depending on whether the storage medium is linear or nonlinear, and whether it includes a file system or not, but the overall structures are fully compatible.
AXF Object Index: The third structure is the AXF Object Index, which is an optional structure that assists in the recoverability of AXF-formatted media. Information contained in this structure is sufficient to recover and rapidly reconstruct the entire catalog of AXF Objects on the storage medium. In a case where the application has not maintained the optional AXF Object Index structures, the contents of each AXF Object can still be reconstructed by simply processing each AXF Object Footer structure.

Who is the Ideal AXF User?
AXF was developed to meet a broad spectrum of user needs — from those accessing petabytes of data in a high-performance environment to those looking to simply encapsulate a few files and send them to a friend via email. AFX is completely scalable to accommodate an operation of any size or complexity. In all cases, AXF offers an abstraction layer that hides the complexities of the storage technology from the higher-level applications, while it also offers fundamental encapsulation, provenance, fixity, portability and preservation characteristics. In addition, the same self-describing AXF format can be used interchangeably on all current storage technologies, such as spinning disk, flash media and data tape from any manufacturer now and into the future.

The Bottom Line
AXF has the ability to support interoperability among systems, help ensure long-term accessibility to valued assets and keep up with evolving storage technologies. It offers profound present and future benefits for any enterprise that uses media — from heritage institutions, to schools, to broadcasters, to simple IT-based operations — and is well on its way to becoming the long-awaited, worldwide, open standard for file-based archiving, preservation and exchange.

More information on AXF is available at OpenAXF.

By Brian Campanotti, Broadcast Engineering

Video Compression Technology: HTML5

2011-11-20T23:15:00.000-08:00

A media container is a “wrapper” that contains video, audio and data elements, and can function as a file entity or as an encapsulation method for a live stream. Because container formats are now starting to appear in broadcast situations, both OTA and online, it is useful to consider the various ways that compressed video (and audio) are carried therein, both by RF transmission and by the Internet.

Web Browsing and Broadcasting Crossing Over
The ubiquitous Web browser is a tool that users have come to rely on for accessing the Internet. Broadcasters already make use of this for their online presence, by authoring content and repurposing content specifically for Internet consumption. But browsing capability is something that will come to OTA broadcast as well, once features like non-real-time (NRT) content distribution become implemented. For example, by using the ATSC NRT specification, now under development, television receivers can be built that support different compression formats for cached video, including AVC video and MP3 audio, and different container file formats, such as the MP4 Multimedia Container Format. It is envisioned that these receivers will have the capability of acting as integrated live-and-cached content managers, and this will invariably involve support for different containers and codecs. For this reason, we need to understand how browsers and containers — two seemingly different technologies — are related in the way they handle content.

Several container formats currently provide encapsulation for video and audio, including MPEG Transport Stream, Microsoft Advanced Systems Format (ASF), Audio Video Interleave (AVI) and Apple QuickTime. While not a container format per se, the new HTML5 language for browsers nonetheless has the capability of “encapsulating” video and audio for presentation to a user. With the older HTML, there was no convention for playing video and audio on a webpage; most video and audio have been played by the use of plug-ins, which integrate the video with the browser. However, not all browsers support the same plug-ins. HTML5 changes that by specifying a standard way to include video and audio, with video and audio “elements.”

HTML5 is a new specification under development to replace the existing HTML used by Web browsers to present content since 1999. Among the key requirements of HTML5 are that it be device-independent and that it should reduce the need for external plug-ins. Some of the new features in HTML5 include functions for embedding and controlling video and audio, graphics and interactive documents. For example, a “canvas” element using JavaScript allows for dynamic, scriptable rendering of precise 2-D shapes (paths, boxes, circles, etc.) and bitmap images. Other content-specific elements provide more control over text and graphics formatting and placement, much like a word processor, and new form controls support the use of calendars, clocks, e-mail and searching. Most modern browsers already support some of these features.

The HTML5 Working Group includes AOL, Apple, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Mozilla, Nokia, Opera and many other vendors. This working group has garnered support for including multiple video codecs (and container formats) within the specification, such as OGG Theora, Google's VP8 and H.264. However, there is currently no default video codec defined for HTML5. Ideally, the working group thinks that a default video format should have good compression, good image quality and a low processor load when decoding; they would like it to be royalty-free as well.

Multiple Codecs Present Complex Choices
HTML5 thus presents a potential solution to manufacturers and content providers that want to avoid licensed codecs such as Adobe Flash (FLV), while preferring the partially license-free H.264 (i.e., for Internet Broadcast AVC Video), and fully license-free VP8, Theora and other codecs. Flash, which has become popular on the Internet, most often contains video encoded using H.264, Sorenson Spark or On2's VP6 compression. The licensing agent MPEG-LA does not charge royalties for H.264 video delivered to the Internet without charge, but companies that develop products and services that encode and decode H.264 video do pay royalties. Adobe nonetheless provides a free license to the Flash Player decoder.

HTML5 can be thought of as HTML plus Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) plus JavaScript. CSS is a language for describing the presentation of webpages, including colors, layout and fonts. This allows authors to adapt the presentation to different types of devices, such as large screens vs. small screens. Thus, content authored with HTML5 can serve as a “raw template,” and repurposing to different devices entails generating appropriate CSS for each device. (This is known to programmers as separating “structure” from “presentation.”) JavaScript is an implementation of ECMAScript, both of which are scripting languages that allow algorithms to be run on-the-fly in decoders. Because JavaScript code runs locally in a user's browser, the browser can respond to user input quickly, making interaction with an application highly responsive.

Websites often use some form of detection to determine if the user's browser is capable of rendering and using all of the features of the HTML language. Because there is no specific “flag” that indicates browser support of HTML5, JavaScript can be used to check the browser for its functionality and support of specific HTML features. When such a script runs, it can create a global object that is stored locally and can be referenced to determine the supported local features. This way, the content being downloaded can “adapt” itself to the capabilities of different browsers (and decoder hardware). Scripts are not always needed for detection, however. For example, HTML code can be written, without the use of JavaScript, that embeds video into a website using the HTML5 “video” element, falling back to Flash automatically.

HTML5 also provides better support for local offline storage, with two new objects for storing user-associated data on the client (the playback hardware/software): localStorage, which stores data with no time limit, and sessionStorage, which stores data for one session. In the past, personalization data was stored using cookies. However, cookies are not suitable for handling large amounts of data because they are sent to the server every time there is an information request (such as a browser refresh or link access), which makes the operation slow and inefficient. With HTML5, the stored object data is transferred only when a server or client application needs it. Thus, it is possible to store large amounts of data locally without affecting browsing performance. In order to control the exchange of data, especially between different websites, a website can only access data stored by itself. HTML5 uses JavaScript to store and access the data.

Years ago, content developers predicted the crossover of television and Internet. With standard codecs, container formats and specifications like HTML5, integration of the two media will soon be common.

By Aldo Cugnini, Broadcast Engineering

OTT Video Delivery

2011-11-18T09:09:00.002-08:00

OTT video, or streaming media, is an evolving set of technologies that deliver multimedia content over the Internet and private networks. A number of online media platforms are dedicated to streaming media delivery, including YouTube, Brightcove, Vimeo, Metacafe, BBC and Hulu.

Streaming video delivery is growing dramatically. According to the comScore 2009 U.S. Digital Year in Review Video Metrix, Americans viewed a significantly higher number of videos in 2009 than in 2008 (up by 19 percent) because of both increased content consumption and the growing number of video ads delivered.

In January 2010, more than 170 million viewers watched videos online. The average online viewer consumed 187 videos in December 2009, up 95 percent over the previous year, and the average video duration grew from 3.2 to 4.1 minutes.

Hulu, for example, in that same month delivered more than 1 billion streams for a total of 97 million hours. According to comScore, the character of video viewing is changing as well, with more people watching longer content.

There is a growing effort by broadcasters to make regular TV content available online. For example, the BBC has developed the BBC iPlayer and the bbc.co.uk website to support replication of most BBC broadcast material. The service has been outstandingly successful: 79.3 million requests were serviced in October 2009. NBC coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics included live and recently recorded content, complete with commercials.

Whenever there is the possibility of a large or dynamic viewer audience, a reliable CDN is required. CDNs once only used to replicate website content around the world. Now, they have expanded dramatically to handle streaming media. Research and markets estimated the value of CDN services for 2008 at $1.25 billion, up 32 percent from 2007.

Top CDNs include Akamai, Mirror Image Internet, Limelight Networks, CDNetworks and Level 3. Streaming media services must deal with content collected from disparate sources and distributed to a growing number of devices.

Technology Trends
The most common network protocol used to transport video over IP networks is the Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP). RTSP is a stateful protocol used to establish and control media sessions between a media server and client viewer. RTSP clients issue VCR-like commands to control media playback. The transmission of the audio/video stream itself is most often handled by the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP), although some vendors have implemented their own transport protocol. RTSP and RTP are almost universally used to implement VOD features.

Most video players, such as the Adobe Flash Player, use proprietary protocols that provide additional functionality and flexibility. Flash Player has an almost total presence on PCs and Macs, and is used to deliver more than 80 percent of online videos. The Adobe Flash Player is a lightweight client embedded in Web browsers. Adobe uses the Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) to deliver streaming content, providing multiple independent channels, which are used to control and deliver content. RTMPT is an RTMP variant that encapsulates RTMP packets in HTTP.

First released in 2007, Microsoft's Silverlight player is growing in popularity within the player market. The Silverlight player uses HTTP as its top-level transport mechanism and for media streaming. Using HTTP as a single transport mechanism can result in significant internal cost reduction for end-to-end delivery. Silverlight includes Digital Rights Management (DRM) features similar to those available in Adobe Flash.

HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) is a media streaming specification that is developed by Apple that uses HTTP as the transport. Devices such as the iPhone, iPad and Apple-compatible platforms support this streaming technology. The “Live” is misleading in the name, as this technology works for on-demand and live streaming. HLS supports streaming media that is segmented into smaller chunks of data, to improve delivery and user experience. An Extended M3U Playlist format file is used that contains the media segments to download.

Modern streaming media technologies adapt to changing network conditions, especially those related to mobile devices. As conditions degrade or improve, the player requests an alternate lower or higher bit rate media stream. Multiple flows are prebuilt or constructed at multiple bit rates and divided into chunks so that a player can seamlessly switch different flows.

The ability for a video player to adapt to varying network conditions is termed differently across players. In the Silverlight player, it is called Smooth Streaming; Adobe Flash 10.1 terms it HTTP Dynamic Streaming; and Apple iPhone's HLS refers to it as adaptive streaming.

How is IPTV Delivered?
Delivery of video to the consumer has undergone rapid change in recent years and is guaranteed to continue to do so in the future. Cable TV networks deliver a large range of content, and the ability to provide user interactive features, including VOD.

Carrying the most promise for the future is delivery of video over multiservice IP networks. This is commonly referred to as IPTV. It is delivered as a triple-play service to consumers that include High-Speed Internet (HSI) and VoIP.

Video over IP Information Flow
The major components and data flow in IPTV networks consists of media and control flowing between content servers and home networks.

The two types of video services delivered are linear broadcast and VOD. Both have dramatically different characteristics that affect the networks that handle them. Broadcasts are regularly scheduled programs sent to large numbers of subscribers. It is sent efficiently over multicast IP routes.

VOD service delivery exhibits an entirely different behavior from linear broadcast service. Stored videos are sent to the subscriber on demand. Each subscriber receives his or her own video flow, which they can control with VCR-like controls.

The differences are responsible for the complexity of the delivery network. Broadcast TV over IP is primarily a one-way channel, using well-understood multicast protocols. The home network is responsible for multicast messages and image display. VOD adds another level of complexity. Requests for and control of video content are transmitted upstream from the subscriber to the service provider using RTSP. Video content is returned to the subscriber through RTP.

IPTV Delivery Challenges
Until differentiating services are developed for IP-based video-voice-data networks, IPTV services will continue to be compared with traditional TV, cable and satellite service. As such, the IP delivery network must remain transparent to customers.

Customers expect video quality and service availability to be on par or better to make the switch. With multiple choices available to consumers, there is little tolerance for poor quality and operational problems. A poorly engineered network can lead to substantial customer churn.

To successfully deploy IPTV, the following end-user requirements must be addressed:

Video quality: subscribers' perception of quality must be the same or better than other alternatives;
Minimal channel change delay: because instant response is expected;
Assured service delivery and availability for an always-on service.

IPTV Testing Requirements
Service providers must systematically test and verify network devices in each of the video transport architectures, including video content servers, core and edge routers, access devices, and customer premises equipment. Such testing provides an understanding of individual device performance and may determine how much impact each has on the overall system.

System-level tests that incorporate more than one demarcation point in the transport architecture are required. In this way, a clear understanding of how well the individual systems play with each other is determined.

Finally, the network must be tested end-to-end. Most standard routing and forwarding performance tests should be performed, looking at packet loss or latency under different load conditions.

Test Methodologies
All types of video testing, both OTT and IPTV, require testing through large-scale subscriber emulation. That is, large user communities must be simulated performing “normal” activities in order to exercise video components, subsystems and end-to-end delivery. “Normal” activity is directly related to the type of video delivery.

IPTV
Broadcast IPTV delivery is highly dependent on multicast operation. In order to avoid sending individual programs to individual users, all viewed channels are broadcast to all users wishing to view particular channels.

It is up to the STB and all routers between the source(s) and the subscriber(s) to join and leave multicast groups that correspond to a particular broadcast stream.

Broadcast IPTV testing requires emulation of subscribers engaged in two types of behavior:

Requesting a channel (joining a multicast group), watching for a period of time and then requesting an alternate channel (leaving one group and joining another);
Rapidly changing channels, often called “channel zapping”.

During this type of testing, the critical measurements are:

Video quality, largely related to jitter and drop outs. Several types of quality of experience metrics, including VMOS and VQMon, produce values that are closely related to how viewers “feel” about their experience;
Channel change latency — that is, the time between channel change request and response.

VOD
VOD stream delivery is point-to-point, as opposed to multicast. VOD users have VCR-like buttons at their disposal: play, pause, fast forward, rewind and stop. VOD testing requires emulation of subscribers engaged mostly in viewing and occasionally in VCR-like control activities.

During this type of testing, the critical measurements are:

Video quality, as described above;
Command latency — that is, response to VCR-like control activities.

OTT
OTT delivery is also point-to-point, and testing requires emulation of large audiences of users accessing a larger set of possible sources than with VOD. The same VCR-like controls are available, but due to the generally short nature of OTT content, are generally used less often.

What differentiates OTT from VOD and makes it much more difficult to test is changing connection rates. OTT content is saved many times over at the source for delivery at many different connection rates — for example, high resolution for broadband connections and low resolution for mobile devices. OTT delivery must quickly and transparently switch between streams based on conditions dictated by the consumer.

OTT testing, therefore, must emulate frequent bandwidth changes from a large community of users accessing many possible streams. During this type of testing, the critical measurements are:

Video quality, as described above. Empirically, one's expectations of quality for this OTT delivery are much less than broadcast TV;
Smooth presentation. As bandwidth availability changes, consumers must not be aware of the changeover of streams. That is, there should be no noticeable pauses.

BY Dave Schneider, Broadcast Engineering

MP4 File Fragmentation for Broadcast, Mobile and Web Delivery

2011-11-18T06:23:00.001-08:00

Consistent multi-platform audio and video content delivery presents an ongoing challenge for broadcasters. Explosive smartphone and tablet growth on varying operating systems —Android, Apple iOS, or Windows Phone—threatens to create a user-experience divide between users on mobile devices, at the desktop or in the living room.

Broadcasters must address multi-platform consumption demands without compromising content security or network efficiencies. Many broadcasters are assessing efficiency of transport protocols used for content delivery, to see how they stack up for web and mobile delivery. Some legacy solutions, such as MPEG-2 Transport Stream (M2TS), lack basic web delivery functions.

What key information do broadcasters and network operators need to know as they look for more efficient approaches to the media delivery? This white paper explores fragmented MP4 files (fMP4) and considers whether the fMP4 format can replace legacy file formats.

Along the way, we’ll explore four key areas that impact both broadcasters and network operators:

Format benefits of fMP4
Network benefits of fMP4
Movement toward fMP4 standardization
Platforms supporting fMP4

By Timothy Siglin, Transitions, Inc.

yellowBird - 360º Video Playback for iOS

2011-11-18T02:56:00.002-08:00

With current trends leaning heavily towards delivering content for the new tablet market, yellowBird have created a 360º video playback component for iPhone and/or iPad. Touch based and gyroscopic navigation provide a complete new edge to experiencing 360º video content.

Tailor made apps can be downloaded from the App Store. This way, yellowBird can fully leverage preview capabilities and develop in-app purchases for users to download complete episodes or subscribe to a series shot in 360º video.

Click to watch the video
Source: yellowBird

Everyone Following their Own Path with HBB

2011-11-18T01:53:00.001-08:00

Do not expect rationalisation of standards and anything close to a pan-European, let alone a global specification for hybrid broadcast broadband (HBB). That was the message from a panel of experts at the OTT TV World Summit on Wednesday.

Anthony Smith-Chaigneau, Chairman of the DVB-GEM Commercial Module, which determines what the DVB interactive TV standard needs to deliver for the market, suggested the problem is not a technical one but a human one.

“There are plenty of standards but nobody is choosing them,” he said. “Everyone is fighting each other and following their own path.”

Dr Klaus Illgner-Fehns, IRT Director and Chair at the HbbTV Consortium, disagreed with the analysis that the problem is down to people and organisations getting in the way of progress towards harmonisation. He explains the lack of conformity by the fact that different markets have different needs.

Illgner-Fehns highlighted the progress of HbbTV, which looks to have the best chance of pan-regional adoption. This ETSI standard has strong support in Germany and France and he says there is even interest in Japan, China and the U.S. He attributes the success of HbbTV to meeting the need for a solution that accommodated Internet services and applications but was also available quickly and was not over-engineered. Importantly, the standard also left room for device manufacturers to provide some differentiation. Now the standard can provide economies of scale for smaller CE vendors looking to promote their own branded portals via hybrid solutions.

Richard Lindsay-Davies, Director General at the Digital TV Group, the body responsible for developing and maintaining the DTT specifications in the UK, also noted the lack of uniformity and pointed out that even HbbTV, which could potentially deliver a one-size-fits-all standard, is being implemented using different profiles in different countries.

“It seems that everyone wants a standard as long as it is their standard.”

And this is just the hybrid broadcast broadband market. In connected TV there are multiple manufacturer platforms and as pointed out on another panel at the conference, even TV models from the same vendor in different years are not fully compatible. There is also an interesting dynamic between the connected TV market, characterized by CE vendor content portals that stand separate to linear TV, and the HBB market, notable for the way linear TV content links seamlessly via ‘Red button’ type links to interactive and catch-up TV services.

Antonio Gioia, Project Manager at DTT Content Factory for Mediaset in Italy, said the CE vendors are trying to push the broadcaster towards their own ‘widgets platforms’ to host their content and services – something that on the face of it is attractive because these platforms are already built and deployed. But the company is not convinced, with Gioia saying,

“All that glistens is not gold. We try to keep our content integrity and avoid the division of our brand, which is why we are trying to push the idea of a common [broadcast-centric] platform like in the UK, Spain, France and Germany.”

DVB-GEM is being used as the basis for HBB services in Italy.

By John Moulding, Videonet

Active Retarder - Dead or Alive?

2011-11-17T08:22:00.001-08:00

In the 3DTV space, the debate still rages over the merits of shutter glasses vs. passive polarized glasses using Film Pattern Retarder (FPR) technology. While Samsung was singing the praises of shutter glasses, it also had a plan to offer a passive polarized solution in partnership with RealD. Now, the future of this approach is clouded since RealD revealed that its deal with Samsung to manufacture the panels will not go forward.

Active retarder technology is a way to create passive polarized 3D viewing on a flat panel display. It does this by bonding an additional LCD panel to the main imaging panel, instead of bonding a FPR polarizer sheet, which is the approach favored by LG Display. The main advantage of the active retarder approach is the ability to deliver the full native resolution of the panel to each eye in 3D mode. The main disadvantage is the cost and weight of the second LCD panel.

The technology was first shown several years ago at SID by LG Display. At the same time, it also showed its film patterned retarder technology. Subsequently, LG Display slowed down active retarder development and focused on FPR technology, which was introduced into TVs one year ago. Since then, it has seen tremendous success with many brands adopting and doing well selling the approach.

Meanwhile, RealD and Samsung partnered to show prototypes of active retarder TVs (called RDZ by RealD and Active Shutter by Samsung) at CES 2011 and again at SID’11. As we noted in our coverage at the time, the performance was very good and indeed improved by SID. At that time, we were told that Samsung would offer active shutter monitors by the end of 2011 and move into TV production in 2012.

When we asked about the extra cost of the active shutter panel, RealD acknowledged it was an issue but implied they had a plan that would make this a cost affordable component.

So what happened? According to an engadget article, RealD CEO Michael Lewis told reporters that the Korean manufacturer simply "had a recent management change, reviewed all their projects and decided not to go forward."

While it is reasonable to assume that Samsung had a strategic review of all display technologies and decided active shutter would not make the cut, there were probably additional factors at play. One was the difficult economic climate that has hurt TV sales and shifted consumer attention to smartphones and tablets. Samsung could easily have seen better return on investment in this area compared to TVs.

Another factor may have been technology. Was the team able to meet their cost and manufacturing targets to offer competitive TVs in the desired timeframe? My guess is that there were indeed some problems in this area and the only practical way to address the cost and weight issues is to create plastic LCD. Commercializing this in monitor and TV sizes is a big challenge and was likely going to require additional investment and time.

And let’s not forget the competitive aspect vs. patterned retarder technology commercialized by LG Display and a host of TV partners. Remember, over the last year, Samsung and LG have slung mud at each other over the image quality of the patterned retarder vs. shutter glass approach. Samsung claims that shutter glasses deliver the full native resolution of the panel per eye whereas FPR delivers only half the vertical resolution per eye. LG says not true, and has backed that up with a series of independent test results that validate the image quality is FHD in 3D mode.

This argument is essentially being settled by consumers who are voting with their purchases. While active shutter sets continue to increase in sales, film patterned retarder sales have come on strongly in the last year. Some brands are now converting their lines from shutter glasses to all film patterned retarder models. While the active retarder approach can deliver FHD per eye, the image quality - and tricks that LG plays with film patterned retarder, is very close to FHD per eye, so the advantage is minimized.

Finally, 3DTV is not as hot as it once was with Connected/Internet/Smart TVs likely to create more excitement with consumers in the near term.

Putting it all together, arguments that made sense 1-2 years ago, don’t seem to make as much sense today. It may be all of these, and possibly some other reasons, why Samsung pulled the plug on active shutter.

Lewis noted that RealD remains "bullish on the technology" and will explore opportunities with "other potential partners." In addition, AUO is now active in the space. At FPD International they debuted a surprise product - a 46-inch 3DTV using a scanning retarder approach.

So is the technology dead or alive? I guess I will leave it to you to judge for yourself.

By Chris Chinnock, Display Daily

ConnecTV Gives US Stations TV Everywhere

2011-11-16T02:41:00.001-08:00

US local TV station groups covering 76 million American homes are partnering with ConnecTV to launch a free second screen application in early 2012 that will offer viewers additional content and social media features tied to live TV. As part of the agreement, a number of the broadcasters have also made an undisclosed investment in the Silicon Valley start-up.

Many national broadcasters, cable channels and programmes have launched second screen apps as a way of enhancing live TV viewing and to capitalise on the growing usage of mobile devices and social media. But the deal between the broadcast groups and ConnecTV marks the largest attempt by local broadcasters – a number of whom compete with each other – to work together on social media and second screen applications.

The ConnecTV platform automatically synchronises with whatever channel a viewer is watching. Users who have signed up for the service at its web site or have downloaded an app for smart phones or tablets can interact with others who are watching the same show and access a wide array of related content.

If a viewer is watching a local newscast, for example, the application might show related news stories, which the user could access or share with friends. Alternatively, the application might offer polls or stats related to a sporting event. Local ads and promotions are also synched to the programs being viewed, opening up new revenue opportunities the companies hope.

The ten television broadcast groups involved in the ConnecTV partnership are active in 45 of the top 50 markets and own 201 stations in markets covering 76 million US households. Those groups include Barrington Broadcasting Group as well as the nine broadcast groups that make up the Pearl Group (Belo Corp., Cox Media Group, E.W. Scripps Co., Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst Television Inc., Media General Inc., Meredith Corp., Post-Newsweek Stations Inc. and Raycom Media.)

Speaking on behalf of the Pearl Group, Alan Frank, president and CEO of Post-Newsweek Stations noted that a growing portion of their audiences are active social media users and that many of them were using laptops, smartphones and tablets while watching TV.

“There is more TV viewing than ever but people are doing it differently,” said Frank. He cited a 2010 Nielsen study concluding that two thirds of people aged 18 to 54 reported watching TV while they accessed the web and that 70 per cent of tablet owners used their tablets while watching TV.

The Pearl Group was originally set up by nine broadcast groups to coordinate the launch of mobile DTV services but the growing importance of social media and the increasingly widespread usage of tablets, smart phones and laptops to access video, convinced members to explore way that they might be able to capitalize on those trends.

Source: Advanced Television

Rapid Adoption of ID System Speeds Multiscreen Rollouts

2011-11-12T07:54:00.000-08:00

A simple but essential new pan-industry method for keeping track of entertainment content and the metadata that’s essential to monitoring usage and enabling navigation and other applications is already paying off in activities across the digital landscape. Known as EIDR (Entertainment ID Registry), the platform employs numerical IDs to provide a solution for identifying digital movie and TV content in commercial distribution, regardless of platform or distribution channel.

“The film and TV industry hasn’t been very good at tracking compared to what we see in retail stores,” says Jud Cary, vice president and deputy general counsel at CableLabs, one of the founding entities in the EIDR initiative. “What we’re doing is very similar to UPC (the Universal Product Code barcode system) in dry goods.”

People and applications alike can search the registry via Web user interfaces or Web service APIs using the numerical ID that’s been assigned to a given piece of content submitted by a content owner or other registrant to immediately access all the metadata descriptions associated with that content. The numerical tags create a uniform basis for tracking content usage and developers can use the APIs to integrate the registry features with their applications and automated workflows.

“When you’re trying to deliver content in multiple formats to multiple devices, it gets exponentially complex to keep track of each movie or TV program and to make the back office work efficiently,” Cary says. “You can have hundreds of permutations of a given piece of content once you start talking about clips, different cuts, different encoding and distribution formats.”

EIDR, which began over two years ago as a development project spearheaded by MovieLabs, CableLabs, Comcast and Rovi Corporation with backing from many individual studios and other entities, launched in early 2011 and now is anchoring content initiatives across the ecosystem.

“Complete, accurate and consistent metadata is key to our products and features such as browse, search, filter and recommendations,” notes Steve Heeb, vice president of business development at Comcast. “The use of EIDR will enable us to develop a robust and accurate database of program metadata from multiple sources that can be used across multiple platforms, including VOD, linear and online.”

A big advantage for content producers is the impact EIDR is likely to have on monetization, leading to more aggressive use of online distribution. “EIDR makes it easier for content producers to track and get paid for ad impressions and the use of their assets,” Cary says.

For example, Warner Bros. has invested in several technology initiatives to streamline and automate online interactions with retailers, vendors and consumers, says Darcy Antonellis, president of Warner Bros. technical operations. “EIDR is a key component of these initiatives, providing a global, unique identifier for content assets as they move from creation to consumption,” Antonellis explains.

“Just as our advertising colleagues have seen a need to use a unique ID system for ads, the need for a unique ID to track media and entertainment flowing online also has become obvious,” she continues. “We are actively integrating EIDR into our content workflow and are working with retailers like Microsoft to incorporate the standard over the coming months.”

Similarly, Disney has made EIDR part of its infrastructure supporting multiple digital initiatives, says Arnaud Robert, Disney’s senior vice president of distribution technology. “We have implemented EIDR into our metadata and internal digital workflows, and, working with our distribution partners, we intend to extend its usage to our various distribution channels,” Robert says.

Rovi, a major holder of metadata from movies and programming going back to the dawn of broadcast TV, played a major role in contributing records to “prime the pump,” Cary says. Comcast and others with significant data bases contributed as well.

The non-profit EIDR operation is designed to draw as much content into the database as possible, he adds. “The idea is the fees to join are so ridiculously low anyone can participate,” he says, noting that costs are tiered for contributors to where the highest level is only $5,000, which “gives you unlimited access and registrations.” At the promoter level, where the fee is in the $35,000 range, entities are entitled to be on the EIDR board.

An important new factor in driving participation is the support of two influential industry organizations – The Digital Entertainment Group (DEG), a Hollywood marketing engine, and the Hollywood IT Society (HITS). The two are working together to help drive adoption among studios, post-production houses and service providers.

Source: ScreenPlays

Not Just Mobile: Adobe is Abandoning Flash on TVs as Well

2011-11-12T07:01:00.002-08:00

Adobe announced Wednesday that it would be abandoning its work to enable rich applications on mobile devices through Flash, and would be focusing on HTML5 and Adobe AIR apps instead. But at the same time that it was working on bringing Flash video and applications to mobile devices, it was also hoping to bridge the divide between web video and what could be watched on connected TVs. So what happens to those efforts?

While the market for TV apps is incredibly fragmented, it doesn’t appear that Adobe’s Flash will provide a solution. The company confirmed through a statement that like mobile, it will no longer focus on porting the Flash plugin into web browsers on CE devices, but believes developers should build native apps on those devices instead. An Adobe spokesperson writes:

“Adobe will continue to support existing licensees who are planning on supporting Flash Player for web browsing on digital home devices and are using the Flash Player Porting Kit to do so. However we believe the right approach to deliver content on televisions is through applications, not a web browsing experience, and we will continue to encourage the device and content publishing community down that path.”

Adobe’s efforts to bring Flash to connected TVs, Blu-ray players and other devices, like its mobile Flash plans, were part of its Open Screen Project, which aimed to create a consistent app runtime across multiple devices. The idea was that developers would be able to create a Flash application once and be able to distribute it across web browsers, mobile devices and TVs.

Two-and-a-half years ago, Adobe announced a number of partnerships with OEMs and system-on-chip vendors such as Broadcom, Intel, STMicroelectronics, NXP Semiconductors and Sigma Designs to embed the Flash player into their silicon. But the number of TVs and other CE devices that support the Flash player have been limited to those from Sony and Logitech running the Google TV operating system. And Google TV has hardly been a success.

Now, Adobe is taking a step back from those plans, but not abandoning the TV app segment altogether. Instead of pushing multi-screen browser-based Flash applications, Adobe is hoping to convince developers to create native apps on mobile and TV devices using the Adobe AIR framework. Already some developers are taking advantage of that framework, with publishers like CNet, Epix and YouTube building TV apps for Samsung TVs based on Adobe AIR.

By Ryan Lawler, GigaOM

Google Talk and Hangouts Close to Go Native in Chrome

2011-11-09T03:56:00.000-08:00

Chrome users will soon be able to access Google Talk and Google+ Hangouts video chats through a native, open-source implementation based on the WebRTC protocol, as opposed to the proprietary plugin that’s currently bundled with the browser.

This change also means Hangouts and Google Talk will be replacing the H.264 video codec with Google’s open-source WebM video format.

Google has been using proprietary technology licensed from Vidyo to facilitate voice and video chat within Google Talk as well as Google+ Hangouts until now. However, work has been underway for a while to replace the plugin with an open-source implementation based on WebRTC, a framework for real-time voice and video communications that Google open-sourced in May.

Now it looks like this work will soon pay off: WebRTC Group Product Manager Serge Lachapelle wrote Tuesday morning that his team is “heads down” working on Webkit patches to bring a WebRTC enabled version of Chrome to the public. He added: “You’ll notice the brilliant work by Ericsson, whom have [sic] been helping out a ton in driving this.”

The WebRTC group also recently announced its work to the wider Webkit developer community. The exact timing of the Chrome release with WebRTC is unclear, but Lachapelle hinted at more upcoming news in his post: “Hopefully our next post will be soon, and will include a more useful URL :)”

By Janko Roettgers, GigaOM

SyncTV: Building TV Apps for Almost Every Device

2011-11-09T03:31:00.001-08:00

When it comes to building connected-TV apps, most video providers are stuck trying to decide which devices to build for: After all, it seems like every consumer electronics manufacturer has its own software development kit (SDK) to do so. There are more than a dozen different frameworks for creating applications that run on different connected TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, streaming set-top boxes, tablets, mobile handsets and the like, which is more than most publishers can reasonably be expected to develop for.

Enter SyncTV, which aims to deliver third-party video applications for multiple platforms without going through the process of reinventing the wheel each time a publisher wants to reach a new device. The company delivers video experiences to the PC and Mac, as well as mobile frameworks like Android and iOS. But the real key is in reaching TV screens, with apps built for connected TVs and Blu-ray players.

SyncTV builds apps for connected TVs and other devices from a wide range of major CE manufacturers, such as Sony, Samsung, LG, Vizio, Philips and Panasonic. Its apps are also available on Roku and Boxee Box streaming devices, and it’s also working on applications for the upcoming launch of Microsoft’s new Xbox Live user interface.

Being available on such a wide range of devices is becoming increasingly important for video publishers. When you think about Netflix, for instance, one of that company’s main advantages over competitors has been its relative ubiquity on connected devices. However, that ubiquity comes with a price: Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has admitted to paying an “innovation tax” for being in all of those places. But not everyone has the resources that Netflix does, which are necessary to build all those apps.

With SyncTV, however, video publishers don’t necessarily need to create apps for every device. Because it’s already built the user interface and has the back end necessary for ingest, encoding, digital rights management, ad insertion, reporting and billing, it can simplify the process of rolling out to new devices. It can also reuse a lot of the same code and infrastructure.

For video publishers, that reduces a ton of complexity associated with being everywhere that consumers want them to be. There are already a number of publishers taking advantage of that offer: SyncTV’s named clients include NBC Universal in the UK, French broadcaster M6, U.S.-based VOD provider Avail-TVN, German TV station Wider.TV and South Asian content provider Bollywood Nirvana.

SyncTV is being spun out of DRM provider Intertrust, and it is going independent. The company, which currently has more than 30 employees, is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., and also has offices in France, Spain, the UK, the Netherlands, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and China.

By Ryan Lawler, GigaOM

Google TV Porn Powered by HTML5, Not Native Apps

2011-11-09T03:14:00.003-08:00

Google TV owners can now access XXX-rated content more easily, thanks to a new content channel from porn powerhouse Vivid launched earlier today. Hardcore porn for Google TV makes for a flashy headline, but there’s a more compelling tech story buried in this announcement: Vivid chose to utilize HTML5, not a native Android app, to bring its content onto Google’s living room platform. I was told by a company spokesperson that users simply have to navigate to the Vivid.com website with their Google TV device to be redirected to an optimized web app.

No Market for Porn Apps
Vivid could have gone down a different route as well: Google’s Android Market doesn’t allow any X-rated apps, but Google TV owners are free to install non-market apps on their device, just like on any Android handset. And there are plenty of porn apps available for Android mobile phones and tablets. There’s even an XXX-rated alternative to Google’s own Android market called MiKandi that helps consumers to get adult apps onto their phones.

However, I was told that we should’t expect a MiKandi version for Google TV devices any time soon. “We’re always looking for ways to expand our product to as many screens as we can,” a Mikandi spokesperson told me via email, adding: “At this time, we don’t have immediate plans to extend MiKandi to Google TV.”

HTML5 is More Discreet than Apps
Vivid isn’t alone with its HTML5 stance, either. PinkVisual launched a Google TV web app when the platform was first released a year ago, which hasn’t seen much traffic since. “Like the Google TV itself, it hasn’t taken off very well,” I was told by PinkVisual President Allison Vivas.

The company has a few mobile apps available through MiKandi, but Vivas told me that for the time being, HTML5 seems to be the way to go, at least on the TV screen. “This may still be due to the automatic bookmarking that happens when you download an app versus a browsing history which could easily be deleted,” she explained.

Interoperability is Key
The shame factor of a hardcore porn app on your living room TV may be one reason adult studios gravitate towards HTML5, but there’s also a bigger lesson to be learned from the way the porn industry approaches this new platform. Vivid co-founder Steven Hirsch made it clear that today’s launch isn’t just about Google TV:

“We spent more than a year developing a code base for a robust, standalone Internet-TV channel with a friendly interface for the consumer that can be used with the current Google TV technology and other Internet protocol presentation methods now in development.”

In other words: Vivid didn’t want to just bet on one platform, and instead created a web app that can also easily be used with other HTML5-compatible connected devices.

The porn industry has long been a kind of canary in the coal mine for the entertainment business. They were the first ones to embrace paid content online, and among the first ones to suffer huge losses from online piracy. That’s why both Google and mainstream media companies should take notice when adult studios are now taking a cautions approach towards Google TV, betting on HTML5 to be compatible with any future contenders.

And the success of porn on Google TV could also become a kind of indicator for the general success of the platform. Said Stephen Yagielowicz, senior technology editor for adult industry mag XBiz:

“Anywhere there is a substantial audience of tech-savvy consumers with disposable income, you can be sure that adult entertainment will find a way in. Whether it finds a home and stays, is another matter.”

A Google spokesperson sent us the following statement with regards to adult content on Google TV:

“Anyone can put up a Website and optimize that Website for different devices, including TVs. Users can lock out access to the browser on Google TV through a 4-digit PIN code that can be quickly set up by accessing the “Application Lock” under “Privacy and Safety” in System Settings. Alternatively, users can implement Safe Search for Google TV’s Chrome browser under the same “Privacy and Safety” setting.”

By Janko Roettgers, GigaOM

Technicolor Launches Second-Screen Synching App for Blu-ray, VOD, Broadcast

2011-11-09T02:49:00.000-08:00

With tablet and smartphone use seemingly on a vertical trajectory with no end, Technicolor has decided to roll out a 'second-screen' app that pay-TV operators can offer to enrich their linear and/or video on demand (VOD) offerings.

Analysts say that up to 70% of consumers use a laptop, tablet or mobile device to supplement their home viewing experience, whether engaging in social media or browsing for more information about the program they are viewing. Technicolor MediaEcho makes that easier, by automatically synchronising that secondary content with whatever the consumer is watching.

Information offered at consumer fingertips include cast, crew and production information, historical facts, and ancillary audio and video for tablets that allow viewers to deepen their engagement with the program without cluttering the main screen.

The app can also enable integration of social media, so users can post comments, share content and connect during their viewing experience. MediaEcho can also help with top-line revenue generation, because it can enable e-commerce within the app, allowing fans to purchase items related to the program right from their tablet.

The synching is accomplished via Technicolor’s own audio watermarking technology, which inserts an inaudible high-frequency sound that allows the app to synchronise even in the presence of ambient noise.

Synchronisation of content also works with Blu-ray disc, a feature made possible through BD-Live technology to enable a two-way communication between any Internet-connected Blu-ray Disc player and tablet device.

The intial MediaEcho launch is for Apple iOS and Android.

Technicolor is not the first mover in the market: Miso recently launched the same type of app, inking deals with DirecTV and AT&T.

By Michelle Clancy, Rapid TV News

Higher Frame Rates for More Immersive Video and Television

2011-11-07T07:12:00.003-08:00

The frame rates used for film and television have been fixed for the best part of a century. A belief has arisen that the frame rates chosen are close to an upper limit, and that little improvement can be expected from an increase.

In this paper we will challenge this view, reporting on some experimental work that shows that the use of higher frame rates for capture, storage, transmission and display offers clear advantages at the resolutions associated with SD and HDTV.

We will also explain why the frame rates currently in use will increasingly limit the quality of television pictures if the size of displays and/or the resolution of television systems continue to grow.

Source: BBC R&D

G-Tech Rolls Out 3D Cover Glass Solutions

2011-11-07T06:39:00.001-08:00

G-Tech Optoelectronics (GTOC), an affiliate of Foxconn Electronics, has rolled out 3D cover glass solutions and is likely to win orders from branded smartphone vendors in the first half of 2012, according to industry sources.

GTOC has been cooperating with a total of five handset makers on the development of 3D cover glass for six months and the five makers are expected to begin volume production of smartphones and tablet PCs using GTOC's cover glass, the sources noted.

GTOC is expected to debut on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) soon. The company posted revenues of NT$5.3 billion (US$175.97 million), net profits of NT$752 million, and an EPS of NT$3.80 in the first three quarters of 2011.

By Yenting Chen and Steve Shen, DigiTimes

Apple 3D Display is Groundbreaking According to Insider

2011-11-07T02:36:00.002-08:00

Apple is working on a glasses-free 3D display that—according to an insider—will reinvent the way consumers perceive 3D. This was already discussed in Steve Jobs’ biography. Our Apple insider tells us that this display may not be limited to just television sets.

“We have prototypes of many different sized 3D displays—all the way from 3.5 inches to 32 inches. These displays are nothing like the glasses-free 3D displays that have a very narrow sweet spot for viewing. I can’t even describe how amazing they are. You’ll hear more about this by the middle of the year.”

Los Angeles industry analyst Paul Mueller believes that Apple could help the crawling 3D market really take off. “Consumers—in general—still believe 3D is a gimmick. Right now, Apple is the only company that can convince them it isn’t.”

By Daryl Deino, LA Gadgets Examiner

The Hobbit - Production Diary Video

2011-11-06T12:45:00.002-08:00

Click to watch the video
Source: YouTube

Global Technology Moves to the Motion of Israeli Sensors

2011-11-02T05:49:00.004-07:00

At the end of August, there were only four major players competing over the dominance over the 3D motion sensor market which develops technology for capturing body motion and converting it into digital information for games, home appliances and cellular devices.

Three of the four contenders, which own leading patents in the industry, are well known giant corporations Microsoft, Apple and Qualcomm. The fourth is a small Israeli company named XTR otherwise known as Extreme Reality. The Israeli company developed technology that can turn any digital or web camera into a state of the art 3D sensor.

XTR, however, is not the only Israeli company which deals in motion capturing technology. The most well known Israeli company in the field is PrimeSense which sells 3D motion sensors to Microsoft. The company supplies Microsoft with millions of PCBs at $10 a piece and estimates are that it cut a $100 million coupon on the sales of 10 million unites of Kinect – Microsoft's motion sensor which is based on Primesense's technology.

Military Vision Systems
Sunday Calcalist revealed that another Israeli company is joining the war between the technology giant over the 3D sensor market: Intel is negotiating with Invision for the $50 million acquisition of the small Israeli company. In the long run, Invision's technology will enable Intel to launch 3D vision chips and software and market them to television, game console, smartphone and tablet manufacturers.

The three Israeli companies are not alone: a number of other Israeli companies deal in the development of image processing technologies that incorporate complex algorithms and electro-optics to produce 3D vision systems.

"Many of these technologies came out of the army", explains XTR founder David Geva in an interview with Calcalist. "Many military engineers migrated to the civil industry and it is only natural that the industry is developing in Israel".

'Now They All Want a Piece'
PrimeSense CEO Inon Bracha has another take on the profusion of companies in the digital imaging industry – the success of his own company.

"When Ceragon Communications was established, many companies were founded in an attempt to reproduce its success but there is only one Ceragon. Most companies in Israel were not able to raise funds until the Kinect became a success and now everyone wants a piece of the action."

Izhar Shay from Canaan Partners VC fund, a key investor in PrimeSense, believes that image processing expertise is not enough and attributes Israel's success to the required multidisciplinary know-how that the local market can offer.

"In order to develop a 3D vision controller, you need knowledge in video, signal development, electro-optics, ergonomics and cognitive psychology on top of expertise in all aspects of the program. It's hard to find such a combination of fields like Israel has", he says.

Shay was not surprised by Intel's intention to enter the content field and notes the giant's expansion strategy, acquiring, for example, McAfee security software developer for $7 billion and more recently its acquisition of two Israeli companies unrelated to the PCB industry – Graphtech which develops technology for the transfer of video and data from PCs to cell phones and Telmap which develops navigation applications.

However, Bracha still recalls Intel's last floundering attempt to penetrate the smart-home market when it acquired Israeli Oplus for $100 million. "Intel cannot change its skin and become a different company. Some things money can't buy".

Aside from PrimeSense, all the companies below are up for sale. As they develop small components for large systems which give the competitive edge to technology giants such as Microsoft and Intel, chances are high that the acquisition spree will continue. Calcalist marks the candidates for the next exits.

PrimeSense: the Chip that Found its Way into Kinect
In 2009, Microsoft's hardware division execs had to make a decision which sensor technology to incorporate into the Kinect system, the popular Xbox 360 motion sensor. They deliberated between two Israeli companies, 3DV and PrimeSense and eventually decided to go with both and acquired the 3DV employees and a license to use PrimeSense's technology as the latter turned down the acquisition offer.

However, Microsoft was more impressed by PrimeSense's technology – its chip met the high performance standards and could capture body movements of more people from greater distances and under various light conditions. 3DV was dumped at a loss and its employees stayed on to support PrimeSense's technology.

The rest is history: since Kinect's launch in the beginning of the year, over 10 million devices have been sold – 8 million within the first two months – a Guinness world record for the sales of a single electronic device.

PrimeSense is not stopping at computer games though. The company is examining smart house technologies for hands-free operation of consumer electronics.

In the meantime, PrimeSense has launched pilots with megs manufacturers such as Asus, Lenovo and Chinese giants Haiel and Hisense. However, entering new markets is no mean feat. Bracha notes that global slowdown effects consumer indices and considerably impedes the introduction of 3D into other areas of life.

Product: 3D motion controller that captures body motion and detects facial features
Founded in 2006 by Aviad Maizels, Alex Shafonet Dima Reis, Ofir Sharon and Tamir Berliner
CEO: Inon Bracha
Location and employees: Tel-Aviv, 200
Capital raised: $80 million
Investors: Silverlake, Canaan, Genesis, Gemini
Clients: Microfost, Asus, Lenovo
Estimated earnings for 2010: $80 million

MobilEye: Impact Alert
Mobileye was founded by one of Israel's leading specialists in image processing, Professor Amnon Shasua from the Hebrew University and colleague Ziv Aviram who is the company CEO.

Over the past decade, the company raised $157 million and became a global leader in impact detection sensors. Mobileye technology does not translate body motion to VR data like the rest of the companies mentioned here but it uses body motion to detect nearby pedestrians or vehicles.

Product: Vehicles impact detection sensors
Founded in 1999, by Professor Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram
Location and employees: Jerusalem, 200
Capital raised: $157 million
Investors: Glenrock, Leumi Partners, Goldman Sachs, UMI, Yacov Shahar. Ari Steimatzky, Israel Kaz
Clients: Clal Insurance, Eldan, Hertz, Avis, BNP Paribas

Invision: Intel's Response to Microsoft's Kinect
Last sunday Calcalist revealed that Intel is negotiating over the acquisition of Invision Biometrics – an upcoming company previously unpublicized which operates under a cloak of secrecy.

The company's products are based on patents developed in the laboratory of Professor Ron Kimmel's, a Technion image processing expert. The company's initial development was a 3D human model developed in Professor Kimmel's lab.

Only after PrimeSense's success, its founders conceived the idea to register their technology as a patent and sell it to technology giants. The Technion is on of the company's prime shareholders.

Intel will probably incorporate Invision's patent with other recently acquired patents by Israeli startup Omek Interactive which raised $7 million last summer. Invision's technology will constitute the "eyes" of the motion sensors.

It should be noted that while the market dubs Invision Intel's PrimeSense, Invision is a young company which has yet to develop an existing product and is surely not on equal financial footing as PrimeSense.

In fact, Invisions holds PCB design patents but has not yet produced one. The first chips based on the company's technology will probably be developed by Intel in the event that the acquisition comes to fruition.

Product: 3D sensor PCB patent
Founded in 2011, by Sagi Ben Moshe, Professor Ron Kimmel and Lior Ben Hur
Location and employees: Yokneam, 10
Capital raised: $2-3 million
Investors: Olaf Roge, Nutcracker

XTR: A Real Alternative to Primesense
Extreme Reality (XTR) is the developer of gesture control interface and motion capture software which can use input from 2D cameras. The technology aims to make high cost sensors such as the Kinect redundant. XTR's software can be installed on cell phones, computers, tablets and television sets with simple 2D cameras.

Since the company's technology can process a wide range of information and costs only several of dollars, it may to be a real alternative to Primesense's chip that sells for $10 a piece.

Similarly to PrimeSense, XTR's technology captures real time 3D full body motion and converts the information into player motion. XTR provides external developers with a software bundle to which they can tack on their own applications. Texas Instruments has already begun incorporating XTR's technology in its top box and cell phone boards.

Recently, the company has undergone expansion and reorganization which placed former executive at Modu and Next Technologies Elad Dubzinski at the helm.

Despite being a veteran company, XTR has yet to take a leading position on the market and it is PrimeSense that created a market niche with a successful product with sales in the tens of millions of dollars.

Product: 3D capture software
Founded in 2005 by Dor Givon
Location and employees: Headquarters in Herzliya and sales office in Tokyo; 28
CEO: Elad Dubzinski
Capital raised: $4-5 million
Investors: Texas Instruments
Clients: Texas Instruments

EyeSight: Change Channels With a Gesture
Eyesight delivers short range gesture recognition technology and deals in 2D motion analysis. Eyesight's technology enables touch free operation of cell pones and television sets.

In its former years, Eyesight focused on cell phone technology and developed hands-free interfaces for Nokia smartphones enabling users to operate their phone using hands gestures.

Recently, the company expanded its operations and as Chinese TV manufacturer Hisense has begun delivering the technology in its television sets. Eyesight had also signed a cooperation agreement with Chinese content company Huan TV which develops applications for digital TV.

Product: Gesture recognition based software
Founded in 2004 by Zvika and Itay Katz
Location and employees: Tel-Aviv; 20
Capital raised: $4 million
Investors: Eli Talmor and Rami Lipman
Clients: Hisense and Huan TV

Omek Interactive: The Brains Behind the Sensor
Whereas Inovision is considered Intel's future 3D sensor hardware supplier, startup company Omek Interactive is regarded as the "brains" behind the sensor. The company's software maps image depth and the company develops a software bundle which may be used by external developers to develop image depth based applications.

Omek's application operates on 3D cameras such as the Kinect but cannot operate by 2D cameras such as cell phones or web cams which makes the company's operations complementary to that of Primesense rather than posing competition.

The company plans to further develop the technology for digital set-top boxes, mobiles and game consoles but depends on the incorporation of 3D cameras in such devices. So far, Omek Interactive has recruited several business partners among them Lenovo and Panasonic.

Product: 3D sensor technology which maps image depth
Founded: 2007, by Janine and Gershom Kutliroff
Location and employees: Beit Shemesh; 55
Capital raised: $14.4 million
Investors: Intel, Zitlman, FF Assets, Everett, Chestnut
Clients: Lenovo, Panasonic

Side-Kick: 3D Game Developer
Side-Kick is a global 3D gaming pioneer – even before the Kinect stormed the markets last year, the company launched two of its games for the Chinese game console iSec produced by Lenovo's subsidiary, Eedoo.

Side-Kick's technology can operate on any motion controller, especially Kinect which is installed in over 10 million Xbox devices.

Side-Kick's founders are well seasoned game developers: Bendov founded prominent gaming companies in Israel such as Double Fusion; Raviv worked at US gaming company Eidos and Sela founded the animation lab at the JVP media compound in Jerusalem.

Product: 3D sensor-based games
Founded in 2010 by Gay Bendov, Asaf Sela and Tal Raviv
Location and employees: Bnei Nrak; 7
Capital raised: $600,000
Investors: Jasmine Group, Kima Ventures, Tevel and Wekix
Clients: Eedoo – A Lenovo subsidiary

By Assaf Gilad, Calcalist

ISO Vote on 3D Safety Guidelines Closes Nov. 7

2011-10-27T03:15:00.001-07:00

At the 3D @ Home User Experience Technical Conference (UETC) in September, we had a chance to hear more about standards development activities based on initiatives from Korea and Japan. In subsequent email dialogs with the Japan group, we have now learned that ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is closing a ballot on drafting 3D safety guidelines on November 7. Information on these guidelines can be downloaded here.

This is just the first phase of the process, however. Following the vote, a period of discussion on the voting results and comments will follow, leading to the development of a working draft document by April 2012. This will be circulated again, followed by a series of votes.

Japan issued its first draft 3D safety guidelines document back in 2002 (published by JEITA) and began working with ISO in 2004 via an international workshop. During the discussions, they found out that guidelines are necessary and important for 3D viewing comfort and safety.

Current activity is underway in a new working group called WG 12 on Image Safety, which is under ISO/TC 159 (Ergonomics) / SC 4 (Ergonomics of human-system interaction). The purpose of these discussions is, "To provide requirements and recommendation from a viewpoint of ergonomics for reducing the potential for visual discomfort, asthenopia and visual fatigue when viewing stereoscopic images."

The group’s efforts regarding stereoscopic images are focused on the ways to mitigate the effects of Visually Induced Motion Sickness (VIMS) and Visual Fatigue caused by Stereoscopic Images (VFSI). The latest version of the full safety guidelines document, developed by the 3D Consortium (3DC), JEITA and AIST, was released last year and covers hardware, content and viewer responses. This is a Japanese-only document now, but English and Chinese versions should be available shortly.

Hiroyasu Ujike, a researcher at National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), is leading the efforts with the ISO. In an email exchange with him, he noted that, "Based on discussions in the WG, I would like to find out and build a common framework for 3D Image Safety, and sharing it as "international guidelines."

Potential areas of discussion include:

Interocular difference of images, as optical stimuli, in terms of geometrical distortions, luminance, etc.
Binocular parallax and disparity
Enhancement of 2D problems by the stereoscopic presentation
Temporal changes in the above items
Viewing environment and viewing conditions

By Chris Chinnock, Display Daily

Understanding AVCHD

2011-10-26T08:23:00.002-07:00

When DVCAM, DVCPRO and DVCPRO50 were introduced, manufacturers positioned these proprietary formats as “professional” compared to the “consumer” DV format. After working with all four formats, it became clear that differences were confined to their tape recording system. DV, DVCAM, DVCPRO and DVCPRO50 all use the same video codec. (DVCPRO50 employs dual 25Mb/s DV codecs.)

AVCHD, developed jointly by Panasonic and Sony, is a proprietary version of H.264/AVC. Specifically, AVCHD employs both the H.264 Main Profile (MP) and High Profile (HP). The HP codec provides important image quality advantages over the MP codec. Thus, although AVCHD is marketed as a single codec, it uses a pair of codec profiles. (The HP codec is downward compatible with the MP codec.) Moreover, although AVCCAM and NXCAM are marketed as professional formats, both use the same AVCHD HP codec. As you can see, understanding AVCHD, AVCCAM and NXCAM is more complex than understanding DVCAM, DVCPRO and DVCPRO50.

Figure 1 - HD H.264/AVC profiles and levels

Baseline Profile
The lowest profile used by an HD camera is BP. BP supports only the less efficient context-adaptive variable-length coding (CAVLC). Level 3.1 supports 720p30 at up to 14Mb/s, while Level 3.2 and Level 4.0 support 720p60 at up to 20Mb/s — although at such a low data rate, only 720p30 would be visually acceptable. Level 4.1 supports 720p60 at up to 50Mb/s.

Main Profile
MP offers the next performance level. MP supports both CAVLC and the more efficient context-adaptive binary-arithmetic coding (CABAC). MP also supports B-slices in addition to I- and P-slices. Because B data packets provide H.264 with its greatest encoding efficiency, MP decreases the probability of compression artifacts upon rapid motion. AVCHD uses MP and higher profiles.

A B-reference is generated when two motion vectors are defined from the displacement between the Current Block and Reference Blocks. With H.264, “bi” means two vectors — not two directions as it does for MPEG-2.

Several levels may be used with MP. Level 4.0 supports 720p59.94 and 1080i59.94 up to 20Mb/s (17Mb/s), while Level 4.1 supports data rates up to 50Mb/s (22Mb/s to 24Mb/s). The ability of Levels 4.0 and 4.1 to support 1080i59.94 means that 23.976fps can be recorded after applying 2:3 pulldown. This capability also means that 1080p29.97 can be recorded as 1080i59.94/29.97PsF because its frame rate is equal to the 29.97fps used by 1080i59.94.

High Profile
HP offers all the capabilities of MP (CABAC coding and B-slices) plus an optional capability that greatly improves codec efficiency — the ability to dynamically switch between 8 × 8 and 4 × 4 submacroblocks during compression. Image areas with high detail are compressed using 4 × 4 pixel blocks, while areas with low detail are compressed using 8 × 8 pixel blocks. The latter generates less data; therefore, more bandwidth is available for data from areas with fine detail.

During encoding, each 16 × 16 pixel macroblock is partitioned into four 8 × 8 submacroblocks and 16 4 × 4 submacroblocks. The encoder can switch among working with 16 × 16 blocks, 8 × 8 blocks and 4 × 4 blocks.

Figure 2

When predictions are made for 16 × 16 macroblocks, four modes are used:

Figure 3

When predictions are made for 8 × 8 submacroblocks, nine modes are used:

Figure 4

Canon AVCHD camcorders were the first to use HP H.264. Shooters quickly found MP software decoders were unable to decode Canon recordings.

An HP encoder supports 720p59.94 and 1080i59.94 using multiple levels. Level 4.0 supports data rates up to 20Mb/s (17Mb/s). Level 4.1, used by AVCHD, AVCCAM and NXCAM, supports data rates up to 50Mb/s (22Mb/s to 24Mb/s). Blu-ray employs Level 4.1 using a video data rate up to 40Mb/s.

Level 4.2, available in camcorders using AVCHD 2.0, supports a data rate up to 50Mb/s (28Mb/s) for 1080p59.94. When AVCHD is recorded on a DVD, the disc's maximum spin speed limits the data rate to 17Mb/s. Therefore, when you shoot either MP or HP Level 4.1, or HP Level 4.2, you will not be able to archive to a DVD.

GOP Structure
Each frame is encoded as one or more I-, P- and B-slices. Typically, every half-second, an H.264 encoder outputs an I-frame — a picture with all intra-encoded slices.

Audio Encoding
H.264/AVC encodes stereo audio using ACC or LPCM audio. AVCHD audio is restricted to AC-3 Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo or 5.1 surround. (NXCAM camcorders record un-compressed audio using PCM audio sampled at 48kHz.)

H.264/AVC I- and P-slice Encoding
One of the many characteristics of H.264/AVC that makes it difficult to understand is its use of terms similar to those used when discussing MPEG-2 — for example, “I,” “P” and “B.” An H.264 I-slice is a portion of a picture composed of macroblocks, all of which are based upon macroblocks within the same picture.

Thus, H.264 introduces a new concept called slices — segments of a picture bigger than macroblocks but smaller than a frame. Just as there are I-slices, there are P- and B-slices. P- and B-slices are portions of a picture composed of macroblocks that are not dependent on macroblocks in the same picture.

H.264 encoding begins by chroma downsampling to 4:2:0. Next, each incoming picture is divided into macroblocks. (When interlaced video is encoded, both fields are compressed together.) Many of the same techniques used to compress an MPEG-2 I-frame are used to compress macroblocks making up an I-slice. Each 16 × 16 pixel macroblock is further partitioned into four 8 × 8 submacroblocks. (See Figure 2.) The encoder can switch between working with 16 × 16 blocks and 8 × 8 blocks.

Blocks, of course, are located next to other blocks. For example, the Current Block (yellow) in the Figure 1 frame to be encoded has a block to the left (green) and a block above (blue). The latter two blocks are Previous Blocks. Reference Pixels are located at the left (dark green) and lower (dark blue) boundaries between Previous Blocks and the Current Block. Four different types of prediction methods (modes) are used with 16 × 16 macroblocks. (See Figure 3.)

When predictions are made for 8 × 8 submacroblocks, nine modes are used. (See Figure 4.)

In all cases, the mode that best predicts the content of the Current Block is selected as the Current Prediction Mode. The Current Prediction Mode is linked to the Current Block. Each Predicted Block (from the column and row of Reference Pixels) is “subtracted” from the Current block, thereby generating a Residual (difference) Block. Each Residual Block is compressed, linked to the Current Block, and during decoding used as a picture “correction” block.

Once an I-slice has been encoded, P-slices are encoded. Motion estimation is methodically performed, and macroblocks in other frames are searched for the contents of the Current Block. H.264 supports searching within up to five pictures before or after the current picture. (AVCHD supports searching within four pictures.) Obviously, the greater the number of reference pictures used, the greater the memory that must be in an encoder. For this reason, AVCHD cameras typically only support one or two reference frames.

The block with the best measured content match becomes a Reference Block. A P-reference is generated when only a single motion vector is defined by the displacement between Current and Reference Blocks. Each motion vector and each P-slice compressed Residual Block are linked to a P-slice.

BY Steve Mullen, Broadcast Engineering

AMWA Draws Up Delivery Spec

2011-10-26T05:59:00.000-07:00

AS-02, which has been in development since 2007, is designed for use by post-production facilities, broadcasters and distributors that face the challenge of distributing programmes to a variety of platforms.

“A particular episode of a programme may need to be rendered to tens of different versions for linear broadcast, on-demand platforms, use by airlines and so on,” AMWA executive director Brad Gilmer told Broadcast. “Together with audio tracks and subtitle files, that might result in hundreds or thousands of elements that need to be held together.”

AS-02 will be a specific way of using MXF (Material Exchange Format) with video codec that will support MPEG-2, H.264 and JPEG2000. It will also wrap multiple mono, stereo and surround audio tracks, and carry subtitles.

The application specification is currently undergoing AMWA’s intellectual property rights (IPR) review process. The review closes on 11 November, with ratification of the spec expected to take place at AMWA’s board meeting on 14 November.

A statement from Avid described the spec as “a cornerstone of the future content creation paradigm”. It said: “With migration of physical to file-based workflows largely complete, the coming phase of media enterprise consolidation will be predicated upon technologies like AS-02.”

Gilmer added: “There is a lot of interest in this from companies facing the challenges of professional media distribution. “It used to be easy to distribute content when you sent a tape to playout and everyone watched the programme at the same time, but now people watch on myriad devices and the goal is to get content to as many platforms as possible.”

By George Bevir, Broadcast

BXF Explained

2011-10-24T09:32:00.001-07:00

For years, broadcast automation systems and business systems needed manual access and conversion interface applications to convert metadata to/from their respective systems. The multitudes of proprietary interfaces are difficult to keep up with, especially as system upgrades and enhancements were added to either side.

The new SMPTE 2021 BXF 1.0 schema standard is one of the biggest advances in broadcast automation in this decade. The holy grail of automation has always been to provide a system that uses a central database for metadata between traffic and master control. Since centralizing a database between business systems and master control/operations is easier said than done, the next best thing is to standardize on a communication schema for the exchange of mission-critical data.

Technology standards are needed to organize varying systems and technologies. While manufacturers offer the promise of tight integration between varying systems, they still offer varied proprietary systems. BXF changes that. The new open SMPTE schema standard levels the playing field for manufacturers. By enabling their systems to work within the protocol's framework, manufacturers can assure broadcasters of getting nonproprietary full-feature metadata conversions and messaging systems.

History and Stats
In 2008, SMPTE developed and published a schema standard called BXF (Broadcast Exchange Format) 1.0 or SMPTE 2021. In a nutshell, BXF was developed to replace the various archaic text conversion schemas that have been developed over the years to interface, access and transfer schedules, playlists, dubs lists, record lists, delete lists, etc., from business systems to automation systems.

Today, SMPTE representatives note there are dozens of manufacturers that have developed applications and workflow systems using the BXF schema. There have been more than 150 national and international SMPTE members, including industry-leading manufacturers, involved in the development and enhancement of BXF. In this new digital world of broadcasting where multichannel, multimedia operations are the norm, the BXF schema standard helps manufacturers build applications for automating processes and procedures to next-generation enterprise levels.

The current BXF 1.0 includes an Exchange Schema Definition (XSD) collection for schedules, as-run, content, content transfers, etc. The BXF schema helps manufacturers simplify and automate the communication and workflow between a broadcaster's diverse business and transmission systems such as traffic, program management, content delivery and automation. The master control and traffic departments are the most common broadcast uses. When properly implemented, BXF-based applications automate the workflow process, streamline operations, maximize value of content and inventory, and increase flexibility for sales and advertisers.

As an XML-based communication schema, BXF allows for near-real-time messaging and updating between disparate systems. The XML-based messages include instructions about program or interstitial changes, allowing an automated approach to as-run reporting and schedule changes. Other BXF capabilities include near-real-time dub orders, missing spots reports and content management.

In the past, a phone call to/from traffic was the norm. Seeing a traffic department representative in master control to make changes to the paper schedule is usually a daily event. In today's world, business departments need to know exactly when a program or interstitial has aired and if it aired correctly, and they need to know it as soon as possible.

Revenue Optimization
One of the most important factors about BXF-based applications is that they allow the decision-making aspects of master control schedule changes to be made in the traffic department. Traffic personnel can maximize revenue opportunities by providing lucrative replacements to any missing spot scenario. Or, when lucrative missing “copy” finally arrives and is ingested into playout video servers, traffic can make decisions on which interstitials/programs to drop and replace. Traffic has advertiser contract information giving them the ability to switch programs and interstitials to more lucrative advertisers.

The sales department also benefits from BXF-based applications. Because of the automated near-real-time fashion of the BXF messaging schema, the sales department can make last-minute, higher-revenue interstitial or program additions to the on-air schedule. So while BXF schemas lower costs through standardizing, streamlined processes and minimized manual changes/inputting, they also generate more revenue through revenue optimization.

Comprehensive Event Structure
In creating playout schedules, the goal is to create a schedule with the minimum and most efficient amount of effort. BXF-based applications simplify the creation of complex multiline event situations by automating the creation of multiple event lines within a playout schedule. In the most efficient configuration, traffic does little to activate a complex playout scenario like a live news break for example. For traffic personnel, it may be as simple as creating a one-line traffic schedule with a predefined identification number. A BXF-based application and the master control automation system take that one-line traffic schedule and convert it into a complex multiline playout schedule with all the needed secondary events. If BXF-based applications are properly configured with predefined conversion rules, master control personnel are not saddled with creating or fixing complex multiline event structures.

Latest Applications
News production automation is the latest craze in broadcast automation. A handful of manufacturers have developed systems to automate live newscast productions. The more advanced news production automation systems repurpose content for distribution via Internet, mobile devices, VOD and syndication. A key aspect of these systems is the ability to monetize content assets. Interfacing with traffic and billing systems, via BXF-based applications, helps to maximize advertising avails to other platforms. BXF-based applications automate the heavy lifting of scheduling, changing and verifying ads in live on-air and live streaming productions.

Content Metadata Management
Beyond schedules and as-runs, access and distribution of database metadata is another of BXF's benefits. Business systems such as sales, programming and rights management use BXF-based schemas and applications to automatically populate centralized data warehouses with cost and scheduling data. The master control automation database can be populated with extensive and accurate metadata from traffic systems. Media Asset Management (MAM) and Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems use database information from business systems also. News production systems use BXF-based applications to automate schedule changes and verify information for on-air, VOD, mobile and IPTV schedules. BXF-based applications and features can allow for the exchange of metadata among systems that may not have direct access to content.

Content Movement Instructions
As rich media content moves from place to place, the metadata associated with this content moves also. This usually is a manual process or one with error-prone work-arounds such as hot-folders. Today, there are BXF-based applications that can automate the transfer of metadata that originates from advertising agencies and business systems to master control, nearline and archive MAM/DAM systems.

For example, let's say traffic makes a change request via a BXF schema message to master control, and a new interstitial is added to the master control playout schedule. Once the message is accepted by master control and the event is added to the schedule, the master control system will begin searching for that rich media within its automation database. If the rich media is located on a nearline and/or archive system, the master control automation or MAM/DAM system will activate a transfer request for that rich media. Metadata from the business systems will populate the master control and media asset management systems database. BXF-based applications can create move-instruction messages to activate a system's physical transfer of content from source to destination.

The Spotlight Moves to Business Systems
As BXF-based applications become more popular, we can see business systems playing a larger role in the control and monitoring of broadcast production systems such as master control automation, MAM, DAM, etc. It's clear that improving and advancing operations, procedures and workflows that are upstream of master control is now more important than ever for broadcasters. The spotlight will shift to the traffic, programming, sales and rights management systems. For example, it makes sense for traffic to be responsible for master control metadata and schedule changes. With advertiser contracts in hand, the traffic department has the information to make the best possible decisions.

Cost Versus Benefit
We've mentioned many times during this report that BXF-based applications and their open-standard schema save on costs. To factor how much, you must first define cost and values to each aspect of the workflow and operation, multiply personnel and wage costs by the hours it takes to transfer files, manually update databases, manually correct schedules, manually enter and correct data in databases, plus e-mails, phone calls, meetings, etc. Define the costs of how much time and effort is being exerted by functioning in a manual mode.

Value is the next factor. What is the average value of your interstitials and programs? How much revenue would be lost if an interstitial or program did not air or it aired incorrectly, requiring a make-good? Value can also mean potential revenue. By offering automated processes, last-minute changes can incur additional revenue. Near-real-time updating is constantly showing commercial avails. These benefits have value. Value can also be given to your on-air look. How do we compare to the competition? Automated systems by definition give you a higher up-time percentage and better on-air look than stations without automation.

Implementation
Implementing BXF-based applications involves hardware, software and a good amount of workflow changes. The majority of a BXF implementation is reorganizing and revamping your workflow process. In fact, you'll spend more time on redefining duties and tasks than you will with the physical implementation of hardware and software. In physical terms, the BXF-based applications and their schemas run best on server-class hardware with modern network accessibility to all parties involved.

To implement BXF in your facility, you must first understand the needs. Then, understand how BXF will benefit your system. You must also understand the manufacturer and its integration of BXF schema standards in its products. Once you've pinpointed the areas where BXF-based applications can be used, devise a plan. Creating a diagram and documenting is always a good first step.

Even though automating simplifies an operation, it's only smart to have accurate documentation. The main reasons for documentation include the training of new staff, for trouble-shooting issues and for future configuration changes or enhancements. Test offline and verify the results. Train staff on how the new processes and procedure will work, and then activate your BXF-based applications.

BXF 2.0
The SMPTE BXF standard and schema is alive and constantly changing and updating. SMPTE representatives note there are big advances coming in the next version of BXF. SMPTE balloting and voting are still required, but there are a few new advances worth noting. If voting passes, the next BXF version standard will soon provide support for simultaneous program events in master control.

A simultaneous program event scenario occurs when there is a closing credits DVE squeeze while simultaneously starting the next program. BXF will properly report timestamps and durations for programing and interstitials. Previously, secondary automation events such as DVE, logos, crawls, animation keys, etc. were considered nonprogram events. In BXF 2.0, the plan is that secondary events can be identified as program events for proper automation as-run reporting.

Multilanguage support is also planned for BXF Version 2.0. If committee voting passes, the BXF schema will be enhanced to allow for multiline, noncontrol program titles that can be places on the schedule in multiple languages. The noncontrol information lines are used by program managers to properly schedule and verify, via as-run, multilanguage programming. Master control operators will also benefit by knowing if a program will run on other output channels in another language or that the program has multilanguage audio channels.

The Future
There are many enhancements coming in future releases of the BXF schema standard. Most notably is how the BXF schema will be used in application to interface with rich media MXF files. BXF-based applications will someday have the ability to map and extract metadata information from MXF files. For example, if a station or network receives an MXF file from a distributor, a BXF schema-based application can extract the metadata from the MXF file without having to wait for a hard copy sent separate via paper timesheet or e-mail.

Combining metadata with rich media is a common operation in many applications for European broadcaster. For example, metadata extraction is automatically entered into the master control automation system for playout. Databases in master control and traffic for spot or programming metadata is not common like it is in the U.S.

The EBU, Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) and their Framework for Interoperability Media Services (FIMS) initiative are working to improve how metadata and rich media are managed in a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) environment. It is hoped that the output of this initiative will soon be brought to SMPTE for due process standardization.

We can also expect more rights management support in the future. As our industry is quickly moving from multichannel to multichannel/multimedia operations, rights management is more important than ever. Both broadcasters and content owners will benefit by accessing near-real-time information regarding their content. BXF schema-based application manufacturers are working to make these options and features a reality.

Thus far, advertising agencies have not used BXF. SMPTE representatives hope that one day ad agencies will also be able to benefit from BXF. National advertising and content metadata begins with advertisers and ad agencies. By adding ad agencies to the broadcasting workflow, metadata accuracy can be improved and operations can be more streamlined. For example, today interstitials have unique agency identification code. If they used BXF-based schema and applications, this agency identification code would stay with the metadata throughout the entire end-to-end workflow. The metadata would begin at content creation, then stay through advertising buys, content distribution, playout, as-run, business reconciliation and finally to verification, affidavit creation and billing.

Why BXF?
Many manufacturers think the adoption of the BXF schema standard shows a commitment to and support of a broadcaster's right to choose the best systems available. Inventory and revenue optimization work extremely well with the BXF standard in the mix. Competition is a good thing for the industry, and it raises the bar of functionality. Manufacturers are eager to compete to ensure broadcasters remain competitive in a fast-changing multichannel, multimedia digital world. Standards such as BXF are the best way to ensure that happens.

BXF schema-based applications are becoming an essential component of highly automated broadcast operations. The notion of both eliminating cumbersome manual file exchange and having a near-real-time exchange of data between production and business systems is a good example of how today's broadcast technology provides more functionality and requires less time to manage.

By Sid Guel, Broadcast Engineering

200-inch Full HD Glasses-Free 3D Display is World's Largest

2011-10-24T04:57:00.002-07:00

Click to watch the video
Source: DigInfo TV

Jobs on Apple TV: “I Finally Cracked It”

2011-10-24T03:42:00.002-07:00

Apple may drop a full-fledged television, according to the new biography on Steve Jobs, which is published today in the US. “I finally cracked it,” said Jobs to author Walter Isaacson. According to the Washington Post, the new book, “Steve Jobs”, has a major product reveal: a proper connected TV set from Apple.

Rumours about a TV set from Apple have been circulating for months. It seems logical that after cracking the music market, Jobs had set its sights on also cracking movies and television. But so far, Apple did not succeed in producing a similar solution for the TV screen.

At the moment, the company sells a set-top box that company officials have called a “hobby.” “He very much wanted to do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players, and phones: make them simple and elegant,” Isaacson wrote.

Isaacson continued: “‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ he told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’”

So far, other connected TV ventures from software companies have failed to take off, such as those from Microsoft and Google. However, Apple has a very powerful tool in its hands with the iTunes ecosytem, which could be adopted for television.

During the past few months, Apple has registered a number of patents related to its TV product. The Patently Apple blog from watcher Jack Purcher has opened an archive on all posts about Apple patents related to the Apple TV.

By Robert Briel, Broadband TV News

3D Broadcasting Dominates IBC

2011-10-24T03:32:00.001-07:00

3DTV was arguably the hot topic at IBC, thanks largely to the presence of James Cameron who made at least six public appearances and explored further in this IBC round up.

The central message from the show was that if 3D is to go mass market then a hardboiled business model needs cementing. The emphasis was on the production aspect of that model in acknowledgement that without practical and inexpensive technology and workflows the content gap needed for 3D channels will not be filled.

“The current phase of 3D began with the clunky, cabled and complex approach,” noted Sony’s senior VP of engineering and SMPTE President, Peter Lude, in a conference session examining 3D’s future. “We are now into phase two which is about greater automation and computer analysis with the aim of making it easier to use rigs, correct errors and reduce manual convergence.”

That is something that Cameron Pace Group (CPG), 3ality Technica and others are working toward in the outside broadcast environment although the substitution of all convergence ops and stereographers by machines, which appears to be CPG’s line in the interests of economic efficiency, is a bone of contention.

“Just as you wouldn’t replace the creative skill of a camera operator who is framing a scene in accordance with the context of the action in front of them, so a convergence puller’s critical judgement can’t be easily replaced,” insists stereographer Richard Hingley.

Greater automation and more agile kit is needed and there is an argument, acknowledged even by their manufacturers, that stereo rigs are a rung on an evolutionary ladder.

“Rigs are large and cumbersome and heavy and a greater degree of electronics will help streamline the systems but quality stereo work can only be achieved using top of the range imagers and mirror systems which give a wide range of interaxial distance and control,” observed Florian Schaefer, product specialist at P+S Technik.

The counter argument can be heard from companies like Meduza Sales which has begun taking orders for its dual lens 4K-capable imager although cinematographers have yet to provide public feedback.

“It’s clear that rigs have a limited lifespan,” claims CEO, Chris Cary. “Today’s S3D rigs are great cousins of the ones invented in 1905. The industry needs to move on and find the next generation which in our view is portable, high resolution, truely flexible systems.”

Panasonic says it has no interest in allying with a rig developer and is also strategising for a day when rigs become obsolete.

“Our starting point is to make 3D acquisition easy and mobile,” European Product Manager, Rob Tarrant stated. “That’s what we are doing with our first generation of integrated 3D cameras. With our range you get easier operation, mobile operation and truer 3D because the interaxial distance mirrors what we naturally see.”

Panasonic now has three integrated camcorders on the market, the latest of which the HDC-Z10000 prosumer unit includes a ‘black box’ technology which makes it seem like the interaxial distance between the fixed lenses are adjusted during the shoot.

“One of the issues with twin lens cameras is the fixed interaxial which this macro convergence function helps overcome,” Tarrant added. “With it we can shoot objects as close as 45cm from the lens.”

Sony’s first professional integrated camcorder, the shoulder mounted PMW-TD300 is also shipping priced around €25,000 and with an optional wireless link permitting remote control by MPE-200 processor. Devised by Broadcast RF, the link will make steadicam action more feasible, and is something that Panasonic does not yet offer.

Presteigne Charter made the first purchase in Europe of this unit and will put the RF functionality to test. According to Sony's 3D sports expert, Mark Grinyer: "By using the link the camcorder effectively looks to a convergence operator in a OB truck as if it were a 3D rig. This is something that live 3D sports productions in particular have been crying out for."

3D Rig Tweaks
Rig manufacturers continue to tinker with design to aid ease of use. P+S Technik was showing an adjustable riser as an accessory which enables Freestyle rigs to be tilted up and down. For live OBs the rig can now be integrated with Sony’s MPE-200 and HDFA-200 fibre multiplexer so that all the rig parameters including power, sync and genlock can be managed by a single cable.

Fellow European rig vendors were also showing expanded ranges usually with lightweight versions for steadicam and sturdier ones for mounting heavier camera configurations. As one IBC visitor put it the EU manufacturers “are finally starting to pull themselves out of the hobby market, to build a few rigs and rent them into a proper business world.”

For example, the Production Rig from Screen Plane is now being manufactured and sold by lens control specialists Cmotion with a compact Stead-Flex rig available from year end. Similar to the P+S riser, the tilt angle of the Production Rig can be adjusted from the rig’s centre of gravity in increments of 2.5 degrees. It can also be side-mounted on an accessory devised by Italian firm Cartoni for even greater tilt range.

Binocle’s Brigger I and its bigger brother Brigger II are well respected but still largely confined to the French feature and TV market. They are being put to use on an ambitious semi-fictional feature in the Amazon.

After two years R&D, Bournemouth’s Teletest launched the Binorig, at €10,000 claimed to be the world’s most affordable. “We designed a complete package contained in two flight cases for stereographers or cameramen with little experience shooting S3D,” says MD Nick Rose. “It produces images which are as good as those produced by rigs costing ten times the price.”

CPG Ally with GVG
The star wattage of Cameron and Pace’s IBC presence masked the fact that CPG wasn’t actually exhibiting. It inadvertently masked a little of what could have been IBC’s biggest 3D news which was the merger of 3Ality Digital with Element Technica announced just a week before.

The benefits of the marriage, which unites ET machining with 3Ality software engineering, were demonstrated with Sony F3s mounted on an ET Pulsar connected to a SIP and showing a wide range of data. “It’s great for our customers who have been mixing the two technologies anyway, but they had to integrate them themselves. Now that we can offer them fully integrated technology,” said 3ality Technica CEO, Steve Schklair.

In the show’s biggest news impacting outside broadcasters (signed literally a day before IBC), CPG flagged a partnership with Grass Valley which will see them jointly develop equipment and equip new scanners. CPG runs three dedicated mobile units and has a stock of 100 3D camera systems in the US but its GV pairing will enable it to export its Shadow systems and business model into Europe.

“Our message is that you can use our equipment for 3D just the same as for 2D - there are no special bolt-ons,” said Grass Valley 3D specialist, Lyle Van Horn. “For example, we have internal flipping of the image, standard on our LDK 8000 series cameras, so there is no external processing needed to flip the image and put another kink in the chain when mounting on a beam splitter rig.

The Kayenne and Karrera switchers process each eye as two separate 2D streams paired, so an operator is using the same standard set of buttons for both 2D and 3D. 3D is complex enough without adding a separate set of equipment to do the same job which is why we have the only Super Slo-Motion system, which again handles both 3D & 2D sources with the same hardware (a combination of the Summit server and Dyno replay control system).”

The view that 3D rigs have a limited lifespan for non-live projects at least was given heavyweight support by Walt Disney Studios' VP, Production Technology, Howard Lukk. “There are enough things for the DOP, director and camera operators to try to track on the set as it is, without having to track interaxial and convergence,” he argued. “We are making it more complicated on the set, where I think it needs to be less complicated.”

Lukk suggested a hybrid approach which would supplement a 2D camera with smaller ‘witness’ cameras to pick up the 3D volumes, then apply algorithms at a VFX or a conversion house to create the 3D and free the filmmaker from cumbersome on-set equipment. It is something that Disney is researching.

Source: TVB Europe

Red Teases with 4K Laser Powered Projector

2011-10-24T03:13:00.000-07:00

Red Digital Cinema has trialled the launch of a laser illuminated passive 3D projection system capable of 4K resolution for home and cinema use. The announcement has been mischievously timed to disrupt the launch of Sony’s new 4K home theatre projector, which is claimed to be a world’s first.

Red founder Jim Jannard posted comments to a Red user forum from industry pundits to whom he had demonstrated the Red Ray projector. These pundits included 3Ality Technica senior vice president Stephen Pizzo, who said its image quality was “so clean and so vibrant", comparing it only to Cibachrome (otherwise known as the Ilfochrome print film once made by Ilford).

Details are sketchy and speculation is filling in the gaps. Among these are suggesting that Red is working on a range of 4K capable displays and projection systems with the projector believed to cost anywhere from $30,000-$50,000. No release date is given except that product will be available in the next 12 months.

That it features laser illumination is interesting. One of the main criticisms of 3D projected features is that they are so dark. Lasers rather than LEDs could provide a more powerful light source.

Red and Sony have 4K acquisition sewn up so it makes sense that if content is to be shot in the format, there is a means of displaying it. Over 14,000 of Sony’s SXRD 4K theatre projection systems have been sold to date, mostly in the US.

Its VPL-VW1000ES 4K home theatre projector, due later this winter, features a ‘Super Resolution 4K’ upscaler that is claimed to ‘dramatically enhance 1080P content, allowing viewers to get the most from their existing Blu-ray Disc libraries. For greater versatility, the release continues, it can also display Full HD 3D and 4K upscaling 3D movies, as well as 2D and 3D anamorphic film.

Interestingly, the Blu-ray specification can only handle 1920 x 1080, not 4K resolution, nor 48 fps content either, making a Blu-ray package of The Hobbit as director Peter Jackson intended the feature to be seen, somewhat problematic.

Source: TVB Europe

Sony Puts Record Straight on High frame Rates

2011-10-24T02:51:00.001-07:00

Sony has hit back at perceptions that competitor Christie is leading the charge to introduce high frame rate projection systems into cinema exhibition, claiming that its systems are already advanced for HFR display today.

Christie made headlines when it received the backing of James Cameron in demonstrations of HFR at Cinemacon and IBC earlier this year. It also signed a five year pact with Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment to develop and market high frame rate systems.

The series II projectors of Christie and its fellow DLP-based TI licensees, Barco and NEC, require a software upgrade and the installation of an Integrated Media Block (IMB) which overcomes the bandwidth limitations in the connection from server to projector.

All the major projection systems vendors are likely to offer the relatively simple HFR upgrades so that exhibitors avoid having to fund a full system replacement. One estimate puts the cost of an IMB plus firmware upgrade at US $3,000.

Sony also requires a firmware upgrade but has an IMB already incorporated in the design of its SXRD 4K projectors. Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit could be projected at 2x48 fps (96 fps) today with the addition of that firmware, Sony claims. All that is missing is the revision of the DCI specifications, which currently only support 48 fps mainly for the purpose of 2x24 fps playback for 3D.

HFR is claimed to improve the image quality, particularly over standard 24fps, on fast-moving scenes and camera pans by reducing visual artefacts such as motion blur, judder, and flicker. The effect is even more apparent on 3D features, since the human eye and brain are more sensitive to such artefacts when separate left and right images are projected, “in particular with systems using triple flash,” said Oliver Pasch, head of european digital cinema sales at Sony Professional.

In fact, the brunt of the cost of switching to higher frame rates will be borne by post production, which is required to increase disk storage space and allocate more time to render special effects. This increases again if 4K projection of 3D content (96fps 4K) is desired.

The DCI specifies that films must be compressed using JPEG 2000 with a maximum bit-rate of 250Mbps. That would ramp up to 400-480Mbps for 48fps and 500-600Mbps for 60 fps. The size of the DCP will increase in similar proportions.

Matt Cuson, senior director of cinema, Dolby Laboratories, notes that some industry studies suggest that an 8K resolution really starts to have a dramatic effect, but HFR will be the most dramatic visual improvement the industry will see in the short term.

Source: TVB Europe

ATSC Issues Reports on Next-Generation Broadcast TV, 3-D TV Broadcast

2011-10-21T06:11:00.003-07:00

The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) has published final reports of two critical industry planning committees that have been investigating likely methods of enhancing broadcast TV with next-generation video compression, transmission and Internet Protocol technologies and developing scenarios for the transmission of 3-D programs via local broadcast TV stations.

The final reports of the ATSC Planning Teams on 3D-TV (PT-1) and on ATSC 3.0 (PT-2) are available now for download from the ATSC website.

PT-1, the 3-D TV planning team, reviewed the visual sciences, existing technology, and the development of content for three-dimensional presentation. While 3-D television broadcasts provide the potential for significant enhancement to the viewer's experience, it was found that the how the content is created and presented are both important to a positive viewing experience.

Substantial sections of the report deal with human visual issues sometimes associated with 3-D viewing, with the planning team noting that many of the contributing factors are described, explained and accommodated by insuring proper viewing distances from the screen.

While recognizing limitations of depicting 3-D objects on a 2-D display, the PT-1 report also details various options for transmission of 3-D material, including use of both high-definition and mobile DTV channels and non-real-time caching of 3-D content for future viewing.

PT-2, working on next-generation broadcast technologies, was charged with exploring options for what's been dubbed ATSC 3.0, including candidate technologies, potential services and likely timeframes, and without a requirement that the new system be backwards compatible with existing broadcasts.

Several potential technology components were identified by PT-2, including improved audio and video codecs and more-efficient modulation approaches. The Planning Team also looked into ways that TV broadcasts could seamlessly converge with a hybrid device that might get content from the Internet or other methods. Among the subjects probed by the team were content personalization and targeting, more immersive presentation forms, and advanced non-real-time content downloading services.

Source: Broadcast Engineering

The Lytro Camera

2011-10-21T02:49:00.003-07:00

Click to watch the video
Source: CNET

Transport Streams 101

2011-10-20T19:59:00.004-07:00

A Transport Stream (TS) is comprised of one or more packetized and multiplexed compressed video signals and their associated audio, along with program descriptors and other data. In broadcast DTV, there are two essential parts to the final Transport Stream.

First is the actual packetized compressed audio and video data as well as the tables and other data required to locate and extract them. The second major part is called Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP), which is required by the DTV receiver.

The PSIP data is what enables the receiver to know what channel is being received as well as what analog channel is associated with it and the names of the major and minor channels. PSIP also carries viewer information such as program guides, time of day and ratings for the programs.

Packetized Elementary Stream
To combine or multiplex the various data streams that make up the TS, they need to be packetized. The Elementary Streams (ES) such as MPEG-2 video or AAC audio are encapsulated into defined serialized data bytes called Packetized Elementary Streams (PES). Once the elementary streams are packetized, they can be combined and multiplexed into a single data stream known as a TS. Each packet is 188B, or 1504b, long.

Packet Identifiers
With several different packets used for each program (e.g. MPEG-2 video, one or more AAC audio channels, metadata, etc.) and one or more programs, the number of packets can increase quickly. Because the individual streams are no longer separate but combined as packets, this requires a system to identify and sort through the packets to extract the correct program.

Packet Identifiers (PIDs) are used for this function and are attached to each packet in the TS. PID numbering is arranged to keep associated packets grouped together. For example, the MEPG-2 video would be PID 65, while the associated AC-3 audio is PID 68; another program has its MPEG-2 at PID 81 and AC-3 at PID 84.

Program Map Table
The Program Map Table (PMT) is a list of the PIDs used for each program and what they are; there is one PMT for each program within a TS. The PMT also has a PID and it is always the first (lowest number) PID for the program. In the above example, the program with PIDs 65 and 68 has a PMT with a PID 64, and the program with PIDs 81 and 84 has a PMT with a PID 80. The information contained within the PMT lists the PIDs for all the packets and a description of what the packet is (e.g. MPEG-2, AAC, AC-3, data, etc.).

Program Association Table
The Program Association Table (PAT) is a list of all programs contained within the TS. This is where the PIDs for the PMTs are found and is the first step in extracting the desired program from the stream.

Program Clock Reference
Program Clock Reference (PCR) is used to lock the local 27MHz clock to the one used to create the encoded stream. There is a PCR for each program within the TS, and it can share the same PID as one of the PES. The PCR is a time stamp and its value is derived from a counter, running at the encoder, taken at the moment the packet leaves the multiplexer.

Differences between the received time stamps and the local clock are seen as errors, and the local clock is adjusted or reset. If there is a fault with the PCR, then a number of errors can occur, such as loss of lip sync, picture freeze and dropped frames. The PCR is developed at the encoder from either the horizontal sync of an analog signal or the bit rate of an SDI input.

The PCR is a component of the TS and is used to keep the local 27MHz clock locked to the originating encoder’s clock. The encoder’s 27MHz clock is derived from the input video, either SDI or analog video. This means that the stability of the input video will determine the stability of the 27MHz clock and, therefore, the accuracy of the PCR for that program.

The Presentation Time Stamp (PTS) is part of the coded audio and video streams; this tells the decoder when this particular video or audio must be presented to the viewer. The time stamps are derived and compared to the 27MHz clock. The PTS is what keeps and locks the audio and video together and maintains lip sync.

Errors in the PCR can be introduced by the encoder/multiplexer or in the transmission path, including remultiplexers and network transmission errors. The tolerance for PCR is 500ns.

Program and System Information Protocol
Program and System Information Protocol (PISP) is the last item added to the TS. It provides much of the glue that holds the disparate elements of the stream together. PSIP contains the Terrestrial Virtual Channel Table (TVCT), Master Guide Table (MGT), Rating Region Table (RRT), System Time Table (STT) and Event Information Tables (EIT).

All of these provide for an easier user interface as well as tuning and channel branding:

The TVCT indicates which DTV channels are associated with which analog TV channels and what frequencies and modulation modes are used. It also provides channel names and tuning information.
The MGT lists all the other tables available in PSIP.
RRT is where various types of program ratings are located for all the programs in the TS.
STT provides time of day information referenced to UTC.
EIT contains lists of TV programs and their start times contained in the TS.

Once the decoder is locked onto the data stream and the packets sorted, PSIP can begin to populate the receiver with its information. This information for the viewer consists of the System Time Table (STT), which supplies the current date and time from the station (the program guide is based on this clock time, so any offset or error can cause viewers to miss programs); the Region Rating Table (RRT), which supplies ratings of the programs within the TS so different types of program ratings can be transmitted (e.g. MPA, FCC, etc.); and the Event Information Tables (EIT) 0-3, which list the next 12 hours of programming.

The Terrestrial Virtual Channel Table (TVCT) contains a list of all the channels that are or will be online, plus their attributes. This includes the major and minor channel numbers and their names. Channel 6 analog also has Channel 35 digital, so the major channel is six for both analog and digital, and the minor channels are 0 for analog, one for the first digital channel, and so on. The minor channels do not have to be sequential and can be any number from one to 999. Stations might do this to denote different programming sources. Major and minor channel names also come from the PSIP, such as WREY for the major channel, and each minor channel has its own name as long as it fits in seven spaces.

A major component of PSIP is the Master Guide Table (MGT) that lists all the other tables within the PSIP as well as sizes and version numbers, so tables can be updated.

Demultiplexing the Stream
The multiplexer combines all the PES and the associated data packets into one continuous serial bit stream. To extract the PES and view it, we need to first demultiplex the stream to separate out the individual PES and convert them into Elementary Streams (ES) of compressed video and audio. From there, they can be decompressed, converted to analog and monitored.

To begin the demultiplexing process, the decoder’s 90kHz clock must be synchronized with the multiplexer’s, and to do that, the sync byte must be found in the TS. Every packet contains a sync byte at its start. The sync byte comprises 8 bits, and because all packets are 188 bytes long, the next sync word comes around in another 188 bytes. This repetition makes it easier to find the sync byte and lock to it.

Once the demultiplexer has seen the sync byte at least five times, it then knows it has a good lock on the clock and can examine the rest of the stream. Then the individual packets can be clocked in and their Packet Identifiers (PIDs) can be read and sorted.

Once the decoder is locked to the TS, the Program Association Table (PAT) is used to find all the data elements within it. The PAT holds a list, or table, of all the PIDs and what they are for in the TS. When the viewer selects minor Channel 3, which is listed as “sports” (all this data comes from the TVCT), the PAT directs the decoder to PID 80, which is where the Program Map Table (PMT) is located, and lists the PIDs for the PES — in this case, they are PID 81 for MPEG-2 video, PID 84 for AC-3 audio (English) and PID 90 for AC-3 audio (Spanish).

These packets are then converted (this is where the PCR comes in) into a Program Stream (PS), and from there into their original Elementary Streams (ES) with the help of the system clock reference (i.e. individual serial data for the MPEG-2 video and the AC-3 audio). They are decompressed then supplied to the outputs for display and monitoring.

Source: Broadcast Engineering

MPEG-2 Basic Training

2011-10-20T01:43:00.002-07:00

The MPEG-2 standard is defined by ISO/IEC 13818 as "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information." It combines lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression to fulfill bandwidth requirements. The foundation of all MPEG compression systems is asymmetric because the encoder is more sophisticated than the decoder.

MPEG encoders are always algorithmic. Some are also adaptive, using a feedback path. MPEG decoders are not adaptive and perform a fixed function. This works well for applications like broadcasting, where the number of expensive complex encoders is few and the number of simple inexpensive decoders is huge.

The MPEG standards provide little information about encoder process and operation. Rather, it specifically defines how a decoder interprets metadata in a bit stream. MPEG metadata tells the decoder what rate video was encoded at, and it defines the audio coding, channels and other vital stream information.

A decoder that successfully deciphers MPEG streams is called compliant. The genius of MPEG is that it allows different encoder designs to evolve simultaneously. Generic low-cost and proprietary high-performance encoders and encoding schemes all work because they are all designed to talk to compliant decoders.

Before SDI
Asychronous Serial Interface (ASI) is a serial interface signal where a start bit is sent before each byte, and a stop signal is sent after each byte. This type of start-stop communication without the use of synchronized fixed time intervals was patented in 1916 and the key technology making teletype machines possible. Today, an ASI signal is often the final product of MPEG video compression, ready for transmission to a transmitter, microwave or fiber. Unlike uncompressed SDI, an ASI signal can carry one or multiple compressed SD, HD or audio streams. ASI transmission speeds are variable and depend on the user's requirements.

There are two transmission formats used by the ASI interface, a 188-byte format and a 204-byte format. The 188-byte format is the more common. If Reed-Solomon error correction data is included, the packet can grow an extra 16 bytes to 204 bytes total.

Making MPEG-2
An MPEG-2 stream can be either an Elementary Stream (ES), a Packetized Elementary Stream (PES) or a Transport Stream (TS). The ES and PES are files.

Starting with analog video and audio content, individual ESs are created by applying MPEG-2 compression algorithms to the source content in the MPEG-2 encoder. This process is typically called ingest. The encoder creates an individual compressed ES for each audio and video stream. An optimally functioning encoder will look transparent when decoded in a set-top box and displayed on a professional video monitor for technical inspection.

A good ES depends on several factors, such as the quality of the original source material, and the care used in monitoring and controlling audio and video variables upon ingest. The better the baseband signal, the better the quality of the digital file. Also influencing ES quality is the encoded stream bit rate, and how well the encoder applies its MPEG-2 compression algorithms within the allowable bit rate.

MPEG-2 has two main compression components: intraframe spatial compression and interframe motion compression. Encoders use various techniques, some proprietary, to maintain the maximum allowed bit rate while at the same time allocating bits to both compression components. This balancing act can sometimes be unsuccessful. It is a tradeoff between allocating bits for detail in a single frame and bits to represent the changes (motion) from frame to frame.

Researchers are currently investigating what constitutes a good picture. Presently, there is no direct correlation between the data in the ES and subjective picture quality. For now, the only way of checking encoding quality is with the human eye, after decoding.

The Packetized Elementary Stream
Individual ESs are essentially endless because the length of an ES is as long as the program itself. Each ES is broken into variable-length packets to create a PES, which contains a header and payload bytes.

The PES header is data about the encoding process the MPEG decoder needs to successfully decompress the ES. Each individual ES results in an individual PES. At this point, audio and video information still reside in separate PESs. The PES is primarily a logical construct and is not really intended to be used for interchange, transport and interoperability. The PES also serves as a common conversion point between TSs and PSs.

Transport Streams
Both the TS and PS are formed by packetizing PES files. During the formation of the TS, additional packets containing tables needed to demultiplex the TS are inserted. These tables are collectively called PSI. Null packets, containing a dummy payload, may also be inserted to fill the intervals between information-bearing packets. Some packets contain timing information for their associated program, called the Program Clock Reference (PCR). The PCR is inserted into one of the optional header fields of the TS packet. Recovery of the PCR allows the decoder to synchronize its clock to the rate of the original encoder clock.

The Transport Stream is defined by the syntax and structure of the TS header

TS packets are fixed in length at 188 bytes with a minimum 4-byte header and a maximum 184-byte payload. The key fields in the minimum 4-byte header are the sync byte and the Packet ID (PID). The sync byte's function is indicated by its name. It is a long digital word used for delineating the beginning of a TS packet.

The PID is a unique address identifier. Every video and audio stream, as well as each PSI table, needs to have a unique PID. The PID value is provisioned in the MPEG multiplexing equipment. Certain PID values are reserved and specified by organizations such as the Digital Video Broadcasting Group (DVB) and the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) for electronic program guides and other tables.

In order to reconstruct a program from all its video, audio and table components, it is necessary to ensure that the PID assignment is done correctly and that there is consistency between PSI table contents and the associated video and audio streams.

Program Specific Information
Program Specific Information (PSI) is part of the Transport Stream (TS). PSI is a set of tables needed to demultiplex and sort out PIDs that are tagged to programs. A Program Map Table (PMT) must be decoded to find the audio and video PIDs that identify the content of a particular program. Each program requires its own PMT with a unique PID value.

The master PSI table is the Program Association Table (PAT). If the PAT can’t be found and decoded in the Transport Stream, no programs can be found, decompressed or viewed.

PSI tables must be sent periodically and with a fast repetition rate so channel-surfers don’t feel that program selection takes too long. A critical aspect of MPEG testing is to check and verify the PSI tables for correct syntax and repetition rate.

Another PSI testing scenario is to determine the accuracy and consistency of PSI contents. As programs change or multiplexer provisioning is modified, errors may appear. One is an “Unreferenced PID,” where packets with a PID value are present in the TS that are not referred to in any table. Another would be a “Missing PID,” where no packets exist with the PID value referenced in the Transport Stream PSI table.

Good broadcast engineers never forget common sense. Just because there aren’t any unreferenced or missing PIDs doesn’t guarantee the viewer is necessarily receiving the correct program. There could be a mismatch of the audio content from one program being delivered with the video content from another.

Because MPEG-2 allows for multiple audio and video channels, a real-world “air check” is the most common-sense test to ensure that viewers are receiving the correct language and video. It’s possible to use a set-top box with a TV set to do the air check, but it’s preferable to use dedicated MPEG test gear that allows PSI table checks. It’s also handy if the test set includes a built-in decoder with picture and audio displays.

By Ned Soseman, Broadcast Engineering

What is HLS (HTTP Live Streaming)?

2011-10-19T08:31:00.017-07:00

HTTP Live Streaming (or HLS) is an adaptive streaming protocol created by Apple to communicate with iOS and Apple TV devices and Macs running OSX in Snow Leopard or later. HLS can distribute both live and on-demand files and is the sole technology available for adaptively streaming to Apple devices, which is an increasingly important target segment to streaming publishers.

HLS is widely supported in streaming servers from vendors like Adobe, Microsoft, RealNetworks, and Wowza, as well as real time transmuxing functions in distribution platforms like those from Akamai. The popularity of iOS devices and this distribution-related technology support has also led to increased support on the player side, most notably from Google in Android 3.0.

In the Apple App Store, if you produce an app that delivers video longer than ten minutes or greater than 5MB of data, you must use HTTP Live Streaming, and provide at least one stream at 64Kbps or lower bandwidth. Any streaming publisher targeting iOS devices via a website or app should know the basics of HLS and how it’s implemented.

How HLS Works
At a high level, HLS works like all adaptive streaming technologies; you create multiple files for distribution to the player, which can adaptively change streams to optimize the playback experience. As an HTTP-based technology, no streaming server is required, so all the switching logic resides on the player.

To distribute to HLS clients, you encode the source into multiple files at different data rates and divide them into short chunks, usually between 5-10 seconds long. These are loaded onto an HTTP server along with a text-based manifest file with a .M3U8 extension that directs the player to additional manifest files for each of the encoded streams.

The player monitors changing bandwidth conditions. If these dictate a stream change, the player checks the original manifest file for the location of additional streams, and then the stream-specific manifest file for the URL of the next chunk of video data. Stream switching is generally seamless to the viewer.

HLS uses multiple encoded files with index files directing the player to different streams and chunks
of audio/video data within those streams.

HLS File Preparation
HLS currently supports H.264 video using the Baseline profile up to Level 3.0 for iPhone and iPod Touch clients and the Main profile Level 3.1 for the iPad 1 and 2. Audio can be HE-AAC or AAC-LC up to 48 KHz, stereo. The individual manifest files detail the profile used during encoding so the player will only select and retrieve compatible streams. This allows producers to create a single set of HLS files that will serve iPhone/iPod touch devices with Baseline streams and iPads with streams encoded using the Main profile.

Though encoded using the H.264 video codec and AAC audio codec, audio/video streams must be segmented into chunks in an MPEG-2 Transport Stream with a .ts extension. All files are then uploaded to an HTTP server for deployment. In a live scenario, the .ts chunks are continuously added and the .M3U8 manifest files continually updated with the locations of alternative streams and file chunks.

Before producing files for HLS, you should read through Apple’s Tech Note TN2224 which contains detailed recommended configurations (resolution, data rate, keyframe interval) for distributing both 4:3 and 16:9 video to all compatible iDevice and Apple TV players.

Content Protection and Closed Captions in HLS
HLS doesn’t natively support digital rights management (DRM) though you can encrypt the data and provide key access using HTTPS authentication. There are several third-party DRM solutions becoming available, including from AuthenTec, SecureMedia, and WideVine.

HLS can support closed captions included in the MPEG-2 Transport Stream.

Deploying HLS Streams
Delivery via HTTP has several advantages; no streaming server is required and the audio/video chunks should leverage HTTP caching servers located in the premises of internet service providers, cellular providers, and other organizations, which should improve video quality for viewers served from these caches. HTTP content should also pass through most firewalls.

Apple recommends using the HTML5 video tag for deploying HLS video on a website.

On the Playback Side
On computers and iPad devices, the Safari browser can play HLS streams within a web page, with Safari launching a full-screen media player on iPhones and iPod touch devices. Starting with version 2, all Apple TV devices include an HTTP Live Streaming client.

Producing HLS
As discussed, the HLS experience has two components: a set of chunked files in .ts format and the required manifest files. In an on-demand environment, you can encode the alternative files using any standalone H.264 encoding tool, with the latest version of Sorenson Squeeze offering a multiple file HLS encoding template. More recently, Telestream updated Episode to include command line HLS multiple file creation. Cloud encoding services like those provided by Encoding.com can also typically produce HLS-compatible files.

Once you have the encoded streams, you can use Apple tools to create the chunked files and playlists:

Media Stream Segmenter - Inputs an MPEG-2 Transport Stream and produces chunked .ts files and index files. It can also encrypt the media and produced encryption keys.
Media File Segmenter - Inputs H.264 files and produces chunked .ts files and index files. It can also encrypt the media and produced encryption keys.
Variant Playlist Creator - Compiles the individual index files created by the Media Stream or Media File Segmenter into a master .M3U8 file that identifies the alternate streams.
Metadata Tag Generator - Creates ID3 metadata tags that can either be written to a file or inserted into outgoing stream segments.
Media Stream Validator - Examines index files, stream alternates, and chunked .ts files to validate HLS compatibility.

For live HLS distribution, you need an encoding tool that can encode the files into H.264 format, create the MPEG-2 Transport Stream chunks and create and update the manifest files. When Apple first announced HLS in 2009, only two live encoders were available; one each from Inlet (now Cisco) and Envivio. Now most vendors of encoding hardware also offer live HLS-compatible products, including Digital Rapids, Elemental Technologies, Haivision, Seawell Networks, and ViewCast.

Real Time Transmuxing
The other approach to live or on-demand streaming to HLS-compatible players is via transmuxing, which is offered by multiple streaming server vendors and CDNs. Specifically, these servers input an H.264-stream originally compatible with Flash or Silverlight (or other formats) and then dynamically re-wrap the file into the required MPEG-2 Transport Stream chunks and create the required manifest files.

Server-based implementations include:

Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5
Wowza Media Server
Microsoft IIS Media Services
RealNetworks Helix Universal Server

Akamai also offers “in the network” repackaging of H.264 input files for HLS deployment.

In these applications, any live encoding tool that can deliver multiple streams of input to the server, like the Adobe Flash Live Media Encoder, Haivision, Microsoft Expression Encoder Pro, or Telestream Wirecast, can serve as the encoding front end for multiple-platform adaptive distribution including HLS.

Not surprisingly given the level of technology support, many of the larger online video platforms are now starting to support HLS distribution, including Brightcove, Kaltura, and Ooyala.

Conclusion
The iOS platform is a critical target for virtually all streaming publishers, and HLS can deliver the best possible experience to that platform, and others that support HLS playback. Fortunately, the streaming industry had embraced HLS with tools and technologies that make this very simple and affordable.

HLS Resources
One of the reasons that HLS has been so successful is that Apple has created multiple documents that comprehensively address the creation and deployment of HLS files.

You can also watch this video tutorial.

By Jan Ozer, StreamingMedia

DVB Steering Board Approves Next Step for 3DTV

2011-10-18T01:39:00.000-07:00

The DVB Steering Board has approved the Commercial Requirements for a second 3DTV delivery system. Termed 'Service Compatible', the second system is a solution required by content deliverers that enables the 2D and 3D versions of a programme to be broadcast within the same video signal, so that new 3D televisions and next-generation STBs can receive 3D programmes, while consumers with existing 2D HDTV receivers and set-top boxes can watch the 2D version. This 2D picture will probably be either the left or right image of the 'stereo pair'.

In February 2011, the DVB Steering Board approved the specification for a first phase 3DTV delivery system. This system was developed for broadcasters and content deliverers needing a system that works with existing HDTV receivers, provided they are used with a 3D display. This approach, termed 'Frame Compatible', is now a principal system in use for 3DTV delivery throughout the world.

For convenience, this second approach is termed DVB-3DTV 'Phase 2a'. The Commercial Requirements will shortly be available as a 'BlueBook' on the DVB website. The DVB Technical Module has been asked to complete the preparation of the specification for Phase 2a before the end of summer 2012.

Phase 2a will provide additional opportunities for 3DTV services, complementing the first specification, which is referred to now for convenience as 3DTV Phase 1.

The DVB is also taking into account the requirements of content deliverers wanting to continue the use of a Phase 1 signal, but wish to provide additional information to improve the image quality for those with 'new' receivers. This may result in a Phase 2b specification in due time.

Source: DVB

The Next Big Video Squeeze

2011-10-11T23:52:00.003-07:00

Digital video is in the process of getting another major haircut — a development that promises to provide tremendous relief for bandwidth-constrained mobile networks, as well as for the delivery of ultra-high-definition TV.

The High Efficiency Video Coding specification, also referred to as H.265, will be even more efficient than H.264 MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding. HEVC-based commercial products could arrive starting in 2013.

According to industry experts, HEVC could shave off 25% to 50% of the bits needed to deliver video that looks as good as H.264.

“It seems like every decade we come out with a better compression standard,” said Sam Blackman, CEO of video-processing systems vendor Elemental Technologies.

HEVC is being designed to take advantage of increases in processing power in video encoders and devices. The developers of H.264 had elements they wanted to include, “but the computational costs were considered too high 10 years ago,” Blackman said. “You’ve also had research over that time to improve the standard for the next time.”

HEVC is being developed by the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC), which brings together working groups from the International Telecommunication Union and Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). More than 130 different companies and organizations have participated in the development of HEVC to date, according to Microsoft video architect Gary Sullivan, who is one of the co-chairs of the JCT-VC project.

The next milestone for the spec: In February 2012, a draft of HEVC is expected to be circulated for comments, and the first edition of the standard should be finished in January 2013.

Initially, the clear winners for HEVC will be mobile network operators. “If you look at any of the market data, 70% of the traffic will be video in the next year,” Blackman said. HEVC will also help broadcasters and cable ops deliver Ultra HD formats, which provide four to 16 times the resolution of current 1080p HDTV.

Elemental, whose customers include Comcast and Avail-TVN, expects eventually to incorporate HEVC into its software-based encoding solution that is based on off -the-shelf graphics processing units.

Other video-processing equipment vendors also are tracking HEVC. Andy Salo, director of product marketing at RGB Networks, said the company’s engineering team is working closely with industry engineers that are active contributors to HEVC.

HEVC adoption won’t happen overnight. An entire ecosystem of devices needs to incorporate new decoder chips that support H.265.

Another caveat: New technologies often look better on paper than in practice. It has historically taken time with a new video standard to gain the theoretical efficiencies, according to Joe Ambeault, Verizon Telecom’s director of product management for media and entertainment.

“It’s only so good until the engineers get into the development,” Ambeault said. “You look at the PowerPoints and say, ‘Well, maybe I’ll get that kind of efficiency a couple years from now.’”

By Todd Spangler, Multichannel News

BitTorrent Expands Live Streaming Tests

2011-10-05T01:45:00.004-07:00

BitTorrent has quietly been testing its upcoming live streaming platform, and now the company is ready to take the next step with a new round of scalability tests that could include the live streaming of indie concerts. A new BitTorrent Live website built with these kinds of tests in mind launched a few days ago, but a company spokesperson cautioned that “a broad beta is still a couple of months away.”

BitTorrent has been testing its live streaming platform with a limited number of users at a no-frills website that hasn’t been publicized but has nonetheless been publicly accessible for some time at live.bittorrent.com. At the end of last week, the site suddenly received a significant face-lift, complete with installation instructions for the BitTorrent Live software and a brief explanation that reads:

"BitTorrent Live is a whole new P2P protocol to distribute live streamed data across the internet without the need for infrastructure, and with a minimum of latency."

Users can download BitTorrent live clients for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. The client simply works in the background to facilitate data transfer and doesn’t allow any configuration. Video streams display in the browser via Flash, and a Facebook plug-in allows users to chat with one another while watching a stream. An additional tab offers access to the audio and video bitrate and other debug data.

Speaking of video: BitTorrent’s spokesperson told me that the tests have so far been restricted to “simple pre-recorded content loops to test latency and audio/visual sync.” I was able at one time to tap into a prerecorded stream of a winter sports event but at other times simply didn’t get to see anything.

However, those P2P live streaming tests could get a lot more exciting soon: “One of the ideas is to invite a few of our favorite indie artists into our office to broadcast content and help us kick the tires with their fans,” said BitTorrent’s spokesperson. Still, don’t expect BitTorrent to stream Coachella anytime soon. I was told that “the redesign isn’t intended to suggest we’re out of the R&D stage of designing, building and testing the product.”

BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen has worked on the live streaming platform for close to three years, and he told me at NewTeeVee Live last year that his efforts included writing a complete new P2P protocol from scratch. The BitTorrent protocol itself, he said, simply introduced too much latency to be a viable live streaming solution.

By Janko Roettgers, GigaOM

The Digital Production Partnership Announces Two Major Initiatives to Accelerate the Move to Digital Production in Television

2011-09-30T02:10:00.001-07:00

The Digital Production Partnership (DPP) – a partnership between ITV, Channel 4 and the BBC – has today made two major interventions in digital production in Television. The first is the release of a report, The Reluctant Revolution – Breaking Down Barriers to Digital Production in TV. The second is the announcement of common Technical & Metadata standards for file-based delivery of TV programmes to all major UK broadcasters.

Painting a picture of a technical and creative revolution that is struggling to ignite, the report argues the reason is not the indifference or ignorance of producers, but rather the failure of broadcasters, suppliers and manufacturers to understand the practical realities and frustrations of the production community.

Gathering the views and experiences from a broad range of production companies across the UK, the report, commissioned by the DPP from industry analysts MediaSmiths International, concludes that for all the new technology of recent years, there is no easily workable and affordable model for end-to-end digital production available to independent producers.

“The move to end-to-end digital production is inevitable,” says the report, “but the pace of change is limited by the lack of clear signposts, or standard ways of working, and therefore a reluctance in the production community to set off on the journey… The key to ignition for this slow-moving revolution is the acceptance by all concerned of the day to day realities faced by production communities, and an understanding of where and how the benefits can be identified and achieved.”

The report identifies a number of opportunities and interventions that could bring about revolutionary change in digital production. These include pay-as-you-go models for web and cloud based tools and services, a new role for existing trusted providers such as facility houses, and a more pro-active role for the Broadcasters.

Mark Harrison, Controller of Production, BBC North and BBC lead for the DPP, said of the report and its outcomes, “Those of us who have been evangelists for the creative and business benefits of fully digital production have been mystified by the slow pace of change. This report explains that slowness, and offers practical suggestions for how change can be accelerated – not least by recognising that Broadcasters must get more involved.”

The second announcement made today reflects the commitment on the part of Broadcasters to get more involved: the DPP has unveiled the key features of its Technical & Metadata Standards for File-based Delivery, which will be published in full at the end of this year.

In response to producers citing ‘unnecessary complexity and lack of standardisation’ as one of the key barriers to digital production, the DPP, as a starting point to gaining greater simplicity, has clarified the UK Broadcaster’s technical expectations around file based delivery.

Through the DPP, six broadcasters have agreed the UK’s first common file format, structure and wrapper to enable TV programme delivery by file. These new guidelines will complement the common standards already published by the DPP for tape delivery of HD and SD TV programmes.

By agreeing one set of pan-industry technical standards for the UK, the DPP aims to minimise confusion and expense for programme-makers, and avoid a situation where a number of different file types and specifications proliferate.

The DPP has also worked closely with the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) based in the US, on a new standard for HD files. AS-11 is planned to be published by AMWA by the end of the year, and the DPP guidelines will require files delivered to UK broadcasters to be compliant with a specified subset of this internationally recognised file structure.

Key Features of the File Standard
• Designed for completed programme deliveries
• Based on the MXF file format, AVC Intra compression at 100 Mb/s for HD, and IMX at 50 Mb/s for SD
• Founded on a new AMWA international standard, AS-11
• Includes a minimum set of requirements for Programme Editorial and Technical Metadata

The common metadata standards, which form an important part of the new file-based delivery guidelines, have been developed with reference to the European Broadcasting Union’s EBU Core.

The new standards aim to remove any ambiguity during the production and delivery process. A key aspect is the inclusion of editorial and technical metadata, which will ensure a consistent set of information for the processing, review and scheduling of programmes. As part of this requirement, the DPP is planning to provide an application to enable production companies to enter this metadata easily.

Kevin Burrows CTO Broadcast and Distribution, C4 and DPP Technical Standards Chair, said, “Having one set of standards for file-based delivery across the industry is of huge benefit in ensuring ease of exchange. It will also reduce costs for independent producers as well as minimising confusion amongst programme makers.”

The agreement of these new 'file based technical standards' does not signal an immediate move to file based delivery. Instead, the DPP provides clarity now around which file formats, structures and wrappers will become the expected standards for file-based delivery as it is phased in.

From 2012 BBC, ITV and Channel 4 will begin to take delivery of programmes on file on a selective basis. File based delivery will be the preferred delivery format for these Broadcasters by 2014. This announcement represents long notice lead-time to the industry, and will enable production and post production companies to ready themselves for this transition.

Source: Digital Production Partnership

Getting Machines to Watch 3D for You

2011-09-28T02:56:00.001-07:00

How can 3D television signals be analysed automatically to provide quality of broadcast service? Mike Knee, consultant engineer, research & development at Snell is working on the answer, and provides a short overview of his work here.

Running a multi-channel TV installation brings new headaches when 3D is involved. For live monitoring of 2D TV channels, manufacturers have developed automated solutions covering many tasks, such as lip-sync measurement or compression quality estimation. 3D brings a new dimension to monitoring, because we additionally have to check the relationship between the left and right-eye signals.

Manual monitoring of 3D is more difficult than 2D because operators need to wear glasses or accept limitations of autostereoscopic displays. So there is a burgeoning interest in automatic monitoring of 3DTV. In this article we look at how various aspects of 3D television signals can be analysed.

Format Detection
Left and right signals may be packed into a single video channel in many ways. Some formats, such as left/right juxtaposition, are ‘loose packed’ because the two pictures are physically separate. Other formats, such as line interleaving, are ‘close packed’ because corresponding left and right pixels are close together.

One way to detect the packing format is to perform a trial unpacking with an assumed format and then detect whether the resulting images appear to be a stereoscopic pair. For loose packed formats, we look for relative similarity between the left and right images when compared with unrelated parts of the picture. For close packed formats, we look for relative differences between the left and right images when compared with adjacent pixels or lines.

Depth or Disparity Analysis
An important 3D analysis task is to measure the perceived depth of objects in the scene, which depends on disparity (the horizontal distance between left and right representations of the object). In 3D monitoring, we measure disparity and relate it to perceived depth for different display configurations.

The most important use of disparity measurement is to provide a warning if the viewer is likely to suffer eye strain. It can also be used to verify that the sequence really is 3D, to detect and correct for geometric distortions between the two channels, and to assist in the insertion of captions or subtitles at suitable depths.

One class of disparity measurement methods involves correlating the left and right images to generate a sparse disparity map. This approach is ideal for looking at the behaviour of different objects in the scene and for determining whether limits have been exceeded. Other methods generate a dense disparity map – a disparity value for every pixel. This approach would be necessary if the measurement were being used to drive post-processing, for example to change the effective camera spacing.

Left-Right Swap Detection
If the left and right images are inadvertently swapped, the result is disturbing, though it is not always obvious what is wrong. It would be useful to detect the swap automatically. A disparity map is a good starting point, but a 3D pair will often exhibit both negative and positive disparity values. So a simple disparity histogram analysis, for example, would not be enough.

One approach is based on the spatial distribution of disparity values. Objects at the centre and bottom of the screen are generally nearer than objects at the top and sides. A left-right swap detector could correlate measured disparity with a template of expected values to see which way round gives the better match.

A better method is based on the observation that closer objects occlude more distant objects. Occluded regions extend to the left of transitions in the left-eye view and to the right in the right-eye view. This observation enables us to determine statistically which view is which.

2D to 3D Conversion Detection
In the rush to deliver 3D content, it is tempting to use 2D to 3D conversion. Some automatic conversion is impressive, but concern remains that over-use of simple conversion algorithms may undermine the appeal of 3DTV. So it would be desirable when monitoring 3D content to detect the possible use of a converter.

One simple 2D to 3D conversion technique is to apply a fixed spatial disparity profile. Another technique is to introduce delay between two versions of the same moving sequence to give an impression of depth depending on motion. The use of these techniques can be detected using a combination of fingerprint comparison, temporal alignment and disparity estimation.

One can envisage a game of ‘cat and mouse’ whereby detection algorithms become ever more sophisticated in order to keep up with the increasing complexity of automatic 2D to 3D converters.

Source: TVB Europe

Plenoptic Lens Arrays Signal Future?

2011-09-28T02:38:00.001-07:00

While producers and manufacturers are wrestling with the practicalities of existing 3D production, research and development is being put into next generation 3D capture. Plenoptic lenses and computational cinematography are two possible future means of capturing light in three dimensions.

Starting from the premise that current 3D production equipment is stone age - cumbersome, expensive and inaccurate - speakers at a session on the future of 3D at IBC gazed into their crystal balls. Sony’s Senior Vice President of engineering and SMPTE President, Peter Lude, gave his version of the future in five steps.

“Step one is the clunky, cabled and complex approach we have used to date. We are now into step two which is about greater automation and computer analysis which should make it easier to use rigs, correct errors and reduce manual convergence.

“It should be possible for a computer system to network together multiple cameras arrayed around a stadia, for example, and to toe those cameras at the same time to keep the object at the same convergence point so that when cutting between cameras there is no discomfort with viewer’s eyes having to readjust.”

Step 3 is to use advance image processing tools. One idea is to use a synthetic or virtual camera. For example a 35mm camera can be used as source for texture, colour and framing while subsidiary cameras either to the side or from other parts of the set capture additional information. This information can be used to create a ‘virtual camera’ in post, or used to derive information which can off-set occlusion.

Beyond that Lude suggested the industry should look to new image sensing technologies such as plenoptic and lightfield systems.

A plenoptic camera, such as the stills camera available from German firm Raytrix, permits the counter intuitive ability to select focus points in post processing after the shot has been taken. It also permits capture of 3D images with a single sensor.

Another idea is to use infra-red systems as used by Microsoft’s Kinect or LIDAR Light Detection And Ranging devices to scan a field of view and extract depth patterns which can be used to reconstruct scenes. Holographic technologies are perhaps the next step and for information on that check here.

Walt Disney Studios' Vice President of production technology, Howard Lukk, also has his eye on plenoptics. While a plenoptic lens is comprised of multiple micro-lenses which capture a slightly different area of a picture, he speculated what a rig fitted with up to 100 camera lenses might capture. “What if we could come up with new camera system that comprises more one single camera?” he asked.

Stanford University is leading research into this area and has indeed stacked 100 cameras into a single rig for one demonstration.

“It is computationally intensive but the idea that you can refocus an image after it is shot, readjusting focal length, is extremely powerful,” said Lukk. “From all these viewpoints it should be possible - given enough processing power and mathematical juggling - to extrapolate a detailed disparity map to create good 3D model which we can manipulate in post any way we like. In effect we create stereo in a very controlled environment.”

If 3D camera rigs are not the long term future of the industry, Lukk suggests that a hybrid approach will develop which will be a combination of capturing volumetric space on set and being able to produce the 3D in a post-production environment at the back end.

“This will give you much more versatility in manipulating the images. This idea feeds on the idea of computational cinematography conceived by Marc Levoy (a computer graphics research at Stanford University) a few years ago. Basically this says that if we capture things in a certain way, we can compute things that we really need in the back end.

“You can be less accurate on the front end. Adobe has been doing a lot of work in this area, where you can refocus the image after the event. You can apply this concept to high dynamic range and higher frame rates.”

Disney is currently researching this method at Disney Research in Zurich, Lukk added. In addition Lukk says that research is also being conducted at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany.

“I think eventually we’ll get back to capturing the volumetric space and allowing cinematographers and directors to do what they do best - that is, capturing the performance,” he said.

Source: TVB Europe

DLNA Premium Video Support Big Step for Connected Home

2011-09-28T02:16:00.000-07:00

The DLNA’s support for streaming of premium content within the home, announced at IBC and initially for Europe only, is a major milestone in the evolution of connected home services. The move might have come sooner, but DLNA was waiting for maturation of the key underlying technology, DTCP-IP (Digital Transmission Content Protection over IP) to ensure safe and yet transparent delivery of content over IP networks. DTCP itself evolved in the mid 1990s, developed by chip maker Intel in conjunction with four major CE (consumer electronics) companies, Hitachi, Panasonic, Sony and Toshiba.

Collectively known as 5C, these five companies appreciated early on the impending need for a protocol capable of protecting audio/video entertainment content from illegal copying, interception and tampering as it traverses digital interfaces, such as USB ports.

The extension to IP came later, as did the crucial support for mechanisms designed to prevent content from being transmitted from a device inside the home to another device somewhere else. This was a vital step in persuading major rights holders such as Hollywood studios that they can trust home networks for delivery of their valuable premium content.

Apart from satisfying content owners, there is another important reason for DLNA’s adoption of DTCP-IP for copy protection around the home, which is to enable consumers to exercise their digital rights to the full. To do this, DTCP-IP enables operators to enforce multi-level rights dependent on the content.

Until now consumer devices have displayed video via either analogue interfaces, or the digital HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface), which incorporates a copy protection mechanism developed by Intel called HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) precisely to prevent consumers copying or recording. This allows no rights beyond immediate display of the content.

DTCP-IP on the other hand allows consumers to copy and record content subject to permission from the operator or rights holder. The rights are specified in a licence issued by the Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator (DTLA), details of which can be obtained from its website. The idea is that the licence encodes rules into the content, so that, for example, free-to-air terrestrial broadcasts could be recorded and copied without any restriction. In the case of subscription channels, consumers may be allowed to record content for their own subsequent viewing, but not copy it for sending to friends. Then premium content such as movies or live sports purchased on demand or pay-per-view via a specific transaction would probably be fully protected against recording and copying.

This begs the question of how these rights are robustly enforced, given that DTCP-IP is a software-only mechanism, as a result of the decision by CE makers that it would be impractical and too expensive to enforce hardware protection on the whole constellation of CE devices since unnecessary incremental costs must be avoided. The idea then is that hardware protection is confined to the set top box or gateway linking the home network with external delivery network via the operator’s Conditional Access (CA) system. Such boxes may well have SoCs (System on Chips) incorporating security hardware blocks such as Cryptography Research’s Crypto Firewall.

But then, from the gateway or set top onwards through the home network, the DLNA platform will take over with the software based DTCP-IP, although this will operate in cooperation with the CA and DRM, enforcing whatever rights they specify. In order to provide robust security without hardware, the developers of DTCP-IP, spearheaded by Intel, have developed some clever tricks.

First, and most obviously, DTCP-IP requires the devices at each end of a link to validate each other’s DTLA licenses via a joint authentication procedure comprising a sequence of data swaps and key calculations. This is designed to prevent pirates from inserting a circumvention device that would record a copy protection data exchange or strip out the protection, since such a device would first have to be authenticated before any communication with it could take place.

Secondly the 5C consortium have implemented specific measures that act in combination to prevent a device in a home transmitting content, whether previously recorded or streamed, to any other device outside the home even next door, unless the rights allow this. One of these measures involves limiting how many routers any IP packet that is part of the protected video can traverse before being deleted, which itself is effective in preventing transmission outside the home. Another measure involves measuring the delay between source and destination before allowing video to be transmitted.

Between them, these measures enable the operator to determine whether a DTCP device is trying to communicate with another device in the same home, with a near neighbor’s, or a more remote one, and act accordingly depending on the rights. This is a significant advance in software-only security and is the reason DTCP-IP has been embraced by DLNA and welcomed so warmly by pay-TV operators, including BSkyB and Orange in Europe. However, the full response of major rights holders has yet to come, and will ultimately determine whether the industry has hit on the right content protection solution for the future digital home.

The DLNA has emerged as the universal standards body defining the overall platform for the digital home, embracing standards developed by others, including Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) for device discovery and the lower level physical networking standards such as MoCA, as well as DTCP-IP.

By Philip Hunter, Broadcast Engineering

Startup Umami Serves Side of iPad Content For TV

2011-09-23T08:35:00.002-07:00

New York-based startup Umami will jump into the "second screen" fray with the expected release in the next few weeks of an iPad app, free to consumers, that will serve up contextually relevant content for shows on 40 broadcast and cable networks.

Umami fingerprints the audio in TV content across the 40 networks using a large-scale digital video recorder system. When a user fires up the app, it "listens" for which channel is currently on by comparing it to the Umami fingerprint database, then pulls up news, cast pages, episode guides and social media feeds from various sources in a flipbook-like format. The system works on DVR recordings, too.

The business model for the year-old firm is to land deals with TV networks and producers, to deliver ads and show-related material to avid fans.

"We wanted to make publishing to our platform dirt simple," Umami CEO Scott Rosenberg said. He claimed Umami already has several media partners lined up, though he declined to identify them.

Umami (pronounced "ooh-MA-mee") is a Japanese word that refers to a fifth taste of "savoriness." The idea: the app is like a flavor-enhancer for TV.

The company faces a slew of competitors, ranging from Nielsen -- whose MediaSync product uses audio watermarks for second-screen apps with live TV -- to Shazam Entertainment, Yahoo's IntoNow, Invidi Technologies and Spot411 Technologies. There's even another New York-based startup called SecondScreen Networks.

Rosenberg sees his primary competitor as networks trying to build apps themselves, a proposition he notes is time-consuming and results in a show- or network-specific app that's a narrow slice of the entire TV viewing experience.

On the other hand, an app like MTV's WatchWith, which provides content synchronized with the networks' top primetime shows, could coexist with Umami. "We don't think those activities are mutually exclusive," he said.

The founders tout their experience in TV and new media. Rosenberg most recently served as vice president of advanced advertising at Rovi, and has worked at BlackArrow, Intel and ReplayTV. Umami chief technology officer Bryan Slavin has worked at broadband video ad firm Lightningcast (acquired by AOL), Leap Wireless and BroadSoft.

The startup formed in the summer of 2010 and this spring raised $1.65 million in seed funding from Battery Ventures, New Enterprise Associates and independent investors.

By Todd Spangler, Multichannel News

Next-Generation Compression: The Market for HEVC and DASH

2011-09-23T03:14:00.010-07:00

Despite increases in network capacity over the last decade, the thirst for more and higher quality video means compression is still a critical element in TV delivery. In this IBC2011 discussion, Dr Paul Stallard and Matthew Goldman from the CTO Group at Ericsson's TV Business consider next-generation compression technologies including HEVC and MPEG DASH.

HEVC could support full-resolution 3DTV, ultra high-def and provide a leapfrog option for HD service providers using M2. It could also ensure longer battery life for mobiles and tablets decoding video. Meanwhile, DASH could bring some much-needed rationalisation to the delivery of adaptive bit rate services.

Click to watch the video
By John Moulding, Videonet

adRise Brings Interactive Ads to Your Connected TV

2011-09-23T02:35:00.000-07:00

For decades, TV advertising has suffered from a lack of interactivity and a lack of true measurability. New connected devices like TVs, Blu-ray players and streaming set-top boxes are changing all that by providing the same type of granular reporting and targetability available for web-based video ads directly on the TV. San Francisco-based startup adRise wants to be the platform to enable those ads to be delivered across multiple devices.

adRise offers up a real-time bidding exchange for video advertising on connected devices, enabling advertisers to serve into a number of different connected devices without having to do the hard work of integrating with various device platforms themselves. The startup has already integrated with Roku, Google TV, Boxee, Samsung, Yahoo Connected TV and other device platforms, with more on the way. adRise does all the device detection, transcoding, insertion of video assets on its end, so advertisers need only feed their existing Flash creative into its system once to have those assets reach a number of different devices.

On the publisher front, adRise provides a software development kit that publishers can use so that videos delivered to the TV through a Roku, Samsung TV or other device can serve up the same advertising. The startup has already teamed up with ad networks Tremor Video and Brightroll, and plans to announce partnerships with other major publishing and ad partners later this fall. According to CEO Farhad Massoudi, adRise has seen its ad inventory double every month over the last three months, and he expects that trend to continue at least through the end of the year.

The startup solves a problem not just on the delivery side of things, but on the reporting side as well. While Nielsen ratings are nice, there’s no substitute for the type of granular, deep-dive analytics that advertisers can get from IP-based delivery. adRise measures a number of unique characteristics, allowing advertisers to drill down into viewership by device, as well as to see how long ads were watched, if viewers clicked through to learn more about a product.

As more viewership happens on connected devices, advertisers will need a way to reach those viewers and publishers will need a way to monetize those views. Platforms like adRise seem well positioned to offer a solution to both.

By Ryan Lawler, GigaOM

Tablet TV: This is Just the Beginning

2011-09-23T02:26:00.000-07:00

The tablet boom has already transformed the TV Anywhere and OTT strategies of some Pay TV operators but the real disruption is yet to come. The tablet market has so far been dominated by Apple with the iPad, but now attention is switching to Amazon whose product has been factored into forecasts by some analysts even before its launch. Forrester Research predicts it will give Apple a run for its money and notch up sales of up to 5 million units worldwide during the last quarter of this year. Apple, by contrast, will sell anywhere between 10 million and 22 million iPad2s in the same period depending on whose forecast you believe in a highly volatile and wildly fluctuating market.

For Pay TV operators the point is that the Amazon device, assuming analysts’ predictions are correct and that its launch is imminent, will retail for around $250, or perhaps under €200 in Europe, about half the price of the iPad2, and be designed with video in mind. It could turn the tablet into the second TV of choice for many homes during 2012, making it imperative that Pay TV operators act immediately to ensure that this is an opportunity rather than a threat to their business.

Some operators have already done this, with the consensus being that tablets should be embraced as companion devices acting as remote controls and programme guides or for associated activities such as voting in games or reality TV shows, as well as alternative TVs themselves. And without question there should be no extra charge for delivering content to tablets or any other device. This point was made before IBC by US satellite operator DISH Network, whose VP of Consumer Technology Vivek Khemka argued that extending TV services to tablets should not be viewed as an immediate revenue opportunity but as a competitive measure.

“I think the revenues will flow from the customer becoming stickier, and maybe upgrading to premium packages,” said Khemka.

The same line has been taken by Liberty Global with its multimedia gateway called Horizon, which was unveiled at IBC. This includes Wi-Fi ports to deliver TV services to tablet devices at no extra charge. Liberty Global is conducting field trials with Horizon in the Netherlands with commercial launch planned for Q1 2012 by its UPC operation there, followed by its operations in Switzerland and Germany soon after. The aim is to attract developers of Apps to enrich the service both on tablet devices and primary TVs.

“We have ripped up the set-top and made it into a platform so that users can seamlessly navigate content and integrate it onto many devices in multiple places,” said Mike Fries, President and CEO of Liberty Global.

For operators such as Liberty Global, the challenge is to tie tablets into their Pay TV package to prevent consumers from defecting to emerging services that may provide some of the same content free over-the-top. One point in their favour is that at present tablets will consume most TV content over Wi-Fi within the home, rather than over cellular 3G or 4G services that are as yet incapable of delivering premium video services through lack of consistent bandwidth. This means that operators who supply the broadband connection are well placed to provide content to tablets within the home, especially if they can integrate them with the service as companion devices.

Tablets in companion mode can also create the indirect revenue opportunities alluded to by Khemka at DISH Network by increasing engagement with the content being watched on the big screen, drawing more viewers in. During the IBC conference several speakers referred to the ability of companion devices, which admittedly could be smartphones or laptops as well as tablets, to boost audiences for less popular niche content by providing an added element of entertainment or enlightenment.

Such entertainment can involve integration with social media, and this has been exploited very effectively by the UK Eden channel, which re-broadcasts natural history and action programmes made by the BBC and others. The channel allows viewers to vote via companion devices on aspects of programmes, such as their favourite wildlife attraction, with prizes. It also features question and answer sessions via Facebook with major wildlife presenters such as David Attenborough.

“This has led to a 112% increase in viewing within the key 16 to 34 age group,” said Steve Plunkett, Director of Innovation and Technology at Red Bee Media UK, which worked with the Eden channel on the project. Speaking at an IBC conference panel, Plunkett described this as a striking result given that the Eden channel broadcasts content that is quite specialised rather than having mass-market appeal.

To be successful with tablets, operators or broadcasters must play to their strengths rather than just treating them as second TV sets, as the Eden channel has done. The failure of mobile TV so far can be attributed partly to an inability to exploit smaller screens properly, according to Sefy Ariely, VP for Sales and Marketing at IPTV middleware and content discovery specialist Orca Interactive.

“At the end of the day the reason I believe mobile TV was not successful is because it was trying to take the experience from one context to another,” said Ariely, speaking to Videonet at IBC.

This led to a temporary loss of interest in convergence between fixed and mobile TV, according to Ariely, but now the tablet is fast bringing it back. “We have watched how the iPad and tablet have sown the seeds for a tsunami of multi-screen and TV Anywhere discussions, and seen everyone scrambling while for us it was already built-in. We see this as another step in the trend towards personal TV.”

Indeed it is the potential of tablets to personalise the whole TV experience that holds the keys to success for operators, according to Neale Foster, VP of Global Sales at ACCESS, a provider of software for portable and wireless devices. “Apps can seriously enhance that experience and that is the point of companion and multi-screen devices,” said Foster, speaking on a panel hosted during IBC by CA and Pa TV software provider NDS. “They must be enjoyable and fun.”

Over time apps on tablets as companion devices also have potential to create those elusive new revenue opportunities that Pay TV operators are craving, by enabling adverts that play across both screens with scope for interactivity. “I think when the advertisers and media buyers get hold of this it is going to go stellar,” said Steve Godman, Sales Director at London-based digital media agency Skinkers, speaking on the same NDS sponsored panel. “The minute you get a really robust advertisement platform plugged into this stuff you will start generating revenue from it”.

The tablet boom has opened this door for advertising related apps, Godman added. “Tablets change the dynamic – you don’t have to fire up a laptop.” But for advertising, as with the associated programme, the context must be right for the device. “The opportunity lies in providing the right content for the device.”

The potential of tablets is not just as companion devices, or even as second TVs within the home, but also to usher in the era of full TV Anywhere that is not confined to locations where wired connectivity or Wi-Fi access is available. This full tablet potential will emerge gradually over the next few years, according to Andrew Baron, Chief Operating Officer at the UK cable operator Virgin Media.

“We are starting to see the ecosystem emerging, with video and the mobile getting ever-closer,” said Baron at an IBC conference. “I confidently predict the major theme here (at IBC) in the next three or four years will be mobile.”

This will require either further improvement in the ability of mobile 4G networks to provide the required bandwidth and Quality of Service for HD video, or else carpeting almost the whole country with Wi-Fi. With the arrival of the tablet, the end device is now driving mobile video forward rather than holding it back as before.

By Philip Hunter, Videonet