Towards a format-agnostic approach for production, delivery and rendering of immersive media

The media industry is currently being pulled in the often-opposing directions of increased realism (high resolution, stereoscopic, large screen) and personalization (selection and control of content, availability on many devices). We investigate the feasibility of an end-to-end format-agnostic approach to support both these trends. In this paper, different aspects of a format-agnostic capture, production, delivery and rendering system are discussed. At the capture stage, the concept of layered scene representation is introduced, including panoramic video and 3D audio capture. At the analysis stage, a virtual director component is discussed that allows for automatic execution of cinematographic principles, using feature tracking and saliency detection. At the delivery stage, resolution-independent audiovisual transport mechanisms for both managed and unmanaged networks are treated. In the rendering stage, a rendering process that includes the manipulation of audiovisual content to match the connected display and loudspeaker properties is introduced. Different parts of the complete system are revisited demonstrating the requirements and the potential of this advanced concept. © 2013 ACM