Nokia Advances Standard for Volumetric Video Transport

Espoo, Finland – Nokia Oyj announced its role in establishing a standard for the efficient transport of volumetric video over networks. This technological advancement could reshape how consumers interact with digital content.

Volumetric video, which captures and presents a 3D space as opposed to traditional 2D video, is a growing field. This growth is spurred by the development of the metaverse and increasingly sophisticated capture devices. A key industry challenge has been the lack of a unified method for encoding, storing, and transmitting this content, hindering its widespread adoption.

Nokia's efforts have centered on the development of the Visual Volumetric Video-based Coding (V3C) family of standards within the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). V3C converts 3D video data into multiple 2D representations and associated metadata, which can then be compressed using existing video coding standards. While Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) is a popular delivery standard, its underlying protocol limitations make it unsuitable for real-time applications.

To address this, Nokia took the lead within the IETF to develop a Real-time Protocol (RTP) standard for V3C content delivery in real time. This RTP payload format defines the rules for packetizing V3C data into RTP packets, enabling efficient and immediate transmission. The draft reached a final milestone in July 2023, positioning it for official adoption as a proposed standard.

Through this standardization, Nokia aims to remove barriers to the large-scale deployment of volumetric video, bringing immersive content closer to consumers. The company has also released its implementation to the developer community for testing and real-world demonstration.