Issue link: http://osercommunicationsgroup.uberflip.com/i/1066241
Consumer Electronics Daily News 3 7 Monday, January 7, 2019 On Track: W3C Standards for the Immersive Web Virtual and Augmented Reality (collec- tively known as XR) are the next frontier for immersive entertainment experiences that let you physically interact with con- tent on the web. As the VR & AR ecosystem expands, so too does the demand for VR to leverage standard web technolo- gies such as HTML5, and to provide common ways to define, build and interact with 3D content on different devices. In the same way it advanced web standards for the mobile web and web and television, the World Wide Consortium (W3C) – the global stan- dards body for web technologies – con- tinues work to enable VR & AR solutions to use the Open Web Platform as a full- fledged development environment. With standards, there will be interoperability to avoid fragmentation and duplicated effort, which in turn lowers development costs. After a 2016 W3C Workshop on Web and VR & AR, where over 120 par- ticipants representing browser vendors, headset and hardware manufacturers, VR content providers, designers and distribu- tors came together to demonstrate the benefits that the web can bring to VR development, and a 2017 workshop focused on author- ing VR content on the web, important milestones contributed to making the web platform great for VR experiences, including the availability of an experi- mental VR API by default in several web browsers. W3C launched the Immersive Web Working Group in September 2018 to standardize WebXR, the next genera- tion API for immersive content that will enable both VR and AR content creators to integrate their production in web pages and web applications, widening considerably the number of users who can view and interact with their content. Industry experts from companies including W3C members Magic Leap, Microsoft, Letsee, Mozilla, Google, Samsung, Adobe, Facebook/Oculus, Huawei and Alibaba help bring high-performance Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) (collectively known as XR) to the open web via APIs to interact with XR devices and sensors in browsers. The group intends to deliver a public draft of the WebXR specification around the time of CES 2019. For more information about W3C's immersive web activities, email w3t-pr@w3.org. R.L. Drake Highlights Two Drop & Add Solutions The EH244 Encoder Host Series is a 2RU platform ideal for MPEG-2 or MPEG-4/H.264 video encoding due to its many flexi- ble config- urable out- put options. Each unit is designed to house any combination of R.L. Drake's popular HD or SD encoder modules. The EH244 has a total of six input bays, and has an internal multiplexer that allows users to construct custom program multiplexes, and output them in any combination from RF QAM, ASI or IP – based on the output configu- ration order. EH244 Module options include HDE24A: HD Video Encoder; SDE24A: SD Dual Video Encoder; SDE24EAS: SD Encoder with EAS Support; and SDI24A: HD/SD-SDI Encoder with Closed Captioning. Any of these module options can also be used in the R.L. Drake MEQ1000B Hybrid QAM Modulator. The MEQ1000B Multiplexing Hybrid QAM Modulator fulfills the need when a single QAM output is required. The 1RU platform provides the conven- ience of local or remote web-based man- agement for any of the input module options to drop and add programs to existing multiplexes to optimize band- width. MEQ1000B Module options include ASII: ASI Input Module; DTD1000: Digital Tuner and Demodulator Module; IPI1000: IP Program Acquisition Module; and SDM1000: Satellite Tuner and Demodulator Module. Each MEQ1000B hosts two bays allotting for a customized combination of input module options to build custom QAM channels from up to two diverse sources. Video content from both mod- ules enters the main chassis where it may be MPEG program-filtered, multiplexed and groomed. Any number of program streams can be sent to the QAM modula- tor for output and/or exported via the platform's additional ASI output.