Christian Timmerer

QoMEX’19 paper on “Tile-based Streaming of 8K Omnidirectional Video: Subjective and Objective QoE Evaluation” accepted

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Authors: Raimund Schatz (AIT Austrian Institute of Technology), Anatoliy Zabrovskiy (Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt), Christian Timmerer(Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt, Bitmovin Inc.)
Abstract: Omnidirectional video (ODV) streaming applications are becoming increasingly popular. They enable a highly immersive experience as the user can freely choose her/his field of view within the 360-degree environment. Current deployments are fairly simple but viewport-agnostic which inevitably results in high storage/bandwidth requirements and low Quality of Experience (QoE). A promising solution is referred to as tile- based streaming which allows to have higher quality within the user’s viewport while quality outside the user’s viewport could be lower. However, empirical QoE assessment studies in this domain are still rare. Thus, this paper investigates the impact of different tile-based streaming approaches and configurations on the QoE of ODV. We present the results of a lab-based subjective evaluation in which participants evaluated 8K omnidirectional video QoE as influenced by different (i) tile-based streaming approaches (full vs. partial delivery), (ii) content types (static vs. moving camera), and (iii) tile encoding quality levels determined by different quantization parameters. Our experimental setup is characterized by high reproducibility since relevant media delivery aspects (including the user’s head movements and dynamic tile quality adaptation) are already rendered into the respective processed video sequences. Additionally, we performed a complementary objective evaluation of the different test sequences focusing on bandwidth efficiency and objective quality metrics. The results are presented in this paper and discussed in detail which confirm that tile-based streaming of ODV improves visual quality while reducing bandwidth requirements.

Index Terms: Omnidirectional Video, Tile-based Streaming, Subjective Testing, Objective Metrics, Quality of Experience

Acknowledgment: This work was supported in part by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) under the Next Generation Video Streaming project “PROMETHEUS”.

Link: https://www.qomex2019.de/

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Prof. Radu Prodan

Prof. Radu Prodan visited the Indian Institute of Technology Kottayam

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Prof. Radu Prodan visited the Indian Institute of Technology Kottayam.

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Articonf⁩ team attending ⁦@MediaFutureEU⁩ in Brussels and presenting the project to other social media initiatives.

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Networked Multimedia Systems course in SS 2019 – Ass.-Prof. Ali C. Beğen

ITEC is delighted to announce the next speaker in our guest lecture series – Ass.-Prof. Ali C. Beğen from Ozyegin University, Istanbul, Turkey. The course will take place April 1-12, 2019. This course introduces different types of applications that enhance the world of multimedia and the Web, and the systems and data structures that are used by them.

For more information on the course, click HERE.

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Augmented Reality course in SS 2019 – PD Dr. Ralf Klamma

ITEC is delighted to announce the next speaker in our guest lecture series – PD Dr. Ralf Klamma from RWTH Aachen University. The course will take place from June 12-19, 2019.

This course presents an introduction to Augmented Reality, with emphasis on designing and developing Augmented Reality applications. For more information on the course, click HERE.

 

 

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Post-Doctoral Research Position (100% Employment)

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The Institute of Information Technology at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt invites applications for Post-Doctoral Research Positions (100% employment) within the Christian Doppler (CD) Pilot Laboratory ATHENA “Adaptive Streaming over HTTP and Emerging Networked Multimedia Services” ATHENA-JobApplication PostDoc

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Doctoral (PhD) Position (100% employment)

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The Institute of Information Technology at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt invites applications for Doctoral Student Positions (100% employment) within the Christian Doppler (CD) Pilot Laboratory ATHENA “Adaptive Streaming over HTTP and Emerging Networked Multimedia Services” ATHENA-JobApplication

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Two Years of Game Studies and Engineering – Embracing the Importance of Videogames for the Digital Age

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Wir feiern das zweijährige Bestehen des Masterprogramms Game Studies and Engineering an der Universität Klagenfurt mit einer besonderen Abendveranstaltung. Am 22. Jänner laden wir Sie um 18.30 Uhr in den Hörsaal 4 ein, um gemeinsam mit Ihnen einen Blick auf bisher Geleistetes und in die Zukunft der Game Studies und ihre Rolle für die technologischen und sozialen Herausforderungen der Menschheit für das digitale Zeitalter zu werfen.

Highlight des Abends ist der Vortrag „Project Discovery: Designing Games for a Better World“ von Attila Szantner. Als CEO und Mitbegründer von Massively Multiplayer Online Science (MMOS) ist er spezialisiert darauf Videospiele mit dem Themenfeld der Citizen Science zu vereinen. Für sein Projekt Discovery, das Spieler der Weltraumsimulation EVE Online menschliche Zellen analysieren lässt und damit unter anderem positiv zur Krebsforschung beitragen konnte, wurde er mit dem renommierten Lovie Award ausgezeichnet. Abgerundet wird Herrn Szantners Vortrag von kurzen Präsentationen der Mitbegründer des Masterprogramms Game Studies and Engineering und ihren an der Universität verfolgten Projekten und Perspektiven.

Als internationales Masterprogramm wird die Veranstaltung auf Englisch stattfinden. Wir freuen uns auf Ihr erscheinen.

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8th Video Browser Showdown (VBS) at MMM2019 in Thessaloniki

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Last week, Klaus Schoeffmann co-organized the 8th Video Browser Showdown (VBS) at MMM2019 in Thessaloniki, and it was a great success. For the first time they used the V3C1 dataset (Part 1 of the Vimeo Creative Commons Collection), which consists of 7475 video files that amount for about 1000 hours of content. The six participating teams (including an ITEC team with Andreas Leibetseder) could solve all visual and textual Known-Item Search (KIS) tasks, as well as all Ad-Hoc Video Search (AVS) tasks within a short amount of time! The teams have clearly demonstrated that their sophisticated video retrieval systems are very powerful and allow fast and effective content-based search in videos. They look forward to the next VBS in January 2020 in Daejeon, Korea at MMM2020! More information here: www.VideoBrowserShowdown.org

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ARTICONF: kick-off meeting at Klagenfurt

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Prof. Radu Prodan coordinated EU H2020 Horizon project – ARTICONF (smART socIal media eCOsystem in a blockchaiN Federated environment) held its first kick-off meeting at Klagenfurt from January 8th – 10th 2019. The ARTICONF team comprising of international partners from Austria, Netherlands, UK, Macedonia, Portugal, Spain, and Norway pledged support to create a novel decentralized and trusted social media ecosystem.  The international team with diverse expertise ranging from blockchain to digital sociology discussed the road map of the project over three years stipulated period and outlined innovative ways of contribution to European Union’s grand vision of Next Generation Internet (NGI) goals.

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