Today marks a very important date for the future of virtual reality (VR). Today at CES the VR Industry Forum was launched. We are happy to announce that Harmonic is a founding member. With its mission to further the widespread availability of high-quality audiovisual VR experiences for the benefit of consumers, the VR Industry Forum says 28 major companies will collaborate to promote the adoption and end-to-end interoperability of VR across key media and entertainment sectors.
Through its efforts, the VR Industry Forum expects the industry to avoid the fragmentation of standards that has plagued the audio/video industry in the past. This is very good news for the industry and should help accelerate wide adoption of this exciting technology.
Also at CES, Harmonic will showcase a native UHD virtual reality (VR) experience with technology partners Viaccess-Orca, Tiledmedia and Digital Immersion. Virtual reality technology will revolutionize the video experience, especially for live sports, and we believe there’s no better place to unveil the latest innovations in VR image quality and bandwidth efficiency than CES. Through this collaboration we are breaking down barriers in the virtual reality environment, making the UHD VR experience completely immersive for viewers and monetizable for video content and service providers.
Together we will demonstrate how content providers, broadcasters and pay-TV operators can distribute live and on-demand VR content in the most bandwidth-efficient manner possible, enabling viewers to enjoy a video resolution five to 10 times higher than that of existing commercially deployed VR services on head-mounted devices, phones and tablets.
At the heart of the solution is Tiledmedia's patented Tiled VR Streaming technology, which allows VR streaming at a resolution higher than any other solution on the market. Leveraging the HEVC compression standard, Tiledmedia’s technology can deliver UHD video at extremely low bitrates, three times lower than legacy systems at a similar quality level, over existing content delivery networks.
Tiledmedia’s Tiled VR Streaming is integrated with the Harmonic PURE Compression Engine™ for UHD compression, Viaccess-Orca’s Connected Sentinel Player for secure playback, and technology and services from Digital Immersion, a specialist in the filming and post-production of 360-degree video.
– Thierry Fautier, Vice President of Video Strategy at Harmonic and President of the Ultra HD Forum