Impact of Social Media on TV Content Consumption: New Market Strategies, Scenarios and Trends

The mass adoption of Social Media together with the proliferation and widely usage of multi-connected companion devices have tremendously transformed the TV/video consumption paradigm, opening the door to a new range of possibilities. This Special Issue has aimed at analyzing, from different point of views, the impact of Social Media and social interaction tools on the TV/video consumption area. The targeted topics of this Special Issue and a general overview of the accepted articles are provided in this Guest Editorial

Augmented reality-based remote family visits in nursing homes

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many nursing homes had to restrict visitations. This had a major negative impact on the wellbeing of residents and their family members. In response, residents and family members increasingly resorted to mediated communication to maintain social contact. To facilitate high-quality mediated social contact between residents in nursing homes and remote family members, we developed an augmented reality (AR)-based communication tool. In this study, we compared the user experience (UX) of AR-communication with that of video calling, for 10 pairs of residents and family members. We measured enjoyment, spatial presence and social presence, attitudes, behavior and conversation duration. In the AR-communication condition, residents perceived a 3D projection of their remote family member onto a chair placed in front of them. In the video calling condition, the family member was shown using 2D video. In both conditions, the family member perceived the resident in the video calling mode on a 2D screen. While residents reported no differences in their UX between both conditions, family members reported higher spatial presence for the AR-communication condition compared to video-calling. Conversation durations were significantly longer during AR-communication than during video calling. We tentatively suggest that there may be (unconscious) differences in UX during AR-based communication compared to video calling

Experiencing virtual reality together: Social VR use case study

As Virtual Reality (VR) applications gain more momentum recently, the social and communication aspects of VR experiences become more relevant. In this paper, we present some initial results of understanding the type of applications and factors that user

Welcome from the general chairs (Editorial)

ACM SIGCH

AltMM 2017-2nd international workshop on multimedia alternate realities

AltMM 2017, the 2nd International Workshop on Multimedia Alternate Realities at ACM Multimedia aims to provide a forum for researchers and practitioners concerned with multimedia that enables experiencing 'alternate realities'. Such experiences may allow us to access other worlds, to live other people's stories, to communicate with or experience alternate realities. Different spaces, times or situations can be entered thanks to multimedia contents and systems, which coexist with our current reality, and are sometimes so vivid and engaging that we feel we are living in them. Advances in multimedia are making it possible to create immersive experiences that may involve the user in a different or augmented world, as an alternate reality. © 2017 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). ACM SIGM

TogetherVR: A framework for photorealistic shared media experiences in 360-degree VR

Virtual reality (VR) and 360° video are reshaping the media landscape, creating a fertile business environment. In the past years, many new 360° cameras and VR headsets entered the consumer market. Distribution platforms are being established and new production studios are emerging. VR is a hot topic in research and industry, and many new and exciting interactive VR contents and experiences are emerging. The biggest gap we see in these experiences is the lack of social and shared aspects of VR usage, as today's VR applications tend to be an isolated endeavor. In this paper, we present TogetherVR, a web-based framework for the creation and evaluation of social and shared VR experiences in which users can communicate with a high degree of presence and in photorealistic video quality. We further elaborate on three multiuser VR cases: watching TV together in VR, social collaboration in VR, and social VR conferencing in a mixed reality setting

Introduction

If we consider the complete media processing chain, the production of media, the delivery of audiovisual information and the display and interaction at the end user's terminal, many challenges have to be addressed. The challenges are: (i) the need for conversion and post-production of the content in order to cope with different screen sizes; (ii) the need to embrace the changes brought by web-based media; (iii) the need to develop new distribution formats to allow for the provision of audiovisual media to support interactivity by the end user; (iv) the need to provide audio-visual formats for terminals and devices as per their capabilities and limitations; and (v) the need to develop automated viewpoint selection to reduce production costs. This chapter highlights some these challenges. A new concept appearing on the horizon that could provide answers to these issues and challenges is referred to as format-agnostic media production. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. All rights reserved

Platform independent audio

This chapter defines problem space from an audio perspective reviewing some of the current challenges faced in channel-based audio broadcast. The first section introduces some of the drivers for change in the broadcast environment, followed by explanation of the terms and definitions used in the chapter. The third section identifies the problems of representing an acoustic scene in TV broadcast. Issues around the make-up and representation of an acoustic scene are discussed in the fourth section. The fifth section illustrates some of the important acquisition techniques that are used for the recording of a scene for format-agnostic broadcast/rendering. Format-agnostic reproduction is described in the sixth section using example scenarios including for mobile, interactive and large-screen reproduction. Finally, the seventh section reviews some existing systems found in both the commercial and research spheres that implement the principles of a platform independent approach to audio

Towards a format-agnostic approach for production, delivery and rendering of immersive media

The media industry is currently being pulled in the often-opposing directions of increased realism (high resolution, stereoscopic, large screen) and personalization (selection and control of content, availability on many devices). We investigate the feasibility of an end-to-end format-agnostic approach to support both these trends. In this paper, different aspects of a format- agnostic capture, production, delivery and rendering system are discussed. At the capture stage, the concept of layered scene representation is introduced, including panoramic video and 3D audio capture. At the analysis stage, a virtual director component is discussed that allows for automatic execution of cinematographic principles, using feature tracking and saliency detection. At the delivery stage, resolution-independent audiovisual transport mechanisms for both managed and unmanaged networks are treated. In the rendering stage, a rendering process that includes the manipulation of audiovisual content to match the connected display and loudspeaker properties is introduced. Different parts of the complete system are revisited demonstrating the requirements and the potential of this advanced concept