VRIF RELEASES GUIDELINES 2.0 AND ANNOUNCES UPCOMING ACTIVITIES

The Virtual Reality Industry Forum (VRIF, www.vr-if.org) today announced the publication of its second version of the Industry Guidelines for interoperable virtual reality experiences (link).

This new version adds guidelines on the production and distribution aspects of live captures VR content, the use of text and fonts in immersive experiences, watermarking of 2D framed content in a 3D environment and guidelines for distributing VR360 content with enhanced-quality viewport.

The number of live events delivered with 360 degree content is increasing significantly and the current VRIF guidelines aim to help content providers achieve the best possible quality while reaching a wide variety of devices. “2019 has thus far shown itself to be an upshift period in terms of both awareness and adoption of immersive media technologies – we aim to continue to help the industry become a mass market for immersive media” says Paul Higgs, VRIF President and Chief Strategy Officer, Video Product Line at Huawei Technologies.

In continuing the work to raise understanding of immersive media and solve the technical challenges of the medium, the VRIF organized several sessions on VR and 5G at NAB (link), in addition to a comprehensive two day industry workshop where several innovative approaches were discussed in the context of 5G and cloud enablement for virtual reality (link).

“We brought together many thought leaders in immersive media and learned of the opportunities and challenges confronting them” says Rob Koenen, co-chair of the VRIF Communications Working Group and Chief Business Officer at Tiledmedia. The diversity in the VRIF membership brings a significant level of experience to the Forum’s work, but in this fast evolving industry, it is important to stay connected with the new pioneers.

Following the release of Guidelines 2.0, VRIF is currently developing requirements for their next update, planned to be announced during CES 2020. “Our members have identified several key areas for the expansion of immersive experiences, and we aim to show how these can be exploited in an interoperable manner.” says Mauricio Aracena, Chair of VRIF Requirements Working Group and Standardization Manager at Ericsson.

New features on VRIF’s roadmap for 2019 and beyond include volumetric content production and distribution, cloud VR/AR and edge computing, as well as enabling social VR experiences. These areas are highlighted in a recent VRIF publication (link), soon to appear in SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal. “We will continue coordinating closely with standards developing organizations including MPEG, 3GPP, GSMA, Khronos, SMPTE to deliver the interoperability guidelines and best practices around these new features.” says Ozgur Oyman, Chair of VRIF Liaison Working Group and a Principal Engineer at Intel.