VR Industry Forum Draft Guidelines Push for Open Ecosystem
September 18, 2017
Over the weekend, the Virtual Reality Industry Forum (VRIF) released its draft VR and 360 video production and distribution guidelines at IBC 2017 in Amsterdam. The draft document begins with an intro section suggesting best practices for VR/360 production, including experiences with three degrees of freedom (3DOF). It then makes specific recommendations for the technical aspects of visual and audio VR/360 content production, media and presentation profiles, and content security. VRIF aims to release the full guidelines, with an emphasis on an open ecosystem, at CES 2018 in January.
“They will be supported by interoperability test streams that enable rapid and independent development and deployments of VR services based on VRIF’s guidelines,” notes the press release.
“What is so unique about these guidelines is they take the interests of all ecosystem participants into account and focus on important, but often overlooked factors,” said Paul Higgs of Huawei, chair of the Guidelines Working Group and board member of VRIF. “The VR industry is starting to move away from proprietary systems and toward large scale solutions, and the Guidelines facilitate that transition.”
“The purpose of presenting a draft of the guidelines at IBC is to give the public a chance to review them and identify any issues, so that we can incorporate as much relevant information as possible,” he added.
VRIF has grown to 40 members, including Dolby, DTS, Huawei, Intel, Nokia, Qualcomm, Sony Pictures, Technicolor and Verizon, among others.
Other standardization efforts related to VR and immersive experiences are underway through Khronos Group’s VR Standard Initiative, the IEEE Digital Senses Initiative, SMPTE, and the Industry of VR Alliance.
VRIF is seeking feedback on the draft standards via its website and GitHub by October 31, 2017.