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TNO – Breakthrough in streaming virtual reality

EARTO Innovation Awards 2018 – Impact Delivered Category

  Virtual reality (VR) technology that allows users to feel they’re in the middle of the action has an exceptionally bright future. In the meantime, sectors such as entertainment, education, healthcare and advertising, eager to make use of panoramic or 360 degree VR (VR360) video, have had to wait for some basic limitations to be overcome. Limitations such as low screen resolutions, enormous bandwidth requirements and mediocre quality images.   Innovation: EARTO member TNO developed a solution based on ’tiled’ streaming, where large images are cut into ’tiles’ and only those that cover the user’s viewport are streamed. Their solution ClearVR increases visual quality by a factor of five and dramatically lowers the bandwidth required as well as the cost of streaming. The result is a significant increase in the number of users who can receive high quality 360 VR video to headsets or tablets over their internet connection.   Impact delivered: ClearVR was launched by spin-off Tiledmedia, in partnership with a VR concert specialist. Trials are underway with leading European and US telecommunications operators, as is a cooperation with China’s largest content delivery network. System integration has started with Ericsson Media Services among many others. The market Tiledmedia is finding so receptive is predicted to grow to €40-60 billion within five years.