Demystifying the use of Compression in Virtual Production

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Publisher: SMPTE — Hollywood, CA
Doc Type: Conference Paper
Content Type: Original Research
Volume: 00, pp. 1–19
Abstract: Virtual Production (VP) technologies have continued to improve the flexibility of on-set filming and enhance the live concert experience. The core technology of VP relies on high-resolution, high-brightness LED panels to playback/render video content. There are a number of technical challenges to effective deployment e.g. image tile synchronisation across the panels, cross panel colour balancing and compensating for colour fluctuations due to changes in camera angles. Given the complexity and potential quality degradation, the industry prefers “pristine” or lossless compressed source material for displays, which requires significant storage and bandwidth. Modern lossy compression standards like AV1 or H.265 could maintain the same quality at significantly lower bitrates and resource demands. There is yet no agreed methodology for assessing the impact of these standards on quality when the VP scene is recorded in-camera. We present a methodology to assess this impact by comparing lossless and lossy compressed footage displayed through VP screens and recorded in-camera. We assess the quality impact of HAP/NotchLC/Daniel2 and AV1/HEVC/H.264 compression bitrates from 2 Mb/s to 2000 Mb/s with various GOP sizes. Several perceptual quality metrics are then used to automatically evaluate in-camera picture quality, referencing the original uncompressed source content through the LED wall. Our results show that we can achieve the same quality with hybrid codecs as with intermediate encoders at orders of magnitude less bitrate and storage requirements.
Publication Date: 2024-10-21
DOI: 10.5594/MOO/3011
ISBN: [object Object]
Link: https://doi.org/10.5594/MOO/3011
Author(s): Anil Kokaram
Vibhoothi Vibhoothi
Julien Zouein
Francois Pitie
Christopher Nash
James Bentley
Philip Coulam-Jones
Keyword(s): Virtual Production, Compression, HEVC, H.264, AV1, HAP, NotchLC, Daniel2
Copyright: © 2024 SMPTE

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Anil Kokaram, Vibhoothi Vibhoothi, Julien Zouein, Francois Pitie, Christopher Nash, James Bentley, and Philip Coulam-Jones; Demystifying the use of Compression in Virtual Production, MTS 2024, Article 11 (pp. 1 to 19); SMPTE, 2024, ISBN: [object Object]. Available at https://doi.org/10.5594/MOO/3011

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Anil Kokaram, Vibhoothi Vibhoothi, Julien Zouein, Francois Pitie, Christopher Nash, James Bentley, and Philip Coulam-Jones; Demystifying the use of Compression in Virtual Production, MTS 2024, Article 11 (pp. 1 to 19); SMPTE, 2024, ISBN: [object Object]. Available at https://doi.org/10.5594/MOO/3011

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<span class="citation">Anil Kokaram, Vibhoothi Vibhoothi, Julien Zouein, Francois Pitie, Christopher Nash, James Bentley, and Philip Coulam-Jones; <cite>Demystifying the use of Compression in Virtual Production</cite>, MTS 2024, Article 11 (pp. 1 to 19); SMPTE, 2024, ISBN: [object Object]. Available at <a href="https://doi.org/10.5594/MOO/3011" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.5594/MOO/3011</a></span>

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<li>
Anil Kokaram, Vibhoothi Vibhoothi, Julien Zouein, Francois Pitie, Christopher Nash, James Bentley, and Philip Coulam-Jones; <cite id="bib-10-5594-moo-3011">Demystifying the use of Compression in Virtual Production</cite>, MTS 2024, Article 11 (pp. 1 to 19); SMPTE, 2024, ISBN: [object Object]
<span class="doi">10.5594/MOO/3011</span>
</li>