Apparatus, systems and methods for shared viewing experience using head mounted displays

摘要

Systems and methods are operable to share a viewing experience of a free viewpoint format media content event. An exemplary embodiment receives the free viewpoint format media content event, receives unique geometric orientation information from each one of a plurality of head mounted displays (HMDs), determines a unique viewpoint location for each one of the plurality of HMDs based upon the geometric orientation information received from each one of the plurality of HMDs, determines a unique viewpoint area for each one of the plurality of HMDs based upon the determined unique viewpoint location, and communicates each one of the unique viewpoint areas to the associated one of the plurality of HMDs.

主权项

1. A media device configured to present a streaming free viewpoint format media content event to a plurality of head mounted displays (HMDs), comprising:
a media content stream interface configured to receive a media content stream that includes at least the streaming free viewpoint format media content event,
wherein the streaming free viewpoint format media content event includes a stream of video information and a corresponding stream of audio information,wherein the stream of video information of the streaming free viewpoint format media content event further includes a streaming single viewpoint viewing field that has been predefined based on a selected camera angle of the streaming free viewpoint format media content event, andwherein the stream of audio information is synchronously presented with presentation of the stream of video information; a HMD device interface configured to communicatively couple to the plurality of HMDs, wherein the HMD device interface is further configured to receive unique geometric orientation information from each one of the plurality of HMDs that defines a geometric orientation of the HMD in a three dimensional space; and a processor system configured to:
process the received geometric orientation information from each one of the plurality of HMDs to determine a unique viewpoint location for each one of the plurality of HMDs, wherein each unique viewpoint location identifies a point of interest in the streaming free viewpoint format media content event where a respective user of the HMD is looking; anddetermine a unique viewpoint area for each one of the plurality of HMDs based upon the determined unique viewpoint location and the streaming free viewpoint format media content event, wherein each one of the unique viewpoint areas are communicated to the associated one of the plurality of HMDs via the HMD device interface, and wherein the user of the HMD views the respective communicated unique viewpoint area of the streaming free viewpoint format media content event on their HMD.