Media Production, Delivery and Interaction for Platform Independent Systems : Format-Agnostic Media

Presents current trends and potential future developments by leading researchers in immersive media production, delivery, rendering and interaction

The underlying audio and video processing technology that is discussed in the book relates to areas such as 3D object extraction, audio event detection; 3D sound rendering and face detection, gesture analysis and tracking using video and depth information. The book will give an insight into current trends and developments of future media production, delivery and reproduction. Consideration of the complete production, processing and distribution chain will allow for a full picture to be presented to the reader. Production developments covered will include integrated workflows developed by researchers and industry practitioners as well as capture of ultra-high resolution panoramic video and 3D object based audio across a range of programme genres. Distribution developments will include script based format agnostic network delivery to a full range of devices from large scale public panoramic displays with wavefield synthesis and ambisonic audio reproduction to ’small screen’ mobile devices. Key developments at the consumer end of the chain apply to both passive and interactive viewing modes and will incorporate user interfaces such as gesture recognition and ‘second screen’ devices to allow manipulation of the audio visual content.

• Presents current trends and potential future developments by leading researchers in immersive media production, delivery, rendering and interaction.
• Considers the complete production, processing and distribution chain illustrating the dependencies and the relationship between different components.
• Proposes that a format-agnostic approach to the production and delivery of broadcast programmes will overcome the problems faced with the steadily growing number of production and delivery formats.
• Explains the fundamentals of media production in addition to the complete production chain, beyond current-state-of-the-art through to presenting novel approaches and technologies for future media production.
• Focuses on the technologies that will allow for the realization of an E2E media platform that supports flexible content representations and interactivity for users.

An essential read for Researchers and developers of audio-visual technology in industry and academia, such as engineers in broadcast technology companies and students working toward a career in the rapidly changing area of broadcast both from a production and an engineering perspective.

Oliver Schreer, Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institut, Berlin, Germany
Dr. Schreer is Scientific Project Manager of the "Immersive Media & 3D Video" Group in the Image Processing Department at HHI, Berlin. He is responsible for the lead of European Research projects (e.g. FascinatE project) and coordinating research on 3D video processing and immersive media.

Graham Thomas, BBC Research & Development, London, UK
Dr. Thomas is Principal Research Engineer and Section Lead of the Production Magic department at BBC R&D. He leads a team of engineers developing 3D image processing and graphics techniques for TV production. His work has led to many commercial products, e.g. the Piero sports graphics system, which won a Queen’s Award in 2011. He holds 20 patents and is Visiting Professor at University of Surrey.

Ben Shirley, University of Salford, UK
Ben Shirley is Senior Lecturer at the University of Salford and Academic Lead for the Digital Innovation Cluster in the University’s College of Science & Technology at MediaCityUK. He has been principal investigator for a range of broadcast related research projects including leading Salford’s work in the EU FascinatE project. He teaches audio technology and broadcast engineering at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Georg Thallinger, Joanneum Research, Graz, Austria
Dr. Thallinger is Head of the research group "Audiovisual Media" at JOANNEUM RESEARCH, Austria. He oversees a group active in the field of digital media with a focus on video and image processing as well as metadata for applications in media production and archiving, film restoration, media monitoring and security. Dr. Thallinger is involved in the EU FascinatE project.

Jean-Francois Macq, Alcatel-Lucent, Antwerp, Belgium
Dr. Macq is a Senior Research Engineer at Bell Labs, the research organization of Alcatel-Lucent. He has been responsible for several national and international research projects in the field of video coding and delivery, currently including the EU FascinatE project.

Javier Ruiz-Hidalgo, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain
Dr. Ruiz-Hidalgo is an Associate Professor at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. He has been involved in various European Projects as a principal researcher from the Image Processing Group at UPC, including the EU FascinatE project.

Omar Niamut, Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), Delft, The Netherlands
Dr. Niamut is a Senior Research Scientist in the "Media Networks and Services" Group at TNO. He has advised the European Parliament on the harmonization of mobile TV and was editor of the technology report on mobile TV in the European Commission-assigned European Mobile Broadcast Council. He participated in ETSI TISPAN standardization with over 200 contributions on interactive services for next generation IPTV and advised the Singapore government on the use of IPTV standards. He has been involved in a number of European projects, including the Fascinate project. Dr. Niamut holds 15 patents.