Today video is being used in different facets supporting the e-learning experience. With a resurging interest and reduced barriers of entry to experience virtual and augmented reality applications, 360-degree video technology is becoming relevant as an option to produce and consume content for VR/AR applications. 360-degree video offers new features, which can prove useful in teaching & learning scenarios with a need for self directed control of view direction, immersion and a feeling of presence. Current adoptions of 360-degree videos are integrated manually for specialized activity-oriented learning scenarios. However, in order to adopt 360- degree video on a larger scale, a sufficient technical integration is required and knowledge of application scenarios needs to be communicated. To approach this challenge, workflow steps are analyzed, challenges are identified and scenarios are described in the context of creating 360- degree video content for higher education. We identify open gaps, which need to be addressed in order to integrate 360-degree video technology in an automated video processing tool chain.

360-degree videos offer an immersive experience which is hard to find in traditional videos. The entire scene is floating around the viewer, and a feeling of being there is common. However, something traditional videos have compared to 360-degree videos is control of the outcome. The filmmakers decide what they want to show and how they want to guide the viewer. The control is still an issue in 360-degree videos. In this thesis will the focus be on how a viewer can be attracted to an important part of a scene. This work is concentrated on methods and techniques in the post-production part of video production. The techniques are mainly video effects.    The user tests involved 16 participants with different backgrounds including an expert in the field. The participants watched three 360-degree videos each with the same content, but with different techniques made in the post-production part to guide them. It was one video with graphical elements to guide them, one with light effects and one with colour effects. Interviews gave a deeper insight into the participant's experience and opinions on the three videos. The video effects affected the participants positively and negatively. The participants were mostly satisfied with effects consisting of graphical elements but not as much with colour. The users lost a bit of their freedom to explore a scene with the light effects, but they were useful when it came to guiding towards something. The participants did find the guiding lines and spotlight as the most suitable methods to attract attention; the spotlight was the most preferred of the two. The red circle effect and the warm/cold colour effect was the least preferred, the warm/cold colour effect as the least preferable. The effects helped to attract the viewer to a section of the video, and the user's got a better understanding of the concept. However, more research need to be done to draw attention towards something. A combination of elements like light effects and graphical element effects could improve the post-production part. Research in the future regarding the opportunity to combine techniques from an entire video production needs to be conducted for a significantly more effective way to attract attention to an important side of a scene, without the viewers losing their freedom of exploring, it includes both the post-production side but also methods to attract attention in a set.

No description available.

No description available.

In recent years, the popularity of 360-degree video paired with 1st order ambisonic audio has seen a rise on different social media platforms online. Due to this increase in popularity, many new ambisonic microphones have been developed and are now available on the market. However, most of the research into this field has almost exclusively been in the form of case studies where microphone manufacturers showcase practical applications of their equipment, and no real comparisons between ambisonic recording methods have been made. This study aims to fill that gap by conducting a listening test that compares four common methods of recording ambisonic audio and to evaluate listeners’ preferences regarding spatial attributes. Due to a relatively small sample size of 15 no definitive conclusions can be made, but the study did find a clear preference towards a combined method of an ambisonic microphone paired with spot microphones.

Panoramic virtual reality is an emerging technology that has recently gained the attention of both the research community and regular consumers. It allows the users to immerse themselves in omnidirectional videos with the help of a virtual reality headset : thanks to an increasing amount of affordable head-mounted-displays, any recent smartphone can offer a decent panoramic virtual reality experience. However since omnidirectional videos are videos with a large field-of-view that covers the entire sphere around the camera, they require large resolutions and thus high bitrates. This master degree project conducted at RE’FLEKT GmbH is an exploratory work that seeks to reduce the panoramic video bitrate. Because of the nature of omnidirectional videos, the user can only see a subpart of each video frame, and thus some zones of the video can attract more attention than others. The purpose of this study is to introduce the concept of region-of-interest encoding in panoramic VR. The main contribution is a method to encode panoramic videos in an H.264 video format stream with a space-variant level of details depending on the zones that attract the most the viewers’ interest. First, the region-of-interest are detected through a head-tracking module combined with a Gaussian attention model. Then, the reference video is encoded with the open source x264 encoder, with a quantization step adjusted to the region-of-interest information. The International Telecommunications Union standard subjective tests show that this method can perform better than classic H.264 encoding only in specific cases. / Panoramisk virtuell verklighet (VR) är en kommande teknik som nyligen har mött intresse från forskarsamhället och vanliga konsumenter. Det gör det möjligt för användarna att fördjupa sig i videor upptagna från flera riktningar, med hjälp av ett VR-headset : tack vare ett växande antal billiga och huvudburna bildskärmar, erbjuder alla nya smarttelefoner en passande panoramisk VR-erfarenhet. Men på grund av den breda synvinkeln i flerriktade media behöver videor med 360 graders synfält stor upplösning och därför höga bithastigheter. Detta masterexamensarbete som utförts på RE’FLEKT GmbH är ett utforskande arbete som strävar efter att reducera panoramabildens bithastighet. I flerriktade videoklipp kan användaren bara se en del av varje bildruta, härigenom får somliga zoner mer uppmärksamhet än andra. Syftet med denna studie är att introducera begreppet region-av-intresse (ROI) kodning i panoramisk VR. Huvudbidraget är en metod för att koda panoramisk video i en H.264-ström med en varierande nivå av detaljer som beror på de zoner som får mest av tittarnas intresse. Först detekteras ROI genom en huvudspårningsmodul kombinerad med en gaussisk uppmärksamhetsmodell. Därefter kodas referensvideoen med x264-kodaren (öppen källkod) med hjälp av ROI-informationen. ITU-standardens subjektiva test visar att den här metoden kan fungera bättre än klassisk H.264-kodning i enskilda fall.

Music videos invite the viewer to an enhanced experience of a song, and by combining it with360°, a new dimension of immersion emerges. However, a new wave of complex narrativeand user interface unfolds when intertwining 360° and the contemporary way of telling storiesin music videos.This thesis used an experimental mixed method research design, focusing on collecting,analyzing, and mixing both quantitative and qualitative data in a series of studies. A surveywas first conducted to get an overview of consensus with respect to music videos, VR, and360°. The majority of the respondents had tried VR and 40% of stated that they felt immersedwhile trying it. Around 18% argued it was experience-dependent and 42% did not feelimmersed at all. The survey was followed by experiments showing two 360° music videoswith different storytelling techniques. After the participants had seen the videos, theydiscussed the experience in focus groups in a semi-structured interview. The results were thencoded and benchmarked with theory, which led to the rise of six key 360° storytellingguidelines.All three focus groups concluded 360° music videos enable a deeper level of immersion.However, when combining novelty and a sometimes overwhelming visual experience, 360°music videos can distract the audience if not told right. The guidelines discuss the purpose ofa music video, how the technology affects the experience, if the medium is passive or active,and how different types of interaction can be used as a storytelling mean. They also discussways to pedagogically intertwine audio and visuals. Additionally, the guidelines includediscussions of how different cues and POV’s can be utilized to ensure that the filmmakers andviewers experiences are somewhat aligned, they also tackle the fear of missing out, andfinally compare 360° and traditional music videos.Conclusively, the research shows that storytelling in a 360° sphere will entail a journey oftrial and error, and that the audience have scattered preferences of what different narrativestyles they find work and do not.