Title : Analyzing and improving real-time UHD/4K video transmission tools for multiparty conferencing.

Project Lead : Test Test From : CESNET (None)

Dates : from 2014-09-05 09:33:55 to 2015-02-03 09:11:53

Description :

Motivation and objectives :
CESNET is the leading partner of the UltraGrid, an open source software for low-latency high-quality video network transmissions, including support for HD, UHD/4K, and 8K video. This software is constantly evolving and integrating external contributions resulting from its collaborations with relevant research entities at international level. CESNET and i2cat (Visionair partner) have been collaborating on the optimization and improvements of this software, and CESNET is interested to make an important step forward with UltraGrid thanks to this project proposal. The project proposes to work on UltraGrid with the aim to provide a robust open-source software solution for multiparty conferencing scenarios, by experimentation and improving existing solutions. The project uses CESNET and i2CATs (Visionair partner) infrastructures and knowledge to study, evaluate and perform integration of the following initial technologies: ? UltraGrid : open-source software for UHD and low-latency video transmission over networks. ? i2CATs mixer : open-source software for real-time streaming and media processing (audio and video mixing, stream switching and video cropping). Known multiparty conferencing schemes are centralized (a server receives all streams, processes them and broadcasts the output to conference participants) or distributed (a P2P like scenario, where each participant transmits to each one and processes the inputs). This project aims to develop the multi-point solution in a way to support both schemes. In summary, this TNA proposes multiple challenges: ? To analyse current state of the art of the technologies involved in the project by using NGNs (Next Genaration Networks). ? To deploy and test the centralized and distributed multi-point scenarios to perform specific benchmarks in order to find bottlenecks of each scenario. The benchmarks will take into account different logical and physical topologies, not only at network level but also at application level. ? To design and develop small software modules to improve and fine-tune the used softwares. ? To perform experiments with the new modules, including exploration of their parallelization efficiency. ? To define new development roadmap based on the results obtained during this TNA. The final outcomes of this TNA will be: ? CPU-based video mixing solution as a part of the UltraGrid, ? GPU-accelerated video mixing solution as a part of the UltraGrid, ? audio mixing module (logarithmic mixing), ? performance analysis of both video mixing solutions for UHD/4K video, ? user documentation including configuration examples.

Teams :
The proposing group is UltraGrid development team led by Petr Holub. The group focuses on research in several fields related to high-quality video processing on commodity hardware and low-latency video distribution. Results of the research are implemented within the BSD-licensed open-source UltraGrid framework, which is used by many user communities world-wide.

Dates :
starting date : 17 November, 2014
ending date : 28 November, 2014

Facilities descriptions :
http://visionair-browser.g-scop.grenoble-inp.fr/visionair/Browser/Catalogs/DML.SP.html

Recordings & Results :
CESNET is the leading partner of the UltraGrid, an open source software for low-latency high-quality video network transmissions, including support for HD, UHD/4K, and 8K video. This software is constantly evolving and integrating external contributions resulting from its collaborations with relevant research entities at international level. CESNET and i2cat (Visionair partner) have been collaborating on the optimization and improvements of this software, and CESNET is interested to make an important step forward with UltraGrid thanks to this project proposal. This project proposed to work on UltraGrid with the aim to provide a robust open-source software solution for multiparty conferencing scenarios, by experimentation and improving existing solutions. This TNA was carried out with CESNET and i2CATs (Visionair partner) infrastructures and knowledge to study, evaluate and perform integration of the following initial technologies: ? UltraGrid : open-source software for UHD and low-latency video transmission over networks. ? i2CATs mixer : open-source software for real-time streaming and media processing (audio and video mixing, stream switching and video cropping). Known multiparty conferencing schemes are centralized (a server receives all streams, processes them and broadcasts the output to conference participants) or distributed (a P2P like scenario, where each participant transmits to each one and processes the inputs). This project aims to develop the multi-point solution in a way to support both schemes. In summary, this TNA was focused on multiple challenges: ? To analyse current state of the art of the technologies involved in the project by using NGNs (Next Genaration Networks). ? To deploy and test the centralized and distributed multi-point scenarios to perform specific benchmarks in order to find bottlenecks of each scenario. The benchmarks will take into account different logical and physical topologies, not only at network level but also at application level. ? To design and develop small software modules to improve and fine-tune the used softwares. ? To perform experiments with the new modules, including exploration of their parallelization efficiency. ? To define new development roadmap based on the results obtained during this TNA.

Conclusions :
? evaluation of possible deployments centralized and distributed multi-point scenario ? compability layer implementation in i2CAT mixer for UltraGrid packet format ? added support for MP3 in UltraGrid ? performance and latency evaluation of newly created modules ? proposals of interest on future project collaborations




Project Images :
















Other project resources :

TNA-c2-2.mp4
MOV_0054.mp4
MOV_0045.mp4
TNA-c2-1.mp4