Optical network technologies for future digital cinema

Digital technology has transformed the information flow and support infrastructure for numerous application domains, such as cellular communications. Cinematography, traditionally, a film based medium, has embraced digital technology leading to innovative transformations in its work flow. Digital cinema supports transmission of high resolution content enabled by the latest advancements in optical communications and video compression. In this paper we provide a survey of the optical network technologies for supporting this bandwidth intensive traffic class. We also highlight the significance and benefits of the state of the art in optical technologies that support the digital cinema work flow

Implementation of 4kUHD HEVC-content transmission

The Internet of things (IoT) has received a great deal of attention in recent years, and is still being approached with a wide range of views. At the same time, video data now accounts for over half of the internet traffic. With the current availability of beyond high definition, it is worth understanding the performance effects, especially for real-time applications. High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) aims to provide reduction in bandwidth utilisation while maintaining perceived video quality in comparison with its predecessor codecs. Its adoption aims to provide for areas such as television broadcast, multimedia streaming/storage, and mobile communications with significant improvements. Although there have been attempts at HEVC streaming, the literature/implementations offered do not take into consideration changes in the HEVC specifications. Beyond this point, it seems little research exists on real-time HEVC coded content live streaming. Our contribution fills this current gap in enabling compliant and real-time networked HEVC visual applications. This is done implementing a technique for real-time HEVC encapsulation in MPEG-2 Transmission Stream (MPEG-2 TS) and HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), thereby removing the need for multi-platform clients to receive and decode HEVC streams. It is taken further by evaluating the transmission of 4k UHDTV HEVC-coded content in a typical wireless environment using both computers and mobile devices, while considering well-known factors such as obstruction, interference and other unseen factors that affect the network performance and video quality. Our results suggest that 4kUHD can be streamed at 13.5 Mb/s, and can be delivered to multiple devices without loss in perceived quality

MIJ2K: Enhanced video transmission based on conditional replenishment of JPEG2000 tiles with motion compensation

A video compressed as a sequence of JPEG2000 images can achieve the scalability, flexibility, and accessibility that is lacking in current predictive motion-compensated video coding standards. However, streaming JPEG2000-based sequences would consume considerably more bandwidth. With the aim of solving this problem, this paper describes a new patent pending method, called MIJ2K. MIJ2K reduces the inter-frame redundancy present in common JPEG2000 sequences (also called MJP2). We apply a real-time motion detection system to perform conditional tile replenishment. This will significantly reduce the bit rate necessary to transmit JPEG2000 video sequences, also improving their quality. The MIJ2K technique can be used both to improve JPEG2000-based real-time video streaming services or as a new codec for video storage. MIJ2K relies on a fast motion compensation technique, especially designed for real-time video streaming purposes. In particular, we propose transmitting only the tiles that change in each JPEG2000 frame. This paper describes and evaluates the method proposed for real-time tile change detection, as well as the overall MIJ2K architecture. We compare MIJ2K against other intra-frame codecs, like standard Motion JPEG2000, Motion JPEG, and the latest H.264-Intra, comparing performance in terms of compression ratio and video quality, measured by standard peak signal-to-noise ratio, structural similarity and visual quality metric metrics.This work was supported in part by Projects CICYT TIN2008– 06742-C02–02/TSI, CICYT TEC2008–06732-C02–02/TEC, SINPROB, CAM MADRINET S-0505/TIC/0255 and DPS2008–07029-C02–02.Publicad

Design and cost performance of WDM pons for multi-wavelength users

Die rasante Verbreitung des Internet führt zu einem steigenden Bedarf an höheren Bitraten in Telekommunikationsnetzwerken. Dieser kann derzeit nur mit optischen Netzwerken erfüllt werden, insbesondere mit der Wellen¬längen¬multiplex-Technik (WDM). Viele Forschungsergebnisse weisen darauf hin, dass WDM Passive Optische Netzwerke (PON) die nächste Generation der optischen Zugangsnetze darstellen. Die Wellenlängenmultiplex-Technik beruht darauf, dass mehrere optische Kanäle mit niedrigen Bitraten über eine Faser übertragen werden und so ein WDM Signal mit hoher Bitrate erzeugen. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist die Identifizierung von neuen Architekturen, welche jedem Benutzer und jedem Dienst mindestens eine Wellenlänge zur Verfügung stellen. Neue Methoden und Modelle zur Berechnung von ein- und mehrstufigen WDM PONs werden eingeführt. Um alle technologisch realisierbaren ein- und mehrstufigen WDM PONs zu berechnen und zu analysieren wurde ein Design Tool entwickelt. Für einen flächendeckenden kommerziellen Einsatz reicht es nicht aus, funktionierende Technologien anzubieten, vielmehr müssen ökonomische Über¬legungen miteinbezogen werden. Diese Arbeit ermöglicht einen Vergleich unterschiedlicher Architekturen hinsichtlich ihrer Wirtschaftlichkeit und zielt darauf ab, jene Architekturen zu identifizieren, welche kostenoptimal sind. Neue kosten¬optimale Netzwerk-Architekturen führen zu einer schnelleren Marktpenetration und dazu, Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Realität werden zu lassen.Due to the incomparable popularity of the Internet, the already enormous and still rocketing bandwidth demand may only be satisfied by optical networks, particularly by using the Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology. In many research labs, WDM Passive Optical Networks (PON) access networks are considered as the next generation optical access. To obtain WDM signals with high bit rates, multiple channels operating at a lower transmission speed can be supported on a single optical fiber. The subject of this thesis will be engineering new cutting edge architectures offering each user and service at least one wavelength. New techniques and models are introduced to design single and multistage WDM PONs. A design tool was implemented to analyze all technologically feasible single and multistage WDM PON architectures. During real deployments, the technology has worked but the economic factors have proven to be too costly. Thus, it is important to examine these economic aspects. The objective is to identify those architectures that minimize costs. Access to these newly identified network architectures will prompt market introduction as well as market penetration helping Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) to become reality

Arquitectura para la gestión y coordinación de sistemas multisensor

Hoy en día podemos encontrarnos con numerosos entornos que cuentan con un gran conjunto de sensores heterogéneos espacialmente distribuidos. Entornos que pueden ir desde sistemas de vigilancia que incluyen un despliegue de múltiples sensores como cámaras o sensores de localización, a entornos de monitorización de procesos industriales, donde se supervisa cada uno de los procesos para comprobar el correcto funcionamiento del sistema. Inclusive actualmente podemos hablar de términos más modernos como el de Smart Cities que permiten la optimización de los recursos de una ciudad a través de su constante monitorización. En todos estos entornos es común encontrarnos con multitud de sensores percibiendo información del entorno. Estos entornos son de indudable utilidad en cada uno de sus ámbitos, y según avanza la tecnología podemos mejorarlos con la integración de más y mejores sensores. Esto resulta de utilidad porque nos permite monitorizar con más precisión y calidad las diferentes entidades o parámetros del entorno. Sin embargo esto puede suponer un problema a la hora de gestionar y coordinar diferentes tareas sobre el entorno, debido principalmente a la gran cantidad de información generada que tiene que ser analizada. En este sentido, la fusión de datos se volverá un aliado indispensable para mejorar los procesos de análisis y toma de decisiones. En estos entornos además podemos encontrarnos con sensores u actuadores que pueden requerir de cierta gestión, como por ejemplo el manejo de una cámara PTZ para monitorizar regiones o entidades de interés del entorno. Esta gestión se puede hacer de manera manual a través de un operador humano, pero puede convertirse en una tarea compleja cuando contamos con multitud de sensores similares que puedan requerir una gestión coordinada. En este sentido, en la tesis se abordará este problema de gestión y coordinación desde el punto de vista de un sistema multi-agente. Para ello diseñaremos una arquitectura general, que podrá ser aplicada a diferentes casos de uso. Sobre este diseño, evaluaremos su aplicación a dos entornos diferentes. El primer entorno consistirá en un sistema de vigilancia multi-cámara, donde será necesario realizar un control autónomo de las cámaras PTZ para monitorizar las diferentes entidades de interés. El segundo entorno se desarrollará sobre un sistema de vigilancia marítima, donde además de las cámaras podremos contar con otro tipo de sensores como radares o estaciones AIS. La experimentación llevada a cabo en esta tesis a través de la aplicación multi-cámara, ha permitido evaluar la arquitectura desde el punto de vista de la integración en un entornoreal. La aplicación sobre el entorno marítimo, en este caso desarrollado sobre un entorno simulado, nos ha permitido además evaluar la adecuación de de la arquitectura a diferentes sensores e información de las entidades. En ambos casos hemos podido observar la utilidad del sistema multi-agente desarrollado, así como su adecuación a este tipo de entornos, que dada su naturaleza son inherentemente distribuidos.Nowadays it is common to find several heterogeneous sensors spatially distributed in environments. Environments that can range from surveillance systems that include a set of multiple sensors such as cameras or location sensors. To environments monitoring industrial processes, where it is important to monitor several processes to ensure a proper system operation. Moreover we can talk about more modern terms as Smart Cities, which allow optimizing the city resources through its constant monitoring. Thus, in all those deployments, it is common to find multiple sensors perceiving information from the environment. These environments are undoubtedly useful in each of their fields, and as technology advances, we can improve the integration of more and better sensors. This is useful because it allows a better and more accurately monitoring of the different entities or environmental parameters. However this can be a problem when it comes to managing and coordinating different tasks over the environment, mainly due to the large amount of information generated required to be analyzed. In this sense, data fusion will become an indispensable ally to improve the analysis and decision making processes. Moreover, in these environments we can find multiple sensors or actuators that may require some kind of management, such as managing a PTZ camera to monitor regions or entities of interest. This management can be done manually by a human operator, but can become a complex task when we have multiple sensors requiring a coordinated management. In this sense, this thesis tackle the problem of multi-sensor management and coordination from the point of view of a multi-agent system. It is proposed a general multi-agent design that can be applied to different use cases. This design will be evaluated in two different environments. The first one will consist on a multi-camera surveillance system, where the multi-agent system must achieve an autonomous control of PTZ cameras to monitor different entities of interest. The second environment will rely on a maritime surveillance system, where in addition to the cameras, we will introduce other sensor types such as radar or AIS stations. Some experiments were carried out to evaluate the multi-agent system designed. The experiments done in the multi-camera application, allowed us to evaluate the architecture from the point of view of its integration in a real environment. Meanwhile the application in the maritime environment, developed over a simulated environment, let us evaluate the suitability of the architecture to different sensors and information. In both cases we have been able to observe the usefulness of the developed multi-agent system and its adaptation to these environments inherently distributed.Programa Oficial de Doctorado en Ciencia y Tecnología InformáticaPresidente: María Araceli Sanchís de Miguel.- Vocal: Javier Bajo Pérez.- Secretario: Ángel Arroyo Castill