Recommendations for Mitigating Latency in Streaming VR Video Delivery Workflows
Project Status:
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Completed
The project has been completed.
Start:
October 1, 2019
Estimated Completion:
July 31, 2020
Problem Statement
Virtual Reality is gaining in popularity. A number of use cases in the entertainment, marketing, tourism and learning sectors are already beginning to bubble up and new head-mounted devices (HMDs) are announced almost weekly. But the broad adoption of VR in streaming video will only occur if rights holders and operators can provide the viewer with seamless spatial and temporal resolutions that drive acceptable Quality-of-Experience and, in extreme cases, even prevent the viewer from becoming physical sick when using an HMD. It is imperative to understand the potential causes of latency throughout the streaming video workflow that might disrupt a VR streaming video experience.
Project Description
VR streaming video heralds a new video experience but it’s potential may never be realized if the possibility looms of latencies which might potentially make viewers physically ill. The intent of this project is to establish end-to-end VR streaming video delivery workflows and measure the latency which may impact the viewer’s Quality of Experience. The PoC will include a careful analysis of the various latencies caused by technologies and components within the workflow of high resolution VR streaming video content. The data gathered from the PoC will serve as the basis for a report and subsequent best practices document which will provide a set of recommendations for improving VR streaming video workflows to mitigate latency. This document will also potentially serve as input into other VR working groups should it be determined specific issues require more directed research. It is also anticipated a second POC will be conducted based on the findings to measure if the recommendations produce a noticeable improvement in delivery latency.
Project Type
Proof of Concept
Project Leads
Advisors
Goals and Objectives
The goals and objectives of this project include:
- Analyze the data gathered and make recommendations for optimizing workflow components.
- Re-testing an identical VR streaming workflow after optimizations have been carried out.
- Comparison of the two data sets to identify the optimal changes that should be made to the VR streaming workflow for the least amount of latency.
Project Scope
The PoC portion of this project WILL PROVIDE:
- A defined test environment for an end-to-end VR streaming video workflow.
- A list of specific components and technologies which will be measured.
- Details of optimizations made to each respective workflow components (pulled from the document portion of this project)
- Data tables representing workflow components and their measurements prior to optimization.
- Data tables representing workflow components and their measurements after optimization (based on recommendations made in the document portion of this project).
- Testing of workflow components or technologies not explicitly defined as part of the testing parameters.
- Analysis of the data.
- Recommendations for remediation.
- An explanation of the testing environment and methodology.
- Detailed analysis of all results (before and after remediation).
- Recommended methods to improve latency in each workflow component tested based upon secondary testing of optimized workflow components or testing environment.
- Recommendations of any vendor technologies to reduce latency.
- Recommendations for latency remediation of workflow components not specifically tested.
Contributors
The following members have contributed to this project. Click on their name to visit their profile. If they have not published their profile, the link will redirect to their LinkedIn profile.
Additional References
The following references can help project participants gain a better understanding of streaming VR video and streaming latency: