Video Mapping System for Immersive Viewpoint Switching Latency
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current immersive video technologies face challenges in balancing video quality and file size, leading to lower-than-desired resolution due to bandwidth restrictions, and existing solutions like adaptive streaming introduce significant latency when switching between viewpoints.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a video mapping system that utilizes a cube structure for 360-degree content, allowing for six high-resolution tiles, and employs a group of pictures (GOP) format with offset timing to reduce video switching delay without increasing bandwidth requirements, enabling seamless high-quality image rendering across viewpoints.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If high resolution video content is provided for all viewpoints, then video quality is improved, but file size and bandwidth requirements increase excessively
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by providing high-resolution video content only for the currently viewed direction while using lower resolution for other directions. The video processing device determines the viewing direction of the user and selectively renders high-quality video tiles corresponding to that direction, while other tiles are rendered at lower quality, thus maintaining overall video quality experience without proportionally increasing total file size.
2Manufacturing precision
If adaptive streaming is used to provide high quality video in the direction of viewing, then video quality is improved, but significant latency is introduced when switching between viewpoints
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-generating multiple version videos for each viewpoint direction, where each version contains video tiles with different resolution qualities. These pre-generated versions are stored and ready for immediate switching. When the user changes viewing direction, the system can instantly switch to the corresponding pre-generated version without needing to process or encode new video data, thereby eliminating latency while maintaining quality.
3Quantity of substance
If lower resolution content is provided to reduce file size, then bandwidth requirements are reduced, but display quality degrades below the capability of many displays
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the 360-degree video content into multiple directional views, each further divided into video tiles. For each viewpoint, the system identifies which tiles correspond to the user's current viewing direction and ensures those specific tiles are transmitted at high resolution, while other tiles are transmitted at lower resolution. This selective quality transmission optimizes bandwidth usage while ensuring the visible portion always maintains high display quality.
4Loss of time
If multiple high-resolution video streams are maintained for seamless switching, then video switching latency is reduced, but bandwidth requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of maintaining multiple complete high-resolution video streams for all viewpoints simultaneously (which would be excessive), the system maintains partial high-resolution data - specifically, pre-generated video versions for each viewpoint with high-quality tiles only where needed. This partial action approach reduces the total data volume compared to full high-res streams while still enabling fast switching, as the pre-generated versions are already prepared and stored.
Data Source
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AI summary
A video providing device for providing video content comprising a plurality of viewpoints, the device comprising a video storage unit operable to store a plurality of versions of a video for each of a plurality of the viewpoints in the video content, the videos being encoded such that each video comprises a region of high resolution corresponding to that viewpoint, wherein a plurality of the videos each comprise the same region of high resolution, and each video comprising the same region of high resolution is encoded with a temporal offset of the group of pictures relative to those other videos with the same region of high resolution, the group of pictures offsets defining video switching times for each video, a viewpoint determining unit operable to determine a requested viewpoint in the video content, a timing identification unit operable to identify a next suitable video switching time from amongst the plurality of video switching times, a video selection unit operable to select a video with a high resolution region corresponding to the requested viewpoint and the identified video switching time, and a video transmitting unit operable to transmit the selected video to a video receiving device.