Software-Defined Networking for High Bandwidth Multi-Camera Video Systems

Abstract

In the future multi-camera systems will be employed to record televisions plays, talk shows, documentary movies as well as to cover sports games such as e.g. soccer. For live broadcasted programs this will enable a lot of new interaction modes by the viewers, which are not possible with currently available technologies. Viewers will be able to interactively select the view of preference. Having multiple cameras, new techniques such as real-time image stitching and view interpolation will be possible. With view interpolation, video information of neighboring cameras can be used to calculate the images as seen at virtual camera positions. A viewer could use a remote control or gestures to interactively move camera views. Profiles could be used to send preferred views to the television set of supporters. In the future hundreds of cameras will be placed at the side of soccer fields. Based on the user preferences, but also on the dynamics of the game, the position of the ball, movements of key players, etc. The streaming of video content from specific cameras to specific viewers will continuously change. UHasselt currently develops a multi-camera system with high-speed communication among cameras as well as with servers connected to the reset of the network. SDN (Software Defined Networks) allow more control on the communication in the network. In SDN the data plane and the control plane are decoupled. This paper presents new methods for managing the high-speed real-time communication between multi-camera systems and their users.