The 39th annual conference of the European Association of Regional Televisions – Circom was held in San Sebastian, Spain on June 1st and 2nd. Hosted by EITB, the Basque Radio and Television, this conference was a valuable experience for media professionals at all levels.
Steinar Bjørlykke, Head of Technology & Development, NRK Central Region and Francisco Ibañez, R&D Project Manager at Brainstorm Multimedia, presented the AdMiRe project and its results to an audience of more than 200 regional TV professionals from all over Europe. The presentation, which can be viewed at the following YouTube link, had a great diffusion in the broadcast sector with a very positive feedback from the audience.

On March 8, 2023, the Sense-IT team at NTNU was host for a delegation of researchers, educators and entrepreneurs in the XR domain from Slovenia. The delegation was ending a collaborative research project (under the EEA agreement) with colleagues at NTNU. As part of this Sense-IT arranged a comprehensive lab tour of our Digital storytelling, Immersive media and XR related projects. The delegation consisted of 18 visitors with an additional 3 from NTNU.

Next, on March 10, Sense-IT was host for a seminar with participants from Universitetsavisa (NTNUs internal newspaper) and members from the NTNU communication department (Graphic design and Social Media responsible). The seminar ran for a full day with talks on Immersive Journalism and XR activities in the first session. This was followed by a hands on brainstorm on how the participants could benefit from using XR. After lunch Sense-IT arranged a comprehensive lab tour of our Digital storytelling, Immersive media and XR related projects. The delegation consisted of 7 visitors with an additional 6 from NTNU.

From AdMire, we set up the complete system with a remote mobile phone. The participants were able to be teleported to a meeting table with a talent. The others were observers and interested participants. The demonstration spurred a lot of interesting discussions and reflections.

A few months ago, Brainstorm, as coordinator of the AdMiRe project, applied for the European trademark for the product resulting from this EC funded project. Due to a large number of collisions, the trademark with the text AdMiRe could not be applied for, so it was decided that the trade name and, consequently, its trademark would be admiXRe. This name includes the concept of eXtended Reality (XR) and avoids any collision with other commercial products.

This will be the trademark used when the product starts to be marketed.

Last Tuesday September 27th took place the final review of the AdMiRe project at the Disguise facilities in London. The Project Officer and the two expert reviewers were able to see, in situ, the demonstrations of the AdMiRe system and its integration with the Disguise Extended Reality system. These demos consisted of three different use cases of the AdMiRe system on an extended reality scenario: audience capture from a laptop (head and shoulders), audience capture from a tablet (two thirds of the body) and audience capture from a mobile phone with a green background (full body). The integration of the audience into the Extended Reality scenario was seamless with a very fluid interaction between the presenter and the people captured and teleported to the stage.

The feedback received after the review from the reviewers and the project officer was extremely positive and encouraged the consortium and industry partners to continue the project by bringing it to the market and helping broadcasters, streamers and other sectors to benefit from AdMiRe.

On the third week of June, a validation day for the Admire system was organised at the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK’s facilities. Several members of the company such as editors in chief, news anchors, head of operations and producers, all of them external to the project itself, participated by viewing and evaluating videos and demonstrations of the Admire funcionality. They had the opportunity to asses the quality of captures of teleported participants with green background and also without it, applying the background subtraction and super resolution IA algorithms.

Relying on NTNU’s methodology, based on validation theory and QoE modelling and assessment, NRK assesed the potential for using the project into live broadcasts. Three main factors were adressed: (1) How the technology can be integrated into traditional infrastructures, (2) If the quality performs to a broadcasters standards and (3) How the workflow provided is viable for participants into news and debate shows.

The tests showed that the editorial staff and producers accept the workflow and consider it brings value to the published content, while there were some relevant findings: the importance of introducing proper guidance to the participants and to clearly inform the audience about the format of the program – teleported participants on stage.

Scene composition with AdMiRe

The premium subscription sports broadcaster based in Dublin has recently conducted a validation test at their facilities, providing real-world feedback to the software developers and other consortium technical partners, as well as requested software updates to improve the background extraction and insertion of remotely located guests.

So far, the company has been able to demonstrate that remotely located guests can be realistically inserted into their physical studio environments, even with different backgrounds (greenscreen, plain monocoloured wall or busy backdrop) behind them, thanks to the Background Extraction algorithms of Admire, trained to identify faces and upper body torsos and to successfully extract video of a person from the background in which they are standing/seated, and to the Super Resolution module which automatically improves the resolution of videos in case it’s lower than required for broadcasting.

Premier Sports’ long-term objective is to fully integrate the AdMiRe system into their existing production workflows so that they can have a seamless end-to-end system capable of realistically teleporting remote guests and even viewers into their live studio sports analysis shows.

Remote guest captured with AdMiRe over a green sreen

On July, the 26th, a validation day took place at Brainstorm’s facilities in Valencia. Representatives of the Commercial Advisory Group belonging to the following Spanish broadcast groups: TVE, Apunt TV, TVG and TVCM attended, making it possible to collect important feedback from people external to ADMIRE.
In the first place, the participants were shown two short videos, both produced with ADMIRE technology, but with and without a green screen background. After evaluating its quality and naturalness, with the support of a questionnaire, participants were taken to the demo and introduced extensively to the ADMIRE technology. They had the opportunity to watch the functioning and the results of ADMIRE with the actors situated in different positions. Finally, a new set of questions were put on the table so the participants, approached as a focus group, could share their perceptions about potential uses of ADMIRE in the TV sector.

The participant’s feedback was key to understand how both professionals of TV sector and audiences might perceive ADMIRE, as well as the pros and cons that TV channels might consider when evaluating its acquisition.

During the last weeks, the AdMiRe system has been validated at TVR facilities. The technology has been used in different use cases, mainly with capture of the audience standing and sitting on a green background and without any defined background applying the background subtraction and super resolution algorithms. The results obtained have been very satisfactory and have been highly appreciated by the TVR technicians. The following videos, available on the YouTube channel of the AdMiRe project, show the results of the use cases carried out. In this channel you can also find some videos about the making of the validation and the installation and commissioning of the technology in TVR’s facilities in Bucharest.

You can access to the AdMiRe Youtube Channel here

June 8 to 10, the AdMiRe consortium met in Trondheim. We gathered first at NTNU for presentations and discussions. The purpose of the meeting was to give a status update, plan for the final months and to socialise.

The first day focused the status of the system. UPF and CSIC updated on the AdMiRe App, while EPFL presented modifications done to the Background Extraction and Super Resolution modules. A presentation was also given by Disguise about the features they are providing to the AdMiRe. After lunch Brainstorm informed about the assessments done at the various user partners. In the evening we had dinner at the beautiful Ladekaia, located by the Trondheimfjord. The food was based on traditional Norwegian cuisine. Afterward, some chose to walk by the fjord back to the city, enjoying the bright Norwegian summer night.

NTNU started the second day by providing the plan for the last assessment stages. Through the discussion that followed, it became clear how to evaluate and compare the different AdMiRe modules in a meaningful way, and when and how to gather videos from the user partners. After presentations on dissemination activities and IPR issues, we had lunch before heading to NRK. In the evening we met again for dinner, but this time in the city center at the restaurant ØX. The participants seemed to enjoy spending time together, with the good weather enabling Trondheim to show itself from its best side.

The days in Trondheim proved to be both productive and enjoyable. Meeting physically makes it possible with long discussions and to clear things up. By being social we make it easier to cooperate later. This was a good boost before we head into the final sprint of the project.

In week 13, Øyvind Klungre from NTNU visited one of the end-user partners, Premier Media, as part of the validation of the AdMiRe system. It was NTNU’s first visit to one of the use partners. The main goal of the visit was to run one of the research protocols designed to independently assess the AdMiRe system. The intention was to complete this research protocol assessment during real-life testing of the system. An additional objective was to make recordings of the tests for later video quality assessments. The tests were carried out at Premier Media’s technical facilities, located in Dublin’s city centre.

The protocol to be utilized was research protocol 1, titled Capture & Stream – effects on social presence. The protocol’s purpose is to validate the Capture and Stream module and assess the quality of experience (QoE) for all participants – both presenter and guests. The Capture and Stream module realistically inserts a remotely-located guest into a television studio in such a way that the interaction with the presenter resembles an authentic face-to-face conversation. Hence, the protocol focuses on Social Presence – the degree to which one perceives the presence of participants in a communication.

The plan was for two participant groups to take part in the tests, one group within a green screen environment, and the other in an open space. The participants would be filmed and their video images virtually inserted into the TV studio, where they would be interviewed by a presenter. Each interview would last for two to three minutes. Filming would be achieved using two different types of everyday technical devices, a laptop video web camera and a mobile phone. Each participant would take turns sitting and then standing. This would result in four combination scenarios per participant (seated, standing, webcam, mobile phone). After each of the four scenarios were completed, the interviewer and each participant would fill-in an on-line questionnaire.

The technical tests commenced with the green screen setup. Mark Pilkington from Premier Media took on the role of Presenter, while five employees were recruited to the roles of Remote Guests. An on-site technician set-up the AdMiRe system, tweaked the settings and recorded the sessions, while getting assistance from the technical team at Brainstorm in Spain. This being the first test at an end-user partner site, some technical issues were expected. It should be noted that it took some time to adjust the AdMiRe system settings when switching between standing and sitting positions, and when changing the capture device between a webcam and a mobile phone. The green-screen lighting had to also be adjusted when switching between seated and standing positions. However, the green screen setup was successfully completed with all five guest participants, in all four test scenarios (seated, standing, webcam, mobile phone).

Premier Media intend to complete the open space experiments later, once the system has been fine tuned and any glitches and bugs have been ironed-out. After this initial visit from NTNU, Premier Media will be able to self-manage the experimental tests going-forward, whilst ensuring consistent test conditions.

Despite some minor initial hitches, the green-screen evaluations were completed. This allowed us to learn how different aspects of the testing affect the performance of the AdMiRe system. For example which type of camera (webcam or mobile device) is being used for filming. These results will be helpful as we move forward through the testing process. The validation of the AdMiRe system continues in May, when Asim from NTNU travels to TVR in Bucharest. Research protocol 1 will again be the main focus, after being adjusted and customized to TVR’s scenario.Your Content Goes Here