360° Video Streaming and Playback Demos

360° video got quite popular and we have been working on solutions for efficient delivery of high-resolution content (www.fokus.fraunhofer.de/go/360), especially also to TV devices (in addition to Head-Mounted Displays).
On this page, we demonstrate the different approaches for 360° video streaming and rendering highlighting the respective challenges, advantages and disadvantages. We also demonstrate how interactive video technologies can enhance the 360° video playback and user experience, especially on TV devices. Please visit the 360° Video Streaming and Playback Approaches page for more details about the demos.



360° Client Side Rendering Demos

The basic and most common way to play 360° videos is client side rendering. The full 360° video is streamed to the client and the view is set accordingly to the user inputs. Since only a portion of the view can be seen at any given time, a lot of unused data is being transferred.

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360° Server Side Rendering Demos

To overcome the downside of the client rendering we introduced a cloud rendering approach. All the processing is done beforehand in the cloud and only the visible portion for the current view is transferred to the client, based on response to user inputs and requested view. With this method we deliver the same quality at much lower bitrates. Or much better quality at same bitrates.

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360° HEVC Tiled Streaming Demos

The High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) provides a way to split the video into rectangular regions called tiles which can be decoded in parallel. One of the features behind HEVC tiles is the ability to select regions of interest (ROIs). We use also this functionality for 360° video streaming by delivering HEVC tiles of a 360° video that form the FOV in higher quality and other tiles in lower qualities.

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360° Interactive Demos

The freedom to look around in any direction brings the risk of missing something. Significant events of the main action could happen 'behind' the user. To guide the viewer and indicate important points of interest, we developed an interactive framework, including the tools needed for content creators and authors, allowing users to follow ‘preferred’ viewing paths before (or instead) looking around freely on their own.

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