Team of technology enthusiasts innovating for
the media industry,
The Netherland Organisation for
Applied Research TNO.
Catalysing innovations in the media industry
UDH, HDR, Net neutrality
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Boosting adoption of new media technologies
MPEG, DASH-IF, VR-IF, IETF, 3GPP
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New technologies and standards-to-be
Reference implementations, Proof Of Concepts
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Live streaming of panoramic video is challenging. Back in 2010 within the FP7 FascinatE project, TNO pioneered the stream-what-you-watch concept creating the tiled streaming technology. By dividing the panorama into spatial tiles and streaming only those in the current Region-of-Interest of the user, a significant amount of bandwidth can be saved.
In the early 2010's, the interest in 360 videos begun skyrocketing. Strong of our experience with panoramic tiled streaming, we created the next evolution of Tiled Streaming that uses only one decoder by leveraging existing features of the HEVC video codec.
Virtual Reality applications excel in immersing the user into another reality. But passed the wow-effect, users may feel the lack of the social interactions that would happen in real life. TNO is exploring ways to bring in the virtual world the experience of sharing moments of life with friends and family.
a.k.a. ISO/IEC 23009 DASH Part 5 Server And Network-assisted DASH.SAND defines a list of messages a DASH client and a SAND-enabled HTTP server (DANE) can exchange. It also defines protocols for a DANE and a DASH client to exchange the SAND messages.
New network paradigms like SDN and NFV promise to make the 5G mobile network adaptable to application requirements. But how will network adaptation work in combination with the adaptation logic of current streaming applications?
In the context of Information-Centric Networking (ICN), we look at methods to more efficiently request and deliver content to applications, through innovative caching algorithms and advanced data naming approaches. Our applications include: adaptive bitrate video streaming and the Internet of Things.
The continuous flow of new technologies and business models built around internet streaming, digital platforms and virtual reality put pressure on existing rules and regulation time and time again. New challenges are coming, for example: how will net neutrality work out for media services over 5G networks, can 5G slices for media be made to work across multiple networks and how can and should addressable TV deal with personal data of viewers?”
User habits keep on changing. Users are more mobile, they consume on many different devices, they epxect to be able to watch content anywhere, at anytime. This brings challenges to content and service providers. TNO supports innovations in these domains for the industry to meet these new user's expectations.
The unedited nature of user-generated video streams makes them less suited for enriching news broadcasts or event reports. TNO has built a platform that bridges this gap and enables broadcasters and news outlets to request, receive, filter, direct, edit, and publish live video streams from consumers as well as professionals.
The ISO working group JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 is better known as MPEG. We are active since 2013 by contributing and coordinating work in this standardization body. Below are examples of specifications for which we are editors or main contributors.
Media streaming is key technology for our work. Joining the DASH Industry Forum (DASH-IF) allows us to be on the forefront of industry needs for OTT technologies. Inside the Interoperability Task Force, we are contributing to this forum. Below are examples of documents reflecting our participation.
With most of the mobile traffic being video, optimization of video delivery for mobile applications is important. Additionally, new mobile paradigms like 5G promise to customize networks to specific services or "industry verticals". We contribute to these developments within the context of the SA4 group of 3GPP. Below are some of the specifications and study items we contributed to.
We are active in various groups of the IETF and IRTF, most notably CDNI and ICNRG, where we work towards the CDN Interconnection standard and the harmonization of different ICN architectures, respectively.
The HbbTV forum aims at harmonizing the broadcast and broadband delivery of entertainment to consumers through Connected TV’s and set-top-boxes. TNO has been an active member since 2012. Our current and past contributions comprise chairing the IPTV Task Force and driving the Application Discovery and Operator Applications work items and supporting work of the Marketing and Education Working group.
This proof of concept showcases how to use the SRD feature of MPEG DASH to enable Panoramic Tiled Streaming.
Each DASH player started from this demo page downloads segments from a media server and at the same time connects to a same DANE. The DASH metrics generated by each DASH client are then sent over a WebSocket connection to the DANE. This way, a service provider, a CDN, can detect issues in the delivery of DASH content and react as quickly as possible to remediate.
When you look at a news site, you can quickly determine the relevance of the different articles by headers, sections, or layout. For videos, that relevance is not always as clear. Therefore, TNO and project partners developped this concept that makes the content of a video visible to you.
Virtual Reality applications excel in immersing the user into another reality. But past the wow-effect, users may feel the lack of the social interactions that would happen in real life. TNO is exploring ways to bring to the virtual world the experience of sharing moments of life with friends and family. We do this using advanced video-based solutions.
Kiswe Mobile, Sceenic and TNO have won the innovation challenge of the Eurovision Song Contest 2020. Each winner receives up to € 35,000 to realize their application.