The original expected results are:
- Compression Technology: DDD60 expected to deliver advanced compression and transcoding technology for VR content to the creative industries in general, and to the Film & TV world in particular.
- SME business models: DD60 planned to create an infrastructure that will enable new business models around VR content
- Market demand: DDD60 expected to deliver a solution for the needs of the Film and TV industry.
- Market ready: DDD60 expected to create a solution that is not only market ready, but will be directly applied in the market.
Progress beyond the state-of-the-art
- Encoder: In DDD60 we enhanced the Spin Digital H.265 software encoder with special support for 360° video. The enhanced encoder has been integrated into the popular multimedia transcoder FFmpeg, which allows the pre-processing and compression of a wide set of input and output file and streaming formats The transcoder includes new features, which make it very unique in the industry:
- spindec: fast H.265 contribution to H.265 distribution transcoding with full support for H.265 Range Extensions (RExt).
- spinfilter for 360° video: High performance and high quality spherical video projection conversion including: equirectangular and cubemap projection conversions, and rotation, dynamic viewport generation.
- spinenc: H.265 encoder with higher compression efficiency than the leading open source encoders and with extra quality enhancements for 360° video.
- Server Based Video Library: The onsite library developed by DDD60 is the first of its kind in the film and TV industry. There are two advancements with regard to the state of the art: The DDD60 library for 360° films is server-based. The files are not stored locally on a client PC but centrally in a NAS connected to the library server. As a result, in spite of the size of VR files, an almost limitless amount of VR files can be stored, delivered and viewed by film industry professionals at festivals and markets.
Exploitation and use
The consortium partners have exploited the results of the project in different ways making impacts in the film & TV industry, and the media industry in general:
- Reelport: The core product of reelport are its video libraries which are operated at the world’s largest festivals and events. As a result of DDD60 reelport has added VR playout as an additional feature to these libraries.
- Spin Digital: Spin Digital commercializes video codec solutions in an international B2B market. It specializes on emerging applications that require very high quality video. Spin Digital products include complete applications (Encoder and Media Player), and a SDK for creating custom applications. The work performed in DDD60 allows Spin Digital to extend its product portfolio into the VR/360° video domain.
- Tampere Festival, Sheffield Festival, Sunny Side and Marché du Film: As festivals and markets, these partners do not have an interest in exploitation; their interest is in promoting VR content.
Wider Socio-economic Impact
DDD60 is targeted at media industry professionals, and in this domain it contributed to the acceptance of VR in the Film & TV industries, this industry will multiply its results towards its overall audience.
