Spatial Adaptive Bitrate Streaming for 360 Video
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current 360-degree and virtual reality video streaming requires high bandwidth due to the need to transmit video content for all potential viewer directions, leading to increased bandwidth demands and playback challenges.
Innovation Solution
The system generates spatially enhanced video streams by dividing the 360-degree video into multiple streams with varying resolutions, where high-resolution streams align with the viewer's field of view and low-resolution streams are outside of it, allowing the video player to adaptively select the appropriate stream based on the viewer's direction, reducing overall bandwidth requirements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If 360-degree video content for all potential viewer directions is transmitted, then complete coverage of all viewing angles is achieved, but bandwidth requirements increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the 360-degree video content into multiple directional streams, each covering a specific field of view direction. Instead of transmitting complete high-resolution content for all 360 degrees simultaneously, the system divides the spherical video into discrete angular segments and transmits only the relevant segment based on the viewer's current gaze direction, thereby reducing bandwidth while maintaining complete viewing angle coverage capability
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local quality by transmitting high-resolution video content only for the specific directional segment corresponding to the viewer's current field of view, while using lower resolution or compressed representations for other directional segments. This ensures that the viewer receives high-quality content for their current viewing direction while minimizing overall bandwidth consumption
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple video streams with different resolutions are generated, then adaptability to viewer direction is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic stream selection where the video player adaptively chooses from multiple pre-generated directional streams based on the viewer's real-time head orientation or gaze direction. The system dynamically switches between different directional streams without requiring complex real-time rendering, thereby achieving adaptability while keeping the generation system manageable through pre-computation
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-generating and encoding multiple directional video streams during the encoding phase, before playback. This allows the viewer's device to simply select from pre-prepared streams based on viewing direction, avoiding the need for complex real-time video processing and reducing system complexity during actual playback
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus and method for delivering a spatially enhanced live streaming experience for virtual reality or 360 degree live streaming of video is disclosed. A live streaming video signal is encoded into multiple streams at varying resolutions. A portion of the high resolution video stream, corresponding to a field of view within the entire 360 degree view, is merged with a low resolution video stream. The resulting video stream is referred to as a spatial adaptive video stream. Multiple spatial adaptive video streams are generated to provide a high resolution field of view across the entire 360 degrees. As the viewer looks in different directions, the video player plays back one of the spatial adaptive video streams according to the direction in which the viewer is looking.