Take the Director’s Seat with Multiview Streaming
Sport tells a thousand stories. Fans of any sport can talk endlessly about David vs. Goliath epics, evil adversaries, and the rags-to-riches storylines that capture so much of our attention. These unfold in every event: in track and field, multiple competitions happen at once – runners sprinting down the home straight as long jumpers launch into the sand – each carrying its own drama and competing for the viewer’s attention. In biathlon, viewers may want to follow several spots simultaneously: athletes skiing across the course, competitors shooting side by side, or the progress of a racer representing their home country.
Despite so many narratives unfolding at once, viewers are accustomed to seeing just one version of the event, which we call the "director’s cut." While commentators, pundits, and replays all valiantly attempt to fill in the blanks, what’s broadcast around the world is ultimately just a small piece of the story.
However, multiview is – quite literally - changing the picture. Through splitting the screen into multiple, smaller, simultaneous viewing boxes, audiences can watch several streams at the same time. Traditionally however, these multiview experiences have still been curated by the broadcaster, with every viewer seeing the same selection of camera angles or live feeds.
Single-player multiview changes that dynamic. Rather than relying on a fixed combination of streams, viewers can choose for themselves which athletes, camera angles or moments they want to follow, personalising the experience around the narratives they care about most. In doing so, they take on the role of the director themselves. They’re able to engage on a deeper level with the live events they love by moving beyond a fixed perspective while maintaining frame-accurate synchronization between camera angles. Multiview opens the possibility to follow what matters most – whether that’s tracking a long jumper through their run-up and jump or staying with a sprinter as they race for the finish line in medal-defining moment.
How VVC is the perfect fit for single-player multiview
The reason multiview is such an industry focus is not just the growth in screen sizes and modern TVs that make it a possibility, but the streaming advancements which underpin it.
Several technologies support multiview streaming. However, the latest video coding standard, Versatile Video Coding (VVC), makes single-player multiview streaming - where a user's device decodes and displays multiple video feeds - efficient, scalable and effortless to implement. VVC improves upon High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) by delivering the same visual quality with about half the data, allowing for high-quality video streams even on low-bandwidth connections.
In the single-player multiview approach, each camera feed is encoded independently by a dedicated VVC encoder and made available for streaming. Based on the viewer’s selections, the player receives the desired bitstreams and merges them as independent subpictures into a single VVC bitstream, which a single VVC decoder then decodes.
For service provider’s, enabling multiview with VVC doesn’t require a complete overhaul. Encoders simply need to follow a few straightforward guidelines so that separate video feeds can be combined cleanly on the end-user's device. With older standards like HEVC, achieving the same results is far more complicated. It requires careful coordination to prevent different coded parts of the picture from interfering with each other, which not only adds complexity, but can also reduce overall video quality.
At the player level, bringing multiple streams together into a single VVC video is relatively lightweight. The process mainly involves adjusting high-level metadata so that different video feeds can be presented into one coherent stream. Thanks to features built into the MP4 packaging of VVC, this can be done without need to parse the VVC bitstream. In contrast, older approaches often require rewriting parts of the video data, making them more difficult to implement.
In practical terms, this means VVC allows multiview to be added without disrupting existing workflows. Individual camera feeds can still be delivered and viewed on their own, while multiview becomes an additional layer of flexibility on top. The result is a system that is not only more scalable, but also easier to deploy, opening the door for richer viewing experiences.
Same engine, millions of possibilities
While VVC is poised to unlock multiview video streaming, its application extends beyond sport and live events. Concerts, theatre performances, conferences, live education and corporate communications can all benefit from giving viewers greater control over the perspectives they see. Game streaming is another strong use case, where frame-accurate synchronisation allows viewers to switch between players or follow multiple participants simultaneously.
Beyond entertainment, VVC-driven multiview can also improve accessibility. Features such as replacing part of the main video with a sign language interpreter or tailoring content to individual viewing needs open up new ways to make video experiences more inclusive.
VVC's unmatched ability to deliver superior quality while cutting data consumption makes it a technology worth keeping a sharp eye on over the coming years. As consumers increasingly expect control over how they watch live content, VVC provides a future-proof foundation for delivering richer, more immersive viewing experiences. And with them, no matter if their favorite sports teams are giving them goosebumps or the urge to tear their hair out, they’re going to be closer to the experience than ever before.
[Editor's note: This is a contributed article from Nokia. Streaming Media accepts vendor bylines based solely on their value to our readers.]
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