At IBC 2023, Fraunhofer HHI will showcase how the most recent Versatile Video Coding standard (H.266/VVC) significantly improves the quality of video streaming: On the one hand, by its higher coding efficiency relative to its already established predecessor standards, on the other hand, by enabling so-called Open-GOP encoding for different resolutions. While the technical background will be presented at the IBC conference, Fraunhofer HHI will demonstrate on the showfloor its application in two real-world scenarios for dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (DASH): cloud transcoding and live encoding.

For the cloud transcoding scenario, Fraunhofer HHI‘s worldwide fastest, highly efficient open-source VVC encoder VVenC has been integrated into Bitmovin‘s highly scalable cloud transcoding platform. Playback and switching between the multi-resolution VVC streams are shown on a tablet running the Bitmovin player based on Fraunhofer HHI‘s fast standards-compliant open-source VVC decoder: VVdeC.

In the live encoding scenario, the Spin Digital VVC live encoder produces 8K, 4K and 2K streams which are played back using the Elmedia player on a recent Apple Mac Studio and displayed on an 8K TV set. Here again, Fraunhofer HHI‘s VVdeC enables the Elmedia player to playback VVC encoded video in realtime and up to 8K.

Interactive Volumetric Video

The new media format “Volumetric Video” becomes interactive. At this year’s IBC, we present new approaches for highly realistic, interactive volumetric video. A recently finalized Virtual Reality experience showcases the digital testimony of a holocaust survivor. The user is invited to meet the contemporary witness and listen to her memories, while she is always looking at you. This is achieved through real-time animation of the head of the volumetric character in order to provide eye contact. Furthermore, our recent research results on volumetric video production using deep-learning-based approaches and learning of animated representations from volumetric video are presented on the showfloor.