In April 2010 the standardization of MPEG-H HEVC had started. Exactly eight years later, in April 2018, the Next-Generation Video Coding, MPEG-I VVC (Versatile Video Coding) standardization has started. This has triggered to explore new video coding technologies worldwide. One of the challenges for conventional video coding technologies are "water scenes", which does not fit well with translational, affine nor projective motion model. Picture Coding Symposium of Japan (PCSJ) / Image Media Processing Symposium (IMPS) 2019 proudly hosts Water Bottom Video Challenge (WBVC) 2019 which targets such water scene, in particular water bottom video, and compete video processing techniques to maximize the coding efficiency. The sole criteria is objective and simple, i.e., Luminance Bjøntegaard Delta or Y-BD-Rate. Winners will be awarded at PCSJ/IMPS 2019. We expect that participants will enjoy tweaking video processing algorithms which greatly affect coding efficiency.
note1: Since the codec is provided and shall be used as is., detailed coding knowledge is not needed to participate.
note2: WBVC2019 participation only (for free) is OK and subject to be awarded, however, paper submission or attendance to PCSJ/IMPS2019 (Nov. 18-20, Gotenba, Japan) is very much welcome.
Several water bottom video sequences, VTM (VVC Test Model) version 4.0-based codec source code and an Excel spreadsheet to calculate BD-Rate are provided. Participants are required to generate one still picture from each of video sequences, encode and put results (PSNR and bit-rate) to the spreadsheet to obtain the performance. The encoder shall be treated as a black-box (as is). The only requirement is the skill of video processing, not much of video coding. Besides generating a still picture, participants are asked to compile the software, encode and collect data.
After agreeing to the "Agreement", send an E-mail message with subject "registration" plus following information to the Secretariat. The URL of the material and the password to decrypt the zip file (both private, not to be disclosed) will be sent back within two business days.
There are two classes to make an entry; 1920x1080 class and 512x512 class. 1920x1080 class uses the test sequence of 1920x1080 sizes, and 512x512 class uses the 512x512-cropped version of the test sequence. Both classes are independently ranked and awarded. You can choose either or both of them. You do not need to specify your choice when you register.
Zip and send following materials to the Secretariat with subject "submission". Your submission can be revised any number of times before the deadline. Top scores may be posted to the Leader board page.
Dr. Seishi Takamura, wbvc2019@googlegroups.com
Any questions, inquiries, suggestions are welcome.