6K and 8K Effective Resolution with 4K HEVC Decoding Capability for 360 Video Streaming

PubDate: July 2019

Teams: Nokia Technologies，Tampere University

Writers: Alireza Zare；Maryam Homayouni；Alireza Aminlou；Miska M. Hannuksela；Moncef Gabbouj

PDF: 6K and 8K Effective Resolution with 4K HEVC Decoding Capability for 360 Video Streaming

Abstract

The recent Omnidirectional MediA Format (OMAF) standard, which specifies the delivery of 360° video content, supports only equirectangular projection (ERP) and cubemap projection and their region-wise packing with a limitation on video decoding capability to the maximum resolution of 4K (e.g., 4,096 × 2,048). Streaming of 4K ERP content allows only a limited viewport resolution, which is lower than the resolution of many current head-mounted displays (HMDs). Therefore, to take full advantage of high-resolution HMDs, delivery of 360° video content beyond 4K resolution needs to be enabled. In this regard, we propose two specific mixed-resolution packing schemes of 6K (e.g., 6,144 × 3,072) and 8K (e.g., 8,192 × 4,096) ERP content and their realization in tile-based streaming, while complying with the 4K decoding constraint and the High Efficiency Video Coding standard. The proposed packing schemes offer 6K and 8K effective resolution at the viewport. Using our proposed test methodology, experimental results indicate that the proposed layouts significantly decrease streaming bitrates when compared to mixed-quality viewport-adaptive streaming of 4K ERP. Our results further indicate that 8K-effective packing outperforms 6K-effective packing especially in high-quality videos.