WO2022180606A1 - First person cinema - Google Patents

Abstract

An image processing system comprising a receiver configured to receive video data indicative of one or more video streams, the one or more video streams together depicting a contiguous area of a scene and captured by one or more video cameras, the scene comprising a plurality of objects; one or more processors in data communication with the receiver. A memory comprising instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to process the received video data to form output video data indicative of an output video stream, the output video stream having a first region and a second region adjacent the first region, the first region depicting a first zone in the contiguous area of the scene and the second region depicting a second zone in the contiguous area of the scene, the first zone adjacent the second zone. Each of the first region and the second region extend from a first edge of the output video stream to a second edge of the output video stream, the second edge opposite the first edge. The first region of the output video stream corresponds substantially to a central zone of the contiguous area of the scene. Processing the received video data into the output video data comprises applying a visual effect to the received video data such that substantially all objects depicted in the second region are less discernible in the output video stream than at least one object in the first region.

Description

FIRST PERSON CINEMA

CROSS REFERENCE SECTION

[0001] This application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Application No.

63/153,580, filed February 25, 2021, U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/153,602, filed February 25, 2021, U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/153,591, filed February 25, 2021, U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/153,612, filed February 25, 2021, and U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/153,629, filed February 25, 2021, the disclosure of which are incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0002] This disclosure relates to an improvement of the inventions disclosed in

W02009/133406 and W02008/004005, the complete disclosures of which is incorporated herein by reference.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0003] An image processing system comprising a receiver configured to receive video data indicative of one or more video streams, the one or more video streams together depicting a contiguous area of a scene and captured by one or more video cameras, the scene comprising a plurality of objects; one or more processors in data communication with the receiver. A memory comprising instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to process the received video data to form output video data indicative of an output video stream, the output video stream having a first region and a second region adjacent the first region, the first region depicting a first zone in the contiguous area of the scene and the second region depicting a second zone in the contiguous area of the scene, the first zone adjacent the second zone. Each of the first region and the second region extend from a first edge of the output video stream to a second edge of the output video stream, the second edge opposite the first edge. The first region of the output video stream corresponds substantially to a central zone of the contiguous area of the scene. Processing the received video data into the output video data comprises applying a visual effect to the received video data such that substantially all objects depicted in the second region are less discernible in the output video stream than at least one object in the first region.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0004] Fig. N1 shows example on a television sized screen at IK resolution (1080p) and also a cinema sized screen atv2K resolution (2048p). See fig Nl.

[0005] Fig. N2 shows a larger curved screen.

[0006] Fig. N3A-B show screens that provide the viewer with an image that extends to their peripheral vision.

[0007] Fig N4 shows hyper wide screen format.

[0008] Fig. N5 shows illustration of placing the audience within a darkened auditorium in the central position of a wrap around large display, which also has the added depth sensation generated by the previous technology and extended peripheral vision.

[0009] Fig. N6 shows cinema screen with increased from one screen to three screens, thereby providing the audience with extended peripheral vision.

[0010] Fig. N7-N12 show various headsets.

[0011] Fig. N13 shows an illustration using the headset of N12 where there is a central visor, the intention is that there should not even be a single glass panel separating the wearer’s eyes from the cinema or television screen. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0012] This description concerns further applications of the professional tri-cam system, a technology which allows the ‘live’ optical capture and recording of dramatic, sporting and professional events and sequences. This description is a technology that also includes a further application of the post production digital 2D conversion, image system, described in W02009/133406.

[0013] As well as further enhancements and modifications of those two technologies - the TriCam and the Post production system, this description also concerns the combination of those enhancements, in a totally different technology: the creation of anew cinema technology, designed to give the audience an enlarged display, a 3D photo-holographic image, and an enhanced visual experience that we refer to as: the 1st person viewing experience.

[0014] The 1st person viewing experience is named here as a Cogno-Optical illusion, it involves the eyes and the brain working together in a unique way, the Cogno-Optical illusion was first presented in this family of innovations in W02009/133406.

[0015] All current 3D cinema technologies require the audience to wear special glasses which differentially optically decode the picture content information in the main image, and thereby separate the left and right eye images; which were differentially encoded into the main 2D image which is projected onto the cinema screen.

[0016] This separation means that each eye then sees a slightly different 2D image, and the brain registers a combined 3D image, which the viewers then experience.

[0017] The technology previously developed ( W02009/133406 ) allows for this viewer 3D experience, to be created from a single channel 2D source. This technology takes the image generated from that technology, which can be presented at different output resolutions: for example on a television sized screen at IK resolution (1080p) and also a cinema sized screen atv2K resolution (2048p). See fig Nl. [0018] This new description and its subject technology, then takes a further step and integrates the cinema sized screen within a new format, wherein it is now accompanied by two other adjacent screens which are designed to wrap around the audience, giving them a large curved screen (see fig N2), the specific intention being to provide the viewer with an image that extends to their peripheral vision (see figs N3A and N3B). It is up to three times the normal width.

[0019] This we call the hyper-wide-screen format, see fig N4

[0020] It is the hypothesis at the centre of this innovation, that by placing the audience within a darkened auditorium in the central position of a wrap around large display, which also has the added depth sensation generated by the previous technology and extended peripheral vision (see fig N5), the brain will now interpret this image not only as being seen, but as being ‘lived’.

[0021] Specifically, the intention is that the image will not appear to be on a screen in front of the audience, but will be reinterpreted in the higher centres of the brain as though it were the actually the totality of the image received on the back of the retina, and will therefore appear to be the world that you are in.

[0022] The intention behind this technology, is to engineer conditions: physical conditions, and optical conditions created through digital manipulation at the pixel level. And to acheve this as a new format, both for the cinema and also for the home.

[0023] The science behind this model of brain cognitive fluidity: the observed propensity of the brain to create an optical illusion, and altered realities, when crucial cues are manipulated, with the brain still understanding their previous meaning and constancy, allows this theoretical projection of the audience believing that they are experiencing a new cognitive sensation in which the image appears not to be on a cinema screen, but appears to be an extension of their own head, that is: that the image that they see out of their eyes, is no longer a portion of the image on their retina, but is the entirety of the image received by their retinas. [0024] It will then appear to be a ‘lived’ experience. The screen image then becomes their ‘world view’.

[0025] The cinema screen will have increased from one screen to three screens, thereby providing the audience with extended peripheral vision. See fig N6. Two further implementations of this technology, sees the audience wearing, not 3D glasses, but a special headset (A) designed for this hyper- wide -screen: 1st person viewing experience (see fig N7), where the viewer wears a headset in conjunction with the cinema screen or their television screen; or a further special headset (B) for this 1st person viewing experience (see fig N8) where the viewer wears only the self contained headset for the entire 1st person viewing experience. There is no visor opening in headset (B) as compared with headset (A) see fig N9, just three interior LCD display screens (see fig N10) as compared with two interior LCD display screens (see fig N11)

[0026] In the version with headset (B), there is no requirement for a television or cinema screen. No television screen or cinema screen is required.

[0027] In the headset (A), (see fig N12) there is a central visor, the intention is that there should not even be a single glass panel separating the wearer’s eyes from the cinema or television screen see fig N13.

[0028] We will return to the headsets, after we explain more fully the neurological and cognitive principles of this cinematic display technology, illustrated with the first conceived, practical implementations.

[0029] The cognitive theory behind the description.

[0030] The cognitive theory behind this work, is that the brain’s understandings of our place in the three dimensional world is more fluid, and is more plastic than we currently conceive, and if the cues in this our physical domain, that the brain first detects and then uses to generate this understanding, are understood and subtly manipulated, repositioned and realigned in accordance with this understanding, then the subject’s understanding of the world that they are in, can be altered from reality, and yet still made to feel real, and engrossing. [0031] The realignment of our understanding, requires the provision of a full lateral and central image, that is almost as wide as the entire width of sight, (see fig N13) and very importantly that is 2D at the peripheral regions and has an enhanced 2D, a more three dimensional aspect in its central region (see fig N14), when such an image is presented to viewers, without the intervention of having to wear special viewing glasses, and if all other images outside of the film’s narrative, for example the rear view of the heads and shoulders of other members of the audience, are hidden or suppressed, then the theoretical models behind this work, project that the image will take on a first person sensation, with people getting a mixture of feelings, that they are not just looking at a film image but that they are also looking at the film as the participant who is in the position of the camera -in other words the emotional feeling of experiencing their own life in the feeling that it is not just an image, but that it is their own sight. The intention is to give the viewer the sensation of experiencing it in the first person: of living it. See fig N15

[0032] It must therefore be true, that the presence of other people in the audience will create a slight dissonance with this sensation, but this hypothesis suggests that they and any secondary images, may come to be understood in a similar way that you understand the dual virtual image of your own nose, they will feel as though they are part of your new face in this group existence.

[0033] The dual virtual image of one’s nose is always in our visual image, but we cognitively ignore these two images unless (as now) we have our attention brought to them. And these two images (of our nose) are a constant reminder of the reality of our stereo vision -the reality of its position, namely at the front of our faces.

[0034] In the same way, the presence of illuminated silhouettes of the heads of other members of the audience, with the backs of their seats (see figs N16 and N37), will become a constant yet also cognitively excluded component in this new world view, and this theory postulates that the brain can assign a similar meaning to them as it does the two virtual images of your nose, and cognitively exclude them as we do the intrusion of the virtual images of our noses, allowing them -these silhouettes, to become an invisible yet visible component of this new world view: Cognitive Exclusion.

[0035] It will make for a new group viewing experience.

[0036] The Hyper-wide-screen cognitive experience: the hypothesis.

[0037] The peripheral images are filmed and subsequently presented in the standard

2D, as these are simulating the view that is actually seen only by one eye -certainly to a much greater extent by one eye. The central section contains the enhanced depth images with encoded parallax, as this is the view as seen predominantly by both eyes (see Fig N17).

[0038] This is important, as it seeks to replicate the brain’s biological and cognitive relationship with the field of view, and specifically the stereographical relationship to each physical environment, that we find ourselves in, in nature -in the physical world.

[0039] What do we mean by this: we mean that there are two monoscopic zones and one stereoscopic zone (see fig N 18), in human sight, we repeat this arrangement.

[0040] This new cinema screen, we shall refer to as the hyper wide screen, is up to three times the conventional screen width.

[0041] The stereographical properties of this hyper wide screen, and the screen later to be considered in the headset, are not uniform across the entire viewing area (see fig N13). [0042] Just as we described above, in our natural experience -the peripheral vision is monoscopic as seen by the outward sector of the field of view of each eye, and accounts for around 50% to 70% of the world that each eyes sees, 50% to 70% of the entire field of view for that eye.

[0043] And as a result the stereo vision, the overlapping sector: the binocular vision, accounts for between 30% to 50% of what a person sees. (See Fig N19)

[0044] And the design of the screens and their content in this description is in direct correlation with this nature. Accordingly the filmed content to be displayed on the peripheral screens is being filmed with standard monoscopic cameras, and the central screen being created using the new technology which embeds stereo parallax into a monoscopic image sequence, allowing it to appear to be seen by both eyes.

[0045] Regardless of how large or small the hyper wide cinema screen is, one third is enhanced 2D -the central section, and two thirds of the Hyper-wide-screen is 2D -the peripheral sections. See fig N20.

[0046] The Hyper-wide-screen also uses variable resolution. The image defocuses gradually, not in the central third of the main screen, but across the lateral screens (see fig N21), increasing in resolution loss, towards the outer edges of the entire image (see fig N22).

[0047] This photo-real illustration used in figure N22 will be used in several further illustrations to provide a common reference and greater clarity in the more detailed parts of the description.

[0048] The reason for this variable resolution in the peripheral screens, is to as closely as possible, replicate the biology of the human viewing experience, which is one of the strategies of this technology.

[0049] Although the peripheral image in human vision, does not defocus gradually as our display does, what is observed in the mixture of cognitive neurology and retinal and ocular biology of our sight, is that the more peripheral the image -the further towards the edge of our vision, the more it is registered with decreasing visual acuity, that is we are decreasingly visually aware of it, and we do not see it with remembered clarity.

[0050] The biology supports this: we are more sensitive to small movements at the edge of our vision, but less sensitive to detail and colour; and this is because towards the edge of the retina, the distribution of cone retinal cells is less dense, and therefore a less distinct image is perceived, as these retinal cells give us colour and detail. The greater number of rod cells give us alert and dynamic sensitivity but not optical acuity.

[0051] And therefore in the hyper wide screen image format, a slight softening and defocusing of the image, as you travel in the x-axis, and out of the central region, is used in this description to simulate the biological reality of these changing parameters.

[0052] It is important to stress that the central screen remains in sharp and full focus, across its entire width, indeed its entire area.

[0053] In another variant: the illumination will be dimmed, gradually as one progresses to the edges of the screen, a second variant has a slight chromatic desaturation, which increases towards the edge of the screen.

[0054] And the cognitive design imperative here, is that the peripheral screens, are supporting and always supporting peripherally the main image, and are not meant to become so interesting that the viewers actually turn their heads to view the side screen, so that these become even briefly central to their vision -the entire structure of this new hyper wide image will breakdown, if viewers actually turn their heads to look directly at the peripheral screens. [0055] Different frame rates.

[0056] The EDS technology conversion system see earlier work W02009/133406, may also result in a higher frame rate in the central section, than the frame rate in the 2D sections of the combined image in the peripheral region. See fig N72 [0057] This is part of the structure of the cognitive illusion that is being created: it is the retina’s rod cells which can detect higher frame rates changes, and which are more heavily distributed in the region of the retina which receives the image of the peripheral screens, which are created with a lower frame rate.

[0058] As a result the central image is more interesting, more kinetic, dynamic and dramatic, without the reason for this being isolated and understood by us, and this will allow the peripheral images to register with a lower cognitive profile in the viewer’s mind, as compared to the central region. And this is a closer fit to how our brain’s create and maintain the relationship between the central and peripheral regions.

[0059] Image structure.

[0060] The hyper widescreen image in the headset (A) configuration, actually fails, if the viewers turn their heads too far, to focus on the peripheral screens, however, as the peripheral screens are in the headsets (see Fig N23), actually move with the head, and it will soon be realised by the wearer that, they cannot make the contents on those screens more central. [0061] The design of the image, and the intention of this technology, is that the peripheral images are never looked at directly, the design is that the viewers keep their heads looking directly at the main screen, to allow the illusion that the wrap around screen generates to be fully effective.

[0062] And the illusion is then, that the images on this much larger than normal screen, are not an image, but are actually your own head’s view of the world.

[0063] This is an advanced cognitive illusion, as we are seeking to persuade the brain that it is actually also seeing the inside of your own head, which is represented as the margin between the edges of the hyper wide image and the edge of the entire image that you see - which is the real edge of your world (see Fig N24). The eyes see a subset of the world around us: the world view. As Fig N24 shows, the hyper wide screen is a subset of this subset, And the margin between the edge of the hyper wide screen and the edge of the world view, is a critical region, it is the area that we seek to induce the brain to assign a different meaning to. [0064] This margin (see Fig N25) we refer to as the immersial margin, runs all the way around the hyper wide screen: the combined three screens. It is a region that has never been targeted before as a functional component, as there is no cognitive region between the edge of the eyes and the beginning of your head. Our vision stops at the edge of the pupil, which is the edge of the image projected on the retina’s surface.

[0065] This is also where we ‘understand’ that our foreheads begin -just below the region of the eyebrows, which is of course cognitively active.

[0066] In this technology, part of the retina will effectively be a dark band, as it will effectively not be receiving a light sourced image (see fig N26) or very low light stimulus -the dark of the cinema auditorium, and this is where this theory has its practical and neurological basis: when nerve cells do not receive a stimulus or stimuli, they do not generate an electro potential: they do not fire.

[0067] And when neurons do not fire, they are increasingly ignored, and eventually completely ignored, But in this case when there is an image on the retina of this type - very wide screen, it usually fills all of the retina. It is the hypothesis that the brain may ignore the immersial layer, may discount the very low neural traffic coming from the neurons that are stimulated to a much lesser degree in this immersial region on the retina.

[0068] The brain ignoring this dark brand as it begins to discount the low neural activity, we call ‘cognitive encroachment’. See fig N27

[0069] Why ‘cognitive encroachment’ as a consequence of ‘neural recession’ -neurons being ignored as they have remained unstimulated for a period of time : well as the neural traffic from that outer part of the retina recedes, and the brain begins to discount the unchanging signal, the 1st person perspective is the result of the brain enlarging its understanding of the signal that it is receiving. The brain cognitively frees and enlarges your understanding of the hyper wide screen image from the specific borders of the image on the retina, and allows that understanding to encroach to grow to the edge of your understanding of your world.

[0070] Therefore as the brain cognitively discounts this region of the retina: the immersial margin, then this theoretical hypothesis projects that the hyper wide screen image, will become the entire world view. See Fig N28.

[0071] This is the assumption contained within the hypothesis, which is projecting this as a new cognitive experience, which we are calling 1st person cinema.

[0072] The headsets

[0073] As mentioned, the headset (A) design, see fig N23, allows the standard screen cinema to become the hyper wide screen size of 1st person cinema, see fig N29.

[0074] This first headset (A) design works with both the cinema screen and television, in exactly the same way: lateral LCD screens, which are located inside the headset, see fig N30, line up their image precisely with the central image of the cinema screen or the television which comes in to the viewer through the headset’s open visor aperture (see Fig N31).

[0075] The second headset (B) design works without the cinema screen and without the television, this headset design has no visor aperture (see fig N32) and has three LCD screen positioned inside (see fig N33). The design intention is to create the hyperwide- screen experience all within the single headset (see fig N34)

[0076] As a result these further implementations will allow the technology not only to work in smaller cinemas, but also in the home and domestic setting. This worn headset implementation will be described in detail at a further point in this description.

[0077] When you are wearing the headset A) (see Fig N35) both in a normal cinema and in the home, then the immersial margin will be almost completely screened off from any extraneous and additional images, and will be a darkened zone that does not distract from the illusion of the fdm being the single image.

[0078] This screening off is achieved by adjustable planes within the visor, which widen or narrow the widescreen viewing aperture on two axes. This allows the wearer to bring the edges of the aperture to match with the top and bottom of the main screen in the theatre or living room television, and the left and right edges of the main screen and living room television, are adjusted by the viewer to match the right and left edges of the peripheral LCD screens within the headset. (See fig N36)

[0079] The size of the image, can also be digitally enlarged and reduced, so that depending upon your position, and exact image match across the entire area, connecting the three screens.

[0080] And in the home environment, there is very unlikely to be someone else’s head, sticking up from their seat, and so the immersial region can be can be closely defined using the adjustable planes, and the hyper-wide-screen can be unbroken by any image outside of its narrative -like someone else’s head.

[0081] This allows the brain to interpret the hyper wide screen, as the image of the eye.

And the immersial margin, will be cognitively excluded. This is the model behind the 1st person cinematic image.

[0082] Of course in the full three screen implementation of 1st person hyper wide cinema, the immersial margin will have the backs and heads of the other members of the audience (see fig N37) and some of these will also intrude into the hyper-wide-screen image itself as there is no headset adjustable planes or flaps to screen the immersial margin; however the scale of the presentation -the actual size of the image over three screens, will allow the brain to be overwhelmed by the experience and to cognitively exclude the heads of people, as they will be very small compared to the size and sensation of the image. [0083] In the full three screen hyper-wide-screen, the central section is the main image and is in full normal focus. As before the peripheral screens are not as sharp, with a gradient describing the loss of focus, slowly increasing geometrically with progression laterally, to the most peripheral edge of the peripheral screens. (See fig N22).

[0084] And as in the headset systems, another variant a slight loss of illumination progressively towards the peripheral edges (See fig N38).

[0085] Filming the hyper wide screen image.

[0086] The fact that the peripheral images are created with a gradual laterally defocusing gradient, allows for a single very wide angle lens to capture the two peripheral images by means of a prism or beam splitter, so that the central image is recorded by the central camera, and also by the very wide angle lens. (See fig N39).

[0087] This way both cameras are recording the same image, through the light rays that pass through the beam splitter, or prism (see fig N40), but of course the different lenses on each camera, determines that they record it, the same image that they are presented with, but record it differently. (See fig N41).

[0088] The final image achieved through this variant of the technology, will therefore be a very widescreen composite of the two recorded image streams; and will always have the main camera image sharp and central, and it will always appear in the centre, it will be the image captured in 2D by the main camera, and which is then subsequently processed and converted into the enhanced depth 2D image. The final image is a composite of the widescreen peripheral images and the central enhanced depth 2D image (See fig N42).

[0089] The wide lens image which is horizontally co-planar with the central camera, and therefore is aligned with it, will appear as though laid down first, but with the central section being completely replaced with the image from the central camera. (See Fig 42). [0090] It will be important to ensure that the edges match, and that the two lines of joining between the three images are either undetectable or are not distracting.

[0091] As a result the peripheral most images, to be found at both the left edge and the right edge are the most defocused, becoming clearer in a geometrical progression as you approach the beginning of the central section, where the image is in full normal focus and sharpness. (See figs N21 and N22).

[0092] The different images are clearly different in their aspect ratios (see fig N43), unless in a further variant in the recording/filming set-up, the peripheral images are not captured with one widescreen camera, but with two lateral cameras, each with the same lens configuration as the central camera (See fig N44).

[0093] If three cameras are used to capture the entire image, (See fig N45) then they do not all see the exact same image, the two lateral cameras have the same lens configuration as the central camera, but they are angled divergently and laterally displaced. The three images are all filmed across three different axis.

[0094] This is not the same design as the TriCam which has three cameras all with the same lens configuration, but with the inclusion of a prismatic configuration, all three cameras record images on the same linear axis, but also with an angular divergence.

[0095] The triple camera configuration (TCC) described here as opposed to the TriCam, allows the widescreen 1st Person Cinema format to be created by three cameras and a post production conversion of the central camera. (See fig N46 for TCC schematic)

[0096] And this incorporation of the TCC rig, is a further technology which takes this recording system being described: the 1st person camera system, into ‘on set’ and ‘on location’ film productions, as opposed to purely post production. However the rendering time required for the central camera, means that it requires some days or even weeks depending upon the scene’s optical complexity, before the full image can be seen by the director and film crew. [0097] The second implementation of this technology in a ‘live’ production setting, involves the use of the Tri-cam to fdm the central sections, instead of the post production transformation.

[0098] The Tri-Cam is designed to be an engineered construct of image manipulation algorithms, implemented optically across a three camera rig. This optical ‘livecapture’ fdming occurs across three co-aligned cameras, required to be captured simultaneously -meaning synch locked and the composited single frame is presented in a live, or very close to live, timeframe (quasi-live). It may take a few seconds for the multiple images to be modified, recomposited and sequenced correctly, but this is also rapid enough to allow for a live/real-time interaction and feedback, in a professional and creative environment.

[0099] This means that a four-lens and two camera set up (TriCam and widescreen), could capture this optical landscape -(see fig N47). And do so, also in live/quasi-live timeframes.

[0100] The three lenses and recording apertures of the Tricam, and the one very wide angle lens and single recording aperture of the peripheral panorama camera -are the four functional components, that form the basis of the 1st Person camera rig. Four images are recorded to create every single frame of 1st person footage (See fig N48)

[0101] As a result the entire 1st person wrap around image, will be available to view for the director on the set as it is being filmed.

[0102] The ability to review and experience the TriCam images and the 1st person cinematic images in realtime, near realtime -meaning quasi-live or certainly within the creative turnaround time , on a film production, within several minutes, allows the TriCam and the 1st Person Camera rig, to be used much more creatively and artistically.

[0103] The editing and crafting of the 1st Person Camera footage, will require special monitors -basically three widescreen monitors synchronized together. These can be large or small, but large enough to encompass the viewer’s head, and thereby generate lateral peripheral images.

[0104] Although the central monitor will be the only one that displays the amalgamated image from the TriCam, and is the monitor whose image will be in normal and precise focus, the two adjacent monitors are important to establish the total image footprint, required for the 3D panorama of the image.

[0105] The TriCam

[0106] At this point we will expand upon and underline the optical relationship between the three lenses and image capture grids within the TriCam.

[0107] The point of the Tricam, is to capture the exact same point in time, from three similar perspectives. And the image content of each frame must be nearly identical, and to achieve this each of the three cameras records the same axis of direction with the target object and target landscapes. See fig N49.

[0108] In fig N49, we see that the three cameras, actually are housed within a single unit, with a single aperture, and that by the design of beam splitters and front silvered mirrors, each of the three cameras -which are in fact lenses and capture grids, that they each see the exact same image. See fig N50.

[0109] The intention is that the three camera take three versions of the same view, one versions is that the three cameras have slightly varied time bases, so that they take pictures that are 0.01 seconds separated. See fig N51.

[0110] This allows the kinetic energy of the event being filmed, to be brought under control. The time base can be controlled, adjusted and set for each camera before a sequence is filmed, or the time base can be altered manually actually during the event as the cameraperson senses the change in the kinetic energy of the scene; or it can be altered automatically by graphics microporcessors on one of the video lines that detect that the image is changing too greatly from frame to frame, which is nearly always an indicator of a highly kinetic scene before the recording cameras.

[0111] Of course such a parameter can be automatically measured and automatically feed time base corrections to the cameras.

[0112] The other variation of the image is in the perspective, and this is achieved through the design of the beam splitters and the mirror, see fig N52.

[0113] We can see in fig N53, that the beam splitter and front silvered mirror configuration, allows the two lateral cameras to see exactly the same image as the front image -there is a slight intensity difference, between the central and the lateral pair, which is easily compensated for.

[0114] This configuration will of course, result in all three cameras taking the exact same image. So the front silvered mirrors r2 and s2, rotate about their central axes -see fig N54 or the combined beam splitter (si + rl) rotates about its central axis -see fig N55.

[0115] The rotation of these elements results in modifications in the original picture, which is still recorded by the central camera. The lateral cameras then recorded meaningful differences in the original image.

[0116] It is important that the centre of axis for the rotation of the image for both lateral cameras, is the same distance from the imaginary reference point, see fig N55.

[0117] As result in both of these implementations, see figs N55 and N51, all three cameras will record an image that is slightly altered from their neighbour.

[0118] To recap it is postulated that the cognitive sensation delivered to the viewer, while looking at the specifically modified and enhanced images, generated from the TriCam or the (W 02009/133406) post production image processing system, when combined with the two lateral and additionally modified peripheral images, is what generates the unique ‘inside your head’ 1st Person Cinema sensation. [0119] The sensation that this wide and shaped cinematic image, of fully resolved and gradually less resolved images, creates when viewed by a large audience (see Fig N14), is predicted to be a new kind of image that gives the viewer a personal experience that appears to locate the image to an interior sensation.

[0120] It is as though the cinema becomes your own head. (See Fig N 17)

[0121] This 1st person Cinema experience, is almost a group virtual reality, as the heads of the other cinema goers, will be seen by each viewer optically and cognitively, and we predict, therefore that the presence of these additional heads, will be emotionally discounted by each viewer’s brain, as this new kind of compound image generates a sense of the cinema screen, being their own personal image, and inside their head. ‘Cognitive exclusion’ -see fig N16. [0122] We predict that it will feel quite different to the normal sensation of viewing conventional film in a cinema environment.

[0123] Each cinema auditorium, which houses this new display, will need not necessarily to be larger, but the screen sizes will clearly be larger, they will be wider, and will extend to the side walls. (See fig N15).

[0124] The projection system will also need to be redesigned, with a single additional projector (See fig N56 and N57) or an additional two (see fig N58) new projectors required. [0125] There is a cinema version alternative to the two additional projectors and peripheral screens, and this is the viewer headset, which will be described below in the home system.

[0126] Home displays and broadcasting.

[0127] The 1st Person Cinema format, will require a new display system for the home.

It will require greater broadcasting bandwidth, and increased file storage space on Blu-ray discs. [0128] The home system hardware will involve a different display presentation in the home. [0129] The display hardware will need to be extended to three conjoined monitors (See fig N59). It will require more than the standard widescreen television.

[0130] The electronics will entail a different configuration. The additional bandwidth, will either be spread over different but synchronized channels, or compressed within a high bandwidth super channel.

[0131] The difficulty will be to extend the image onto three walls in the home. It is more likely that the display will be either (see fig N60) less curved, and therefore a little less peripheral; or it will be viewed from a closer viewing range (See fig N61).

[0132] However in a lower cost implementation, this description allows for the prospect of a viewer worn headset that allows for two small peripherally located LCDs on the left and right of the headset, and a central space that the television is viewed through , as mentioned at the beginning of this description as headset (A); and also a headset that does not require an external television, as all three screens are implemented as three internal LCD’s within the sealed design of the headset -also referred to as headset (B). (See figs N23 and N33). [0133] The design of headset (B) is simple to understand, it is a self contained solution.

The viewer needs only a chair to sit in, and the EDS port plug-in socket for the headset, to the electronic device that is generating a 1st person cinema image format signal.

[0134] This design: headset (A), allows the screen to be viewed from any part of the room. (See fig N62).

[0135] The images on the peripheral screens, can be adjusted to align fully with the image on the large central screen, when viewed from any distance and position in the room (see fig N63).

[0136] The sensation of having the clear main image and the very slightly softer focus of the peripheral image, which gradually becomes softer in focus as it proceeds further from one’s central conscious attention, will provide a very interesting sensation, of immersing the viewer in a bio-virtual reality. A different conscious appreciation of vision: what we will call 1st narrative vision.

[0137] It is therefore proposed that 1st Person Cinema, can also be implemented in traditional cinemas at a lower logistical cost, with this viewer worn technology, with audience members bringing their own electronic headset to the auditorium (see fig N64) 1st Person Cinema panoramic displays, could be established in smaller auditoriums, where people brought their own peripheral display headsets, to the auditorium, to watch the one large screen. (See fig N64).

[0138] The personal headsets would then plug into a small terminal located with each seat, and this would feed the peripheral image displays, located on each headset. The displays on the viewer devices and the display on the big screen, will clearly be fully synchronized. [0139] The headset is an alternative implementation of the 1 st Person Cinema, however when the cinematic version is implemented in full on multiple large screens, it is predicted to be a new cinematic experience, a new cognitive experience for humanity. Fig N65, shows a standard domestic television setting; and fig N67 shows how the second implementation mode transforms this domestic setting: the stand alone headset (A) with a single television monitor, producing a hyper widescreen home viewing experience.

[0140] And in the second headset variant, where all three screens are contained in the headset. (See figs N32 and N33) This allows the hyper widescreen format to be experienced in a single person environment without either a cinema screen, television or even a computer monitor.

[0141] The three home (domestic) implementations are presented for comparison in fig

N70, the most expensive is the three large televisions, and the least expensive is the single seal headset, with no televisions required. The video format is however different in each case. [0142] The resolution needed for broadcast or for any storage medium, will be much lower and it will be akin to a different format, as all three channels will be of the same resolution. However the peripheral images will have less detail on their picture content (reduced sharpness is not the same as resolution loss).

[0143] In the first headset variant -the headset with the aperture to allow the main screen viewing either in the cinema or in the home, the bandwidth of the data stream for the two peripheral images is reduced as compared against the central image. The image on a television on the other side of the room, requires the full HD resolution, the LCD screens a few inches from your face, do not. See fig N68.

[0144] The big challenge with having peripheral screens close to the eyes and large display that is some physical distance separated in front of the viewer as the central display, is how to prevent the edges of the left or right peripheral images, not to be ‘looked through’ by the opposing eye. (See fig N76) The image just to the left of the central image being seen by the right eye, is present in the total image seen by the viewer and is experienced as being visually and cognitively mixed into the image seen by the left eye in that position. This makes the right hand edge of the left peripheral screen appear translucent and made up of the two different images. The exact same thing would happen with the image seen to just to the right of the central image, and the image from the left hand edge of the right peripheral screen. This translucent mixture of the two images, would destroy the illusion and would destroy the complete hyperwide sceen interaction between the headset peripheral screens and the central display.

[0145] The solution is to include image intensity adjustments to the peripheral screen displays so that their image light intensity is capable of being varied according to the viewer requirements and subjectivity (see fig N76), so that the left peripheral screen is bright enough in the left eye retina to dominate to point of total occlusion any objects seen by the right eye retina that are in the same perceived position. This prevents the image to the left of the large central display off the screen, and right of the central image off the screen, from being seen by the viewer. And allows the headset’s peripheral screens next to the viewer’s face and eyes, and the central screen several metres away in the home and many metres away in the theatre, to create one seamless image with out breaks overlaps or duplications. Obviously the image intensity of the central image and the peripheral image must match, but this will obliterate the image created by the distance parallax, from intruding into this display.

[0146] Tri-am

[0147] The prior descriptions in this specific category of a depth enhanced image format that can be conveyed entirely within the modified signal and displayed entirely on conventional and unmodified displays and screen, introduced the modification of using three aligned and synchronized cameras to film and record a scene, See Fig T1.

[0148] Those three image streams, as recorded by each camera, where then integrated into one stream through the use of complex modifications and combinations of their synchronized image data, see Fig T2

[0149] One of the main principles in these prior descriptions was of the central camera being the main image -the strong image (see Fig T3) which dominated to some varying degree the final image, with the images from the two peripheral cameras being blended into the image in as a subliminal sub layer, also to some reciprocal varying degree.

[0150] The main principle in this description is that instead of three specifically aligned cameras, we replace the cameras and the scenes that they are filming, with hand drawn images from three different perspectives, by hand animators deliberately seeking to replicate the aligned input generated by the original Tri-cam design. See figs T4 to T9.

[0151] Of course the animators can be computer graphics animators as well as hand drawing animators. The principle here is that the degree of the angle of rotation and the degree of lateral offset and displacement either combined or separately as implied by the hand drawn image or rendered perspective of the image created in computer memory, is as an alternative to the optical image, fdmed by the camera. The angle of rotation and the degree of displacement can be combined variables or used as the sole parameter.

[0152] This approach also allows the animators to create the backgrounds and the foregrounds with different three way perspective relationships; so that the final composited image has a greater perceived sense of depth and discreteness between the optical elements within it -in this case within each frame. It will allow animators to generate and experiment with a more depth meaningful image, using these principles.

[0153] EDR (Enhanced Dynamic Resolution)

[0154] The technology description of the signal involves new picture information being created by analysis of the original content, and the creation of in between images: in between the original frames of the moving events being recorded. If we consider an original sequence being recorded: a falling ball, see Fig T10; then this further description is of the process of turning the original frame rate of the recording camera, into a higher frame rate and smoother flow that the original recorded sequence.

[0155] If the recording camera, was capable of being switched into a mode where it captured images at twice the previous rate, then see Fig 11, it would record a sequence with twice as many frames, with the ball being photographed in positions between the original frames. This description involves a process whereby film that has already been recorded and stored, is processed in such a way as to simulate it having being filmed at twice the original rate.

[0156] In Fig T12 the intention is to convey the separate processes required to generate this higher frame rate sequence. First the original positions of objects must be digitally registered, discrete objects must be detected and ‘understood’, their positions in adjacent frames must be understood so that the degree of displacement within the frame from one frame to the next, can be calculated and a mid-position between frames, in a totally new frame image to be created, can be derived. As a result the recorded objects appears more dynamic and appears to flow a little more smoothly, and of course the film now is twice the size in memory or in celluloid, but is not twice the film length or duration. The film has twice the frame number see Fig T13.

[0157] The film now duplicates a film that was recorded at twice the frame rate. See

Fig T14.

[0158] The computer digital hardware required to achieve this is a subset of the systems required to generate the additional left and right eye perspective additions, in the original descriptions of the Enhanced Depth systems.

[0159] EDS: Reflectorama.

[0160] This description is of a simple but effective addition to the 1st person cinema project of presenting the Enhanced Depth image format, in a theatrical and cinematic environment and display.

[0161] Instead of looking directly at a screen that a large image has been projected onto, the audience is presented with a large mirror from which they see a reflection, see Fig T15, of a horizontal reversed image, which then plays correctly but also with added depth cues on account of the increased parallax caused by the slight planar micro distortions and aberrations intentionally created within the mirror (see Fig T16), as a result each eye of the members of the audience, both left and right, see a slightly different image on account of these planar micro distortions, and this amplifies the perceived sensation of a three dimensional image.

[0162] As a result the Enhanced Depth image when projected in this way, produces an even greater sensation of autostereo depth for the watching audience in the theatre. [0163] The micro distortions may be referred to as distortions as well as micro distortions, as they might be bigger than micro, small ripples and dappling, than you could see with the eye, and feel with the hand -but not to severe to spoil the image, just to deflect it for both eyes.

[0164] The following numbered sections are also provided:

[0165] The cognitive aspects

[0166] The first person cinema technology involves a cinema display area that is three times the width of standard cinema and screen and large television screens, and therefore three times the area. See Fig N5

[0167] The first person cinema technology involves a standard cinema screen display area, and a special headset that allows the viewer to see the cinema screen, and see two internal display LCD screens which are linked with the cinema screen to form for the viewer and exceptionally wide display which goes from the centre of vision right to edges of peripheral vision (see Figs N6, N10, N29 and N30).

[0168] The first person cinema technology requires a special depth enhanced middle screen, with two standard 2D screens on the left and right, this is to simulate the experience of a stereo vision central section, and strictly 2D peripheral view sections, caused by the overlap of the eyes (see fig N 18)

[0169] The first person cinema technology generates a different understanding of the image, that it is not an image, but that it is your world view, and it does this by creating an effect that replicates to a greater degree the normal experience of full sight.

[0170] The first person cinema vision effect is created by the combination of a three dimensional central section, as created by the conversion system described in W02009/133406 and lateral 2D displays that are seen by the viewers peripheral vision. (See Fig N13). [0171] The first person cinema vision effect, is a new cognitive effect based on the brainreinterpreting the display, because of the mixture of 2D and 3D, that replicates the mixture of stereoscopic central sight and monoscopic peripheral vision, which occurs in normal human vision.

[0172] A display that combines a 3D central section with later 2D sections that extend to theviewer’s peripheral vision.

[0173] A cinematic display that uses a combination of a traditional screen and a special headset worn by members of the audience, to create a virtual image experience, where the image on the cinema screen is central and combines visually and as seamlessly as possible with lateral images on internal LCD screens within the headset (see fig N69) In order to create a cognitive illusion of increased reality.

[0174] A television display that uses a combination of a traditional television screen and aspecial headset worn by the viewers to create a virtual image experience, where the image on the television screen is central and combines visually and as seamlessly as possible with lateral images on internal LCD screens within the headset (see fig N67) In order to create a cognitive illusion of increased reality.

[0175] A dedicated headset display that creates a very wide image, that has a three dimensional central section, and two dimensional lateral sections that extend into the viewer’s peripheral vision region (see N70) in order to create a cognitive illusion of increased reality. [0176] A technology which creates a unique cognitive illusion that varies the resolution across different areas of the screen, leaving the resolution in the central region at 100% and varying the resolution in the peripheral regions, progressively.

[0177] A technology which creates a unique cognitive illusion that creates an enhanced sense of awareness of the film and connection to the film, by a combination of a very wide and curved image which reaches from the viewer’s central zone into the viewer’s peripheral zone optically speaking, and which combines stereoscopic properties in the central region, with monoscopic properties in the peripheral region, to more closely approximate the nature of normal mammalian vision (see fig N13)

[0178] A technology that immerses the viewers in an image that connects images on screens that are in totally different positions, some of the screens supported a few centimetres from the face and eyes in a headset, and other screen, several metres away on a cinema screen or a television screen (see fig N62 and N63)

[0179] A very widescreen display technology that has a higher new frame rate in the central region than in the peripheral regions.

[0180] The concept of an Immersial Margin (see fig N25), as a section of the image that is seen, that the brain slowly ignores, allowing a smaller image within the total image, to ‘grow’ into appearing to become the entire image that the viewer sees. This ‘growth’ is called Cognitive Encroachment. See fig N28.

[0181] The concept of the Cogno-Optical illusion, claimed as the nomenclature to describe the phenomenon of the family of optical illusions behind 1st person cinema and all of its precursors that involve the eyes and the brain working together in a unique way, the CognoOptical illusion was first presented in this family of innovations in W02009/133406. [0182] The image capture aspects

[0183] The principle of the TriCam (TC), has been developed as the optical counterpart to the postproduction digital image conversion from all single camera sources, described in the prior and relatedwork from W02009/133406.

[0184] The TriCam therefore is specifically designed, to allow the real-time capture of sporting events, news events, dramatic events, and of course it is another version of the traditional stereo two camera, and in this description, it allows for the possibility of quasi realtime recording of the hyper wide screen format: the 1st person cinema [0185] The Cogno-Optical illusion can be created in post production for a standard display by the application of the technologies set out in W02009/133406. This cogno-optical illusion is also called EDS (Enhanced Depth Systems) as the name of the video and fdm format. The EDS format.

[0186] The Cogno-Optical illusion can be created in post production for a hyper wide screen -three times the normal width display. Using the EDS format technology for the central screen and a standard widescreen lens for the peripheral screens (See fig N39, N40, N41 and N42.) This is called the 1^st person cinema format.

[0187] The hyper wide screen: up to three times the width of a conventional cinema screen, is the 1st person cinema format, and this format can also be created in a production setting that takes several hours, allowing content filmed to be viewed the next morning, as dailies, this requires the central section to be captured using the Tripe Camera Configuration (TCC) rig. A camera set up with cameras recording on three divergent axes (see figs N44, N45 and N46). [6] The first person cinema format, can also be filmed and captured in a quasi live setting This requires the TriCam camera (TC) rig see fig N47.

[0188] The first person cinema format, can also be filmed and captured in a quasi live setting where the final composited image is created a few seconds to a few minutes, after it was first recorded. This requires the TriCam (TC) camera rig, where the single camera has three lenses and recording grids, all three recording on the same axis relative to the scene being filmed. See fig N49.

[0189] The first person cinema format, can also be filmed and captured in a quasi live setting where the final composited image is created a few seconds to a few minutes, after it was first recorded.

[0190] This requires the TriCam (TC) camera rig and a special compositing set up see fig N48. [9] The TriCam (TC) camera rig, has adjustable recording specifications, parameters, which are individually adjusted for each camera lens and recording grid. See figs N49, N51, N52 and N54. [10] The TriCam incorporates a timing adjustment between each of the three camera lenses and recording grid see fig N51. This allows the images to be caught with 0.01 time interval between the frames. This allows for highly kinetic scenes to be recorded with greater clarity.

[0191] The TriCam incorporates a rotational adjustment image displacement between each of the three camera lenses and recording grid see figs N52, N54 and N55.

[0192] The TriCam incorporates a lateral adjustment between each of the three camera lenses and recording grid see fig N73

[0193] The hyper wide screen display can be created by two optical recording set ups: the central section requires standard lenses, this image is then processed according to the specifications of the technologies set out in W02009/133406, and the lateral images are taken from a widescreen lens set up, which filmed the same image as the central section camera, with the assistance of a beam splitter and a front silvered mirror. See fig N43 [0194] The hyper wide screen display can be created by recording a scene that is three times the standard width, by using three cameras with identical or similar lens set ups. See fig N44 and N74.

[0195] The TriCam (TC) rig entails one electrical grid, and one supporting tripod, and three lens structures and three recording and capture grids, but only one iris-aperture, together with a single lens structure serves as means for the optical input. See fig N49.

[0196] The Tri-Cam is designed to be an engineered construct of image manipulation algorithms, implemented optically across a three camera rig. This results in an optical ‘live- capture’ filming capability, occurs across the three co-aligned cameras, which record simultaneously -that is synch locked and the 1st person format comes with the composited addition of the single hyperwide-frame; and all of this is to be presented in a live, or very close to live, timeframe (quasilive) . It may take a few seconds for the multiple images to be modified, re-composited and sequenced correctly, but this is also rapid enough to allow for a live/real time interaction and feedback, in a professional and creative environment. This is a four lens and two camera set up see fig N47

[0197] The explanation in numbered section [16] can also occur with the five lens and three camera set up with the lateral images being created by two lateral cameras. This would also be in live/quasi-live timeframes.

[0198] The headset design and function

[0199] A headset designed to be worn by the user to augment a cinematic image, on a large cinema screen, with additional display components see figs N23 and N29.

[0200] A headset that has a central aperture/opening to allow an external image on a cinema screen or a television screen, to be viewed directly by the wearer, and is matched and aligned with internal displays see fig N30 to produce an extended width format display see fig N34. [3] A headset that has an internal image displayed over three closely positioned LCD displays, that creates a display that is three times the standard image width, and that goes from central to wrapping partially around the viewer’s heads -see figs N32 and N33.

[0201] A headset which when worn by members of the audience, converts a normal cinema screen into a hyper wide screen display see fig N29. By matching internal screens with the external screen.

[0202] A headset which when worn by viewers, converts a normal television screen

(see fig N65) into a hyper wide screen display (see fig N67). By matching internal screens with the external screen.

[0203] A headset which combines a depth enhanced image format 2D central image, with standard image format, 2D images on left and right peripheral image screen, over a total of three internal LCD display monitors see fig N75. [0204] An image that utilizes two image types, two image formats, over the totality of the image, with a central zone having a more depth enhanced format, and the two peripheral image zones having a standard 2D format image type. See fig N17

[0205] A headset with two peripheral screens whose image light intensity is capable of being variedaccording to the viewer requirements and subjectivity (see fig N76), so that the left peripheral screen is bright enough in the left eye retina to dominate to point of total occlusion any objects seen by the right eye retina that are in the same perceived position. This prevents the image to the left of the large central display off the screen, and right of the central image off the screen, from being seen by the viewer. And allows the headset’s peripheral screens next to the viewer’s face and eyes, and the central screen several metres away in the home and many metres away in the theatre, to create one seamless image with out breaks overlaps or duplications. Obviously the image intensity of the central image and the peripheral image must match, but this will obliterate the image created by the distance parallax, from intruding into this display.

[0206] A headset with two peripheral screens whose image light intensity is capable of being variedaccording to the viewer requirements and subjectivity (see fig N76), so that the right peripheral screen is bright enough in the right eye to displace any objects seen by the left eye in the same position.

[0207] A headset designed to work with a cinematic image on a cinema screen, and peripheral images on peripheral screens located within the headset, in order to create the illusion of added reality by creating different positions for the focusing planes, and creating a wide and peripheral image with deep depth.

[0208] A headset designed to work with a televisual image on a television screen, and peripheral images on peripheral screens located within the headset, in order to create the illusion of added reality by creating different positions for the focusing planes, and creating a deep depth, wide and peripheral image.

[0209] The principle of the TriCam (TC), has been developed as the optical counterpart to the postproduction digital image conversion from all single camera sources, described in the prior and related work from W02009/133406.

[0210] A headset that has two left and right peripheral screens as part of its interior design, that are separated by an aperture to allow the viewer sight of a third screen see figs N23 and N35, and which seeks to create a whole image from the combination of images over the three screens, and located over two different visual planes see fig N68.

[0211] A headset (see numbered section 13 above) that deals with the parallax displacement and misalignment that comes with aligning images that exist in different focal plane, by varying the image intensity (see fig N77) of the peripheral displays, so that the left eye image of the left peripheral screen, as its intensity increases, obliterates the corresponding image in the right eye, and so that the right eye image of the right peripheral screen, as its intensity increases, obliterates the corresponding image in the left eye, and as a result the image appears as one as is totally continuous. There might also be some adjusting of the external image intensity, to ensure smooth blending across the entire image.

[0212] Enhanced Depth Solutions -EDS: A new video format for television and cinema.

[0213] A briefing paper

[0214] Introduction

[0215] EDS is based on new science.

[0216] It has long been one of the tenets of 3D imaging, that in order to generate a three dimensional image, both eyes must receive a different image, from slightly differentto considerably different positions, but always a different image. [0217] This difference is called stereo parallax.

[0218] Even the Pulfrich effect, where both eyes look at the same moving image display, one eye is required to look through a dark layer (NDF layer), so that by the time the imagefor that eye is understood, that is 'neuro-cognitively resolved¹, it is being contrasted with both a later and brighter image from the clear eye whose image is understood immediately, hence the positional difference between the two, and hence the stereo parallax.

[0219] The technology of this description, has both eyes seeing exactly the same 2D image atexactly the same time, and yet still a certain sense of stereo parallax is generated and therefore some three dimensionality, is perceived. How is this possible.

[0220] Well we are all familiar with the experiment in which special glasses and a prism rotate the image 180 degrees for both eyes, so that the floor is seen in the position ofthe ceiling and vice versa. In that experiment, within a few hours of constant wearing, the upended image begins to make more and more sense and then suddenly begins to appears to the wearer, to be the correct way up. It has been neuro cognitively, inverted.

[0221] The principles governing the process by which this inversion occurs, and the centres of the brain responsible for it, are shared by the same regions of the brain responsible for the neuro-cognitive principles, that are behind this EDS pseudo stereo illusion.

[0222] In the inverted image experiment, the higher centres of the brain begin to invert the image, as your 'remembered' understanding, which is the remembered physical feeling of the floor being much closer to where you feel your legs and feet to be, andthe ceiling feeling much closer to where your point of view (eyes) and head are, reasserts itself. This physical feeling is a constant reality check, which constantly contradicts what you see through the prism, until higher centres of the brain flip the image neuro-cognitively, allowing what you see and what you feel as you see it, to compliment and support each other once again.

[0223] The brain reverses the image that the eyes see through the pri sm .

[0224] The EDS illusion is also based in some part on a second principle that I discovered 27years ago, when 1 sent a full colour image to one eye, and a monochrome image to theother eye -see fig 1.

[0225] The experiment involved two monitors, and a beam splitter, each television had apolarizing sheet in front of it which plane polarized its image. The viewer wore polarizing glasses which allowed one image to go to only one eye.

[0226] The result was an image that appeared partially desaturated, in fact exactly

50% desaturated, as though the brain had taken the chromatic intensity presented to oneeye, and shared it between both eyes.

[0227] The really important thing -the key aspect of this observation I noted, was that therewas absolutely no part of the sensation of the image which revealed which eye was receiving the coloured image, and which eye was receiving the monochrome image.

[0228] And what this tells us is that the brain does not attribute left and right understandingsto the two separate signals that it receives from the right optic nerve and the left optic nerve, and that instead the brain assigns 'leftness' and 'rightness' not as an 'eyes upward' optical resolution, but as a 'brain downward' neurological understanding.

[0229] This means that 'leftness' and 'rightness' is neurological and not optical, and not justneurological, but cognitive.

[0230] This told me that it might be possible to give the brain an image through both eyes, animage which was formatted in such a way, that when the brain understood this image, it would have an alternative (and we hoped preferred) analysis and interpretation: namely that this image was created from two images; images that came to it through both eyes separately.

[0231] Why does the brain not assign leftness and rightness to the image from the opticnerves.

[0232] Well part of the reason must be that each retina is effectively, divided neurologicallyinto two vertical halves (see fig 2,) and each half of the brain, receives images from both eyes. The left hemisphere receives the image from the right halves of each retina (see fig 3) and the right hemisphere receives images from the left halves of each retina (see fig 4).

[0233] This of course means that the hemisphere that controls the right side of the body, receives the images that are predominantly to be found on the right side of the body (see fig 5), and vice versa, so the biological and evolutionary logic is clear.

[0234] Each eye sees approximately 70% of what the other eye sees (see fig 6), but from a slightly different perspective. And what this means is that each optic nerve takes images from both eyes. And this is the reason why the brain does not assign 'leftness' or 'rightness' to each optic nerve.

[0235] And returning to the experiment that I performed, this is the science behind our inability to discern which eye is receiving black and white and which eye is receiving full colour, it is because no hemisphere receives the image from one eye alone, both hemispheres receive from both, and the image is understood, and the leftward side is understood as left and the rightward side is understood as right.

[0236] And so the brain builds an image made up from both sets of optical neural data. Andthe central postulation behind this technology, is that what the brain then does, is generate the understanding that the image it has created, in this instance from the two chromatically contrasting/divergent eyes, has come to it equally from both eyes, and that both eyes are in chromatic balance.

[0237] And this is because each brain hemisphere receives 50% of the full colour image and50% of the monochrome image

[0238] And as a result, this observation and the hypothesis generated from it, allowed us to create an optical project in which we inserted 'three dimensional information' into a two dimensional image, so that, when the brain looked at the image, it 'understands' that this enhanced 2D image, has come to it from both eyes, and that the understood parallax image elements, are the combination of different images received separately by both eyes. [0239] This means that an image seen identically by both eyes, can be interpreted as having been created by different images that came from both eyes. This is reversing the logic pathway, whereby an image that came distinctively from each of the two eyes, is perceived as having arrived identically from both eyes.

[0240] This allows a 2D image, seen identically by both eyes from a single unmodified 2D screen or unmodified 2D monitor to be subsequently interpreted as having a thirddimension. See the logic flow (see Fig 7).

[0241] Therefore; based on the neuro-biological facts of depth perception presented above: that the neural signal from each eye is partially received by each hemisphere on account of division at the optic chiasmata; coupled with our model of the optical- neurological analysis of the chromatic divergence experiment -that the brain averages between the two eyes and thereby fails to generate an understanding of any difference between them; we were able to combined these two observations and devise a practical test involving the modification of a 2D moving picture image.

[0242] And in this practical test, an original 2D moving picture source could be made toappear more three dimensional. [0243] This test involved taking:

[0244] [A] a moving 2D image, or

[0245] [B] amoving 3D image,

[0246] and in the first case [A] generating pseudo stereo parallax information, and in the second case [B] taking the true stereo parallax information from the original stereo; and combining this information into a 2D signal of the same content.

[0247] The understandings gained over the last 30 years, then allowed us to integrate the original filmed material with the stereo parallax information, using noise reduction techniques, that are traditionally employed in signal optimization.

[0248] As a result the enhanced 2D signal, had some characteristics in common with an error corrected signal, but an error corrected signal whose generated artefacts fell specifically within the optical parameters given by our models.

[0249] And these artefacts as predicted by our models, allowed the signal, when displayed ona single monitor or display device, to induce a reinterpretation of the image by the higher visual centres of the brain, in line with an increased perception of depth, through the neurological detection in the higher optical centres of the brain, of the appearance of stereo parallax.

[0250] The digital system that we devised to firstly, generate this additional stereo parallaxinformation, and then secondarily, re-integrate it into a 2D image: is laid out below in section II.

[0251] Section II Conversion system

[0252] The heart of the EDS process, shown schematically in figure 8 comprises two separate stages:

[0253] (1) Sophisticated (VLSI) video processing carried out by the Multi Core

Processor (MCP) [0254] (2) Final blending using a generic image compositing suite, implementing

Yingprotocols for image structure.

[0255] The Multi Core Processor is a dedicated hardware architecture, which is a unique and proprietary design owned by Ying-EDS Ltd, built and operated by the parent companyYing Industries Ltd. One element of this system is shown in figure 9.

[0256] The Multi Core Processor (MCP) is essentially an array of large memory blocks andserial groups of fast processors, operating in a cascade sequence to implement specificalgorithms, and is shown schematically in figure 10. The three main processes are: [0257] Image Analysis

[0258] Image Transformation

[0259] field Integration

[0260] These processes run fundamentally autonomously, however settings can be adjusted at any stage. During the Image Analysis phase the complexity of the image is determined and this output data is used to set the appropriate parameters for the field Transformation process running in the second phase. This process produces the strong image and the two perspectives of the weak image. These three components arethen re blended and re-integrated into one image in the third phase to produce the output, termed EDS profex (: profile extrapolation).

[0261] The EDS profex image and a reference image (an output from the MCP produced during processing) are then integrated using a generic Image Compositing Suite to generate the final EDS signal, as indicated in figure 11.

[0262] The Broadcast implications

[0263] EDS does not modify the signal in any fundamental way, what it does is alter the image within the signal. It is the image that the signal is carrying, that has been altered. This means that every image platform and image format that presently exists in usage can carry a modified EDS signal, and every display device can present a modified EDS image.

[0264] EDS does however produce an image that ordinarily has two different fields in eachframe. This means that upon compression the file might be expected to be slightly larger, however our experience to date has been to the contrary -see below.

[0265] Beyond this EDS makes no greater demands upon the existing architecture of broadcasting transmissions.

[0266] Table 1 shows comparative file sizes for different image formats

TABLE 1

[0267] EDS further insight I

[0268] The central hypothesis that is at the heart of the EDS technology is this: it is possibleto display moving 2D film and video images that have been specially produced to contain a monoscopic form of stereo parallax -stereo parallax as defined by imagecontent obtained from at least two filmed images or images streams (moving image streams) captured within the same environment, from similar, yet displaced position.

[0269] And this 2D image is to subsequently displayed , on a single and unmodified display.

[0270] And finally, that these specially produced film and video images, - specifically modified at the pixel level into what we will classify as a generic new format, can then be viewed, without the aid of special viewing glasses, and simultaneously perceived as having an enhanced quality in the display: a display that generates an enhanced sensation of three dimensionality.

[0271] Contained within this premise: that it is possible to display such modified 2D images, is the additional premise, that it is possible to create such modified 2D images. [0272] Modified 2D images that even those with only one eye can perceive a three dimensional image, and indeed all viewers choosing to close one eye, will still perceive a three dimensional image. A 3D image sensation viewed with only oneeye: this technology is the first time that this has been demonstrated. [0273] The technology -stage one.

[0274] Overview: the background science.

[0275] The technology requires at least two different perspectives are embedded into a singleimage coming into the brain via a single retina/optic nerve, such that when assessed inthe higher vision processing regions (Occipital) the brain interprets the image as having come in part from both retinas.

[0276] However this was not the starting point for the technology.

[0277] EDS began with the realisation that we appear to have actually misunderstood - certainly have under-appreciated the nature of cognitive stereo sight -the normal viewing mode for humans and higher mammals. Cognitive stereo sight: images from two offset perspectives that are 'seen¹, only after they are understood.

[0278] We ignore the things we do not understand. 'Nonsense is invisible' is a scientifictruism. At least it should be.

[0279] We began with the realisation which has now become the understanding: that

80-90%of every image that we view at any given time is made up of double images.

[0280] To illustrate, just hold your finger in front of this page as you read it now - halfwaybetween your face and the page -but keep on reading this text.

[0281] Of course you see and realise that your finger is a double digit, but as you read this page, just allow your conscious gaze -what we shall now term the cognitive cursor (cognitive cursor: that part of the image that we are actually paying direct conscious attention to), just allow your cognitive cursor to widen to include the top of the page -but without looking up, and now widen it still to become aware of everything that isbehind the page.

[0282] This mirrors those meditation exercises, when you are invited to broaden yourconsciousness. [0283] You should begin to realise that as you still focus on the page, that in fact it - the page is the only thing in the entire room that is a single image, your finger in front of thepage, the room behind the page, and cups or mugs of tea on your desk just to the left or right of the page, everything - with the sole exception of the page is a double image.

[0284] But the brain does not draw your attention to all of these double images, it

(your brain) just says to you/just informs you we are the real world, in this room, reading this page, with our finger in front of it - in the volume space of reality' It is what we should perhaps call '3D realsight¹, from here on, in order to contrasts it with the 'exaggerated yet theatrical and enjoyable 'unreal 3D' that these days we get in the cinema.

[0285] But '3D realsight' is how we see.

[0286] '3D realsight' the forgotten image.

[0287] If you go to the window and look out of it, you should now find yourself armed with an increased awareness; and using the widening the conscious cursor exercise (above)this increased awareness will allow you to take in the fact that the struts of the window pane, are in fact present in greatly displaced pairs -as is the frame ofyour glasses and as is your visual image of your own nose; indeed there is our nosealways existing as two translucent images -totally ignored, yet ever present.

[0288] And as you observe any dirt or discolouration -or even warping in the glass, you realise now that they are appearing as two widely separated images. Look at the edge of the building tops, and appreciate the widely displaced clouds, and clouds behind them. Often the edge separation is slight and is just a thickened edge, but the point to most assuredly make here, is that it is only the few objects within thenarrow conscious focus, that are seen as a single image.

[0289] It is only within the cognitive cursor, that we get single edge clarity. [0290] Every other object, and by far the greater majority of what we are seeing at any giventime, is a double image.

[0291] Why have we missed this.

[0292] It is because our reference point for the last two hundred years has been the single image camera, and for the last one hundred years, it has been the single image cine camera, this in part is why we have missed this. We have forgotten, how we really see. [0293] Indeed looking further back, it is interesting that none of the Dutch masters, ever painted a picture in which the vase on the table in the centre of the room was a clear single image, but the small footstool closer to the viewer was a double object, and thelush folds of the canvas and curtains behind, was also a double image.

[0294] If they had been, we would almost certainly have interpreted it as a picture with a greater sense of natural depth. And it might even have subtly altered our conscious sensibility.

[0295] And they did not, for the same reason that medieval peoples who did not have everyday mirrors in their lives, did not develop a defined or pronounced sense of self worth or identity: until you see something, and have your attention specifically drawnto it enough times for it to register, it does not become a mental word in your conceptual vocabulary.

[0296] And of course, working against this is the fact that as soon as you look at anything, it falls squarely within the cognitive cursor, and so has the clarity of a single line outline. It takes special practise as we have seen here, to keep your gaze on a particular object, and then allow yourself to slowly become aware of all of the objectsoutside of the cognitive cursor, with the separation between the doubled edges increasing as you travel three dimensionally from the centre of your gaze. [0297] This then is the science behind EDS, which is predicated upon the understanding, thatit should therefore be possible to simulate a three dimensional image - two dimensionally: by allowing the foreground, mid-ground and background to be composed of images that are not entirely single outline images.

[0298] The EDS technology is essentially our ability to create and compose these double edge and single outline images, and how we relate them to each other and integrate them into a single image within a single frame.

[0299] At present many high definition images (2K to 8K), have a very pronounced sense ofdepth. But there is a degree of false depth analysis at work here, that has become inculcated within us, as a consequence of our viewing cinema and especially television, as much as we do. Basically, we have learned to ignore the single most important cue, for analysing images for depth: parallax.

[0300] When we look at hi-definition images and perceive depth, we are only doing so because we are elevating edge definition, and occlusion to the senior depth cue position and we are not only relegating but ignoring parallax; as the parallax cue tellsus that these images are completely flat.

[0301] This is a false analysis, as parallax is the senior depth cue, and when we do analyse the picture correctly, taking note of the absence of parallax, the understanding comes hurtling back 'Flat¹.

[0302] When all of the image -any image, is a single outline, it means everything is in asingle plane. This is the real story of these super sharp images.

[0303] Indeed this is actually one of the reasons why hi-definition is so sharp. In 3D realsight-in reality , whenever you have volume, you have a mix of curves tapering off, you have the all important double edges and you have thickness -it is never going to be arazor shaip image. Sharp has always meant flat, sharp has always conveyed flat. Inthe real world, sharp has always been flat.

[0304] As soon as the human brain is given an alternative image, that presents the complexity (and reality) of double images in a 2D environment, we will begin to become reaccustomed, to recognizing parallax and will begin to register its absence. Parallaxwill re-assert its primacy in depth and 3D analysis. As this happens, super sharp 2D will become more easily understood as a flat image, as the flat image that in fact, it is.

[0305] Additional principles behind the technology

[0306] The point about double images and their contribution to an understanding of the three dimensional nature of any image or environment, is that they convey parallax as seenby both eyes and not as seen by a single eye. Therefore presenting them on any display medium that both eyes see at the same time, is to effectively cancel out the parallax -that is to reduce it to zero, as both eyes now see the same image. This will produce a flat image. [0307] Zero parallax means flat.

[0308] The key then is in how parallax is displayed monoscopically. The key is to not toshow the positional differences, both (or more), or all, at the same time.

[0309] Of course in the example that we gave of an as yet to be commissioned oil painting orindeed photograph, as hypothesized in the science section above, then all positions and imagery is displayed in a stationary, static form, and for although this will give a sense of depth in a still image, in a moving image - double images seen at the same time, are blurring and de-focusing, and very, distracting.

[0310] It is also important not to try to show them (the two images) one after the other, in rapid or immediate (for example field interleaved) succession, as if multiplexed or interleaved. Indeed some web sites, offering a technology that does this, alreadyexist. [0311] However this will produce a distracting flicker, and the brain will still clearly see the two slightly contrasting perspectives, even though a sense of three dimensionality will also be conveyed.

[0312] The main principle in human stereo-optics - in cognition based stereo-vision, is thatthe two perspectives are never in fact seen, they are understood. Each eye sees a single perspective, and this is what we register - we record optically, two single perspectives, creating one perspective, but one that has the quality of depth.

[0313] The two perspectives are not seen consciously, they are seen unconsciously and depth: the consequence of the two perspectives is understood consciously. It is understood as a quality that attaches to the single perspective.

[0314] For this reason the two images cannot be seen consciously, if they are to be effective.

[0315] The way EDS achieves this is to introduce a model of conscious and unconscious vision.

[0316] EDS briefing paper: further insights II.

[0317] In a real sense, we are not only further developing the 'product¹, we are also still researching the science, and extending the observed optical -cognitiveillusion that it is built around, drawing scientific conclusions both from its performance across a range of case specific interactions -which continue to be illuminating.

[0318] Our understanding increases, as with each application, our analysis and predictions, absorb and fit to new data. And here are two additional insights.

[0319] The first of these deals with our observation, that all those people whose occupations require them to look at the image aesthetically and therefore as a whole -either stationary: paintings/photographs/drawings, or dynamic: film and study it from an aesthetic perspective -are amongst those who are the first to perceive the illusion, andsee it enduringly.

[0320] And those people whose occupations require them to look at a film image professionally, objectively, studying for imperfections at the sequential or pixel levels, are amongst those people who are the last to perceive the illusion and perceive it enduringly. [0321] And this is because people who look at film aesthetically, must study the content of the entire frame of the image usually all of the time , and they look for the meaning ofthe images -pictorially, symbolically or narratively.

[0322] This seeking of and appreciation of, meaning, involves the higher centres of the brain. This means that the parallax artefacts that are embedded into the image, are not viewed in isolation, and are not seen as having any meaning on their own, but their meaning to the whole, as interpreted by the higher centres, is their contribution to the understanding of the image: and this amounts to an added sensation of parallax and therefore depth.

[0323] By contrast, people who look at the moving image technically, specifically studying for pixel imperfections and signal artefacts -for example broadcast engineers and technicians, these will analyse the image detail by detail, and in doing this they employ different regions in the brain, that do not look for the meaning of the image asa whole, but instead these other regions look for shape, frequency and other pixel characteristics.

[0324] This results in the parallax elements being interpreted as localised discrepancies, at least at first. Ittakes an additional effort forthis category of what we could describeas 'professional viewers', to consciously widen the focus of their gaze of attention, to deliberately ignore the small pixel details, and instead appreciate the image from one edge to the other. [0325] When the image is appreciated from edge to edge, the processing emphasis passesfrom a linear localised and sequential analysis to a holistic, spatial and semantic analysis, from which corresponds to main centres of neural processing being transferred, from left side of brain to right side of brain.

[0326] Let us consider this in greater bio-neurological detail.

[0327] All of us have a distinctive and personal distribution of cone cells and rod cells in ourretinas. However, always the rod cells are found in greater concentration at the edges, at the periphery of the retina, where they are better placed to be able to detect fast, quick movements.

[0328] There is a clear evolutionary advantage in having at the edge of the retina, such cells that can detect fast motion, but which are poor at detecting both colour and detail, andin correspondingly, not having them at the very centre.

[0329] The rod cells supply what we will refer to as our unconscious matrix -what has been called our unconscious mind, but we prefer to use the term matrix to allow us to here incorporate the bio-neural mechanisms that underpins and supports this state of mind (see fig 12)

[0330] It is the cone cells that give us our 'Technicolor detail' and it is our rod cells that give us our 'darting, fast twitch detection'. It is therefore the slower capture rate, but fullerdetail cone cells, that overwhelmingly give us our positional awareness, central, and also our conscious and directed vision.

[0331] The cone cells supply what we will refer to from here as our conscious matrix

-allowing us to describe the mind as it is supported by the bio-neural histological infrastructure of the brain. Here we can see that our conscious mind is not as responsive and one could therefore say not as alert as our unconscious mind, and thisis because the cells that update it have a longer refractory index, and it must thereforeexperience a greater time interval between each new update, from eve ' retinal cellthat supplies it. The conscious mind is richer in detail but slower in updates than the unconscious mind, because of the cone cell and rod cells respectively, that predominantly supply them.

[0332] As a small biological aside which harbours philosophical and sociological undertones, animals have much 'smaller minds' because their rod cells and their fast reflex responses, are so hard wired into their higher cognitive functions, they do not think and reflect, they react and respond, almost always at speed, and it is the gap between stimulus and response, that is the size of the mind, this distance -this time period, is 'the period of consideration' and it multiples within itself, as the higher intellect, thinks upon its own thoughts and can go into a contemplative loop, with each cycle and iteration holding the possibility of a small harvest and improvement, and sometimes the intellect has to be prompted for a final spoken or acted response. This space and time can be measured in milliseconds, but neurologically, cognitively and intellectually it is vast. It is the distance between us and all the higher mammals. It iswhy we can conquer our fears, with a thought. And that though -the fear conqueror, began life as a simple 'what if I just wait a second'. And once we found we could survive that pause: we took off.

[0333] Ok, aside over.. As mentioned, we use the terms conscious matrix and unconscious matrix, to include the neural histological infrastructure that supports them: the retinal cells, optic nerve pathways and the higher brain regions. And this is important because all of this eye-brain tissue is intelligent and has specific neurological properties which support the observed properties, response times foremost amongstthem.

[0334] Therefore with this modelling, we see that the output from the rod cells, feeds to a much greater degree our unconscious matrix, and as a result it is often the case that when something moves quickly at the periphery of our vision, we become consciously aware of it, but sometimes only after it has already gone from our view. And we have all experienced the reflex reaction, to some object (or insect) that we have detected 'out of the comer of our eye' and suddenly we are reacting physically to it, before wehave thought about it, before we are fully conscious of it.

[0335] So rod cells predominantly supply our unconscious neural-cognitive matrix.

[0336] Well, this is not entirely the case with video experts and film technicians.

Such individuals, have through the needs and imperatives of their work, developed over time a much fuller neural pathway between their rod cells, especially the rod cells inlower concentrations that are to be found in the near-central region of the retina, andthe cells of the cortex, and as a result these rod cells now also support the 'consciousvisual matrix' in these particular individuals.

[0337] Such individuals -experienced in their discipline, almost certainly have increased theneural flow from their rod cells, which is why they are far more likely, to see and register the difference between a 50Hz image and a 55Hz image -if such were ever created (55fps frames per second over 50 fps frames per second) than those of us, among the general population.

[0338] This ought to be accepted scientifically. It is not a radical assertion.

[0339] And the relevance of this to EDS is straightforward. To such viewers, EDS willinitially be capable of being misinterpreted as a motion artefact.

[0340] Generating the aforementioned misinterpretation is at the heart of the EDS optic-cognitive illusion. Fortunately there is a route to the preferred interpretation.

[0341] Fortunately the brains within this professional-expert group, should also be able to detect the 'implication of parallax' in the EDS image even as they see the aberrations and motion artefacts. And if with repeated viewing, the expert video-technical viewer'tries to relax' as they watch the image, and if a conscious effort of relaxation is made, then the brain can over a few successive exposures to the EDS image, begin to 'let go'of their initial 'exact interpretation' of the EDS image, and the brain can as it always does particularly when dissatisfied, experiment -at intervals, and 'try on another interpretation for size'.

[0342] As soon as these expert viewers apply, through this process of cognitive experimentation, what we might consider for them to be 'the most useful misinterpretation' of the EDS image -which is what we have found to be the mostcommon interpretation then they will begin to see the extra depth in the image.

[0343] This is our main postulation: cognitive migration, towards a universal interpretation.

[0344] And because there is an emotional pleasure in the qualitative impression that

EDS generates, and equally importantly as the viewer begins to determine that they can detect no detrimental consequence or side effect associated with this interpretation, and particularly none that undermines the other quantitative or noted aspects of the image, then the brain begins increasingly to prefer the EDS optical illusion, over theirprevious 'correct interpretation'.

[0345] We have seen that this does occur over a relatively short space of time.

[0346] And why would it not happen, after all this is exactly what has happened in reverse, totelevision, we have almost universally lost the correct interpretation of the zero parallax that is present in all 2D images -and now do almost universally, understanddepth in the flat image.

[0347] EDS puts back a little of the parallax, that we have grown accustomed to doing completely without -and should generate a slightly more satisfying image because of this.

[0348] In summation, let us enlist an analogous observation.

[0349] It used to be that editors would edit film by hand on devices called moviolas, little table like contraptions that you could hand crank the actual film through a light boxand lens and actually see the film and actually make your cuts right there. Anyone straying for the very first time, into an editing room with a movieola or novellas plural, at first hears this strange high pitch garbled by speed sound, but then after a few days, you can hear perfectly that it is human speech and that you can also understand every word that is being said.

[0350] In this way the sound editor when he goes home, can always hear any glitch and erroron the latest vinyl recording or in the performance of the record turntable -that all theother members of the family were perfectly happy with: all on account of his work which had enhanced his (/her ) aural cognitive faculties.

[0351] The second EDS -iconic test.

[0352] The first iconic EDS test is the pencil test, we have used the pencil held just in front of your face, at half arm's length, to demonstrate and illustrate the 'forgotten' preponderance of the double image (both in front of and behind the plane of interoccular alignment), clearly and distributed liberally -indeed near universally andcertainly constantly throughout our visual world.

[0353] We established this currently 'hidden' feature of 3D 'realsighf .

[0354] The second iconic EDS test may well be what shall refer to as the shaken hand test.

[0355] When one looks at EDS images, one becomes aware that one is starting to see depth, but also one is aware that one is seeing the double images, particularly when objects are moving at pace across the screen.

[0356] It has been mentioned even as the impression of depth is being received and considered profound, that double images are also being observed.

[0357] And it can sometimes seem as if seeing the double images are out of place, but are theprice you have to pay in order to receive, appreciate the EDS cognitive illusion. [0358] This increased preponderance of double images does indeed seem out of place, untilyou conduct the second EDS test.

[0359] If you just now, lift your hand in front of your face, and then proceed to shake it asyou might a can of furniture polish, just prior to spraying it , allow your hand to articulate freely from the wrist -now observe your own hand just a short distance from your own face, and suddenly it will become very clear to you that you are looking at multiple images of your hand, and with translucent blurs between them (see fig 13).

[0360] None of this reality is ever captured by modem cameras. This technology begins to redress this.

[0361] Multiple images, and not just two.

[0362] All objects moving at high speed will produce one picture at a time for all cameras of course object velocity and shutter speed, have their part to play, but let us considerthe general case. All thusly-motioned objects will produce one image after another, for all cameras: digital or analogue. Each frame will have one image, and so one only sees one image -of the object, as it moves across the screen; of course the image willbe blurred as speed increases and shutter speed is fixed, but it remains one image.

[0363] However, all objects moving at high speed produce multiple images, for all human eyes.

[0364] And the reason for this under appreciated difference is that the vast majority of all themachines that human beings have built, and this clearly includes all cameras - analogue and digital: are synchronous. And they operate in a synchronous mode, and indeed derive the greater part of their effectiveness from this synchronicity.

[0365] But by contrast, the human eye is asynchronous. The cells in the retina all captureimages in an asynchronous and discontinuous mode. [0366] We have become accustomed to single outline images -especially of things in motion. It gives a clarity that you do not find in the same fast moving environment or context, in the real world. It is not the way our eyes and higher visual faculties work, we are not synchronous.

[0367] Once again as we have already pointed out in the ignoring of zero-parallax, the cine and video-photo image (: cinema, television and camera) has over written our own experience and reconditioned us, because of its ubiquity from childhood to terminus, from cradle to grave. And this sets up an expectation to see all fast moving objects inthis way. [0368] When we look at a digital image, or indeed a celluloid film sequence of a fast moving image, then depending upon the shutter speed, you will have a series of single images, either sharp or increasingly blurred, but always a single image on successive frames, celluloid or video.

[0369] As a result when these images are viewed at normal playback speed, we are aware of a single image moving at speed. But this is not how things appear in the real world. The single image just referred to, is a direct consequence of the synchronous nature ofthe motion capture in all the film-recording devices that we have built.

[0370] But when the human eye looks at the same object, it generates a 'smeared trail' but with the image also identified clearly, but as mentioned also with a sense of the pastof the image in the connection between the smeared image and the clear understanding. This is a consequence of the asynchronous nature of the retina, and itproduces an image type, that we never see on cinema screens or television screens, we never see these 'smeared images that we see in the real world, indeed any mage attempting to recreate them, would by current definitions, be considered full of artefacts. [0371] This is currently a scientific and technological idiosyncrasy -the biological reality isconsidered less perfect than our creation.

[0372] The cells in the retina are firing at random, as soon as a photon excites them, and this is not predictable, of course. As soon as a photon strikes a retinal cell, that cell, then begins to build up a discharge response to this stimuli. As a result we each of us createan image with a biological time base -the reflex period determines how quickly each cell can take an image (that is respond to the stimuli of arriving photons) -the reflex period determines what the frequency of capture is -this varies according to blood chemistry. [0373] EDS does not reproduce this real world image, but it takes us closer. And after a fewviewings, the EDS double images in places and at times, in addition to the parallax, takes it doubly closer to reality, and after a few viewings, our brain's beginto realize this. [0374] In truth few of us these days, find ourselves in the physical midst of hi-speed kineticenvironments; mainly because they are nearly always dangerous, and certainly are more stressful. As a result we have forgotten what high speed images actually look like when close up.

[0375] The only time that most of us are now in such an environment, is when we are watching an action-film, or when we are on sports field in a high contact sport likerugby or football; or when people are on an actual battlefield.

[0376] And now we are accustomed to the unnatural, synchronous motion capture of the cinecamera, which has always been able to capture fast moving objects with a clarity that is unreal yet also appealing: it generates single outlines of objects that are in relatively high motion.

[0377] We do not -and the ubiquity of the camera, has pushed our collective reference framesand recollection of our true vision in such relatively rare situations, beyond our comparative recall. This is now predominantly the case in the modem world. [0378] In short: we have forgotten how we actually see.

[0379] So a further reason that double images and multiple images, seem out of place is thatthere is a clarity and simplicity in the artificial image, that makes it compelling. [0380] Cinema and television images are all recorded synchronously. And this produces a'constant comprehension' of one image at a time -it gives sharpness and clarity. [0381] And also, though our eyes are asynchronous, and therefore inherently productive of multiple images during the 'refractive span of conscious comprehension’, we rarelyas mentioned, find ourselves in those situations in real life -in our modern world, where objects move at such speed relative to us -such speeds as will generate these doubles and not just double images, but multiples.

[0382] The asynchronous nature of our own vision, our own 'image capture' has been andremains hidden from us.

[0383] Indeed so much so, that those individuals who have at one time found themselves caught up in such high surrounding object speed, real-life dramas (which are inherently dangerous), report back to us of the blur and kaleidoscope of objects, and this coupled with heightened stress levels, makes it atraumatic experience. This is amajor part of the trauma and stress that soldiers who have been in intense battles become subsequently afflicted with -shell shock, as it was once called, and now PTSD.

[0384] Clear sharp images, are never part of the description given by such individuals.

[0385] EDS therefore can be described as operating on two levels: it acts as an optical illusion to generate the impression of parallax, and it also takes the images a little closer to the asynchronous image that the higher mammalian eye, is understood to generate . [0386] The EDS effect can perhaps be best described and illustrated with recourse to a finalanalogy: when the first wave of cd's came and produced digital sound for all, for almost all of us the convenience factor was irresistible, favourite tracks on albumscould be located and repeated without damaging the LP or waiting for a tape to rewind -but many of us also noticed that some intangible quality: best described as the warmth, had left the sound.

[0387] Sound engineers and many senior musicians, noticed it and noted it most markedly The quality of cd's have greatly improved but in the first few years of analogue to digital sampling at first and still to some degree today, it was found that a combination of a digital recording, but played back through a valve amplifier, allowed people to feel a certain quality of living sound -a warmth, essentially an unpredictability, had returned to the aural image once again. Something was restored. Valve amplifiers introduce a quality of sub-harmonics into the image -and these rarely survive an all digital capture or reproduction. In reality harmonics and sub harmonics are an important part of our 'sound world'. Valves introduce quantum states unpredictability into any signal they process. We can just pick up this slightly increased absence of synchronicity and therefore predictability; and we interpret this as 'warmth'.

[0388] EDS introduces a second frequency besides the standard field/frame rate, and as are suit the image has a kinetic sub-harmonic: it has more life in it -it is the equivalent of visual harmonics.

[0389] EDS is a little like running an excellent CD digital recording through a valve amplifier, in order to make the sound seem more alive.

[0390] And a last practical example can be found in the filmed presentation of the flapping motion of a bird's wing. EDS sets out to represent the bird's wing in more than one position, often two, and sometimes more. At first this seems wrong, especially when compared with the image that standard cine and video cameras very nearly alwayscapture, where the wings are always in one position at a time, and on playback arealways seen with the clarity of a single image.

[0391] As a result the EDS image can at first seem wrong until you visit an aviary or have the opportunity to observe large birds in the wild.

[0392] In reality, when a bird flaps its wing, and we see it, we see a multiplicity of wings. More even than two, usually we see two positions for the wings in flight and three and sometimes four positions during take off or landing (see figs 14) EDS, not only generates a slightly increased sensation of depth, but in doing so it creates an image that is closer to the reality of biological sight.

[0393] EDS seems more alive; the images appear to have more life in them: visual harmonics.

[0394] Further insight III The side by side conundrum

[0395] Q . "Is there a reason why EDS is not as well illustrated as might be expected, whenside by side comparisons are employed."

[0396] A. "Yes there is a very good reason, and it is rooted in the science behind this technology.

[0397] In this technology we are generating a cognitive illusion and not an optical one -andtherefore the position as compared to optical illusions, is much more complicated. [0398] This technology will always have a much harder time with the side by side comparison, for the same reason that when you are a little (or even a lot) tipsy-namely under the influence of alcohol, you really must not drive or operatemaehinery

[0399] And this is because in the case of alcohol the brain is slowed down not only in your reflexes and distance judging, it is also crucially slowed down in its self monitoring, so although your reflexes are slowed, you cannot sense this enough to compensate correctly the way you can when you are lifting with a weak arm -you can try harder tomake the muscle work harder to lift what you need.

[0400] With EDS it is not alcohol that is slowing the brain, it is the fact that EDS requires thehigher centres of the brain to do a lot of work, in order for you to interpret correctlythe information that we have added, certainly correctly from our standpoint, and interpret this extra data as depth.

[0401 ] This is why ED S works, it works because the brain interprets 2D information as 3D, itmust interpret what comes to it identically through both eyes together, as two differentimages, each one coming to it through both eyes separately, and this is a lot of work. In a sense we are clearly using the brain to deceive itself.

[0402] And when you compare any visual or auditory signal/image, the brain shuts down almost all other cognitive activities, you usually stop talking, often stopping chewing ^specially if they are as complex and similar as the comparisons you wouldhave to make with unprocessed and EDS processed film footage, it is a very complex task, neurologically and brain scans have proved this.

[0403] So even on a good day, the brain does not want to do any other task. When comparingvisual images.

[0404] But we are giving it a big second task, and then two things happen (stress: two things, happen) -the EDS effect is reduced, as the brain is sharing the EDS detection and appreciation duties with the comparison duty, and at the same time your ability to appreciate a difference is also reduced, as your comparison faculties are sharing thebrain's higher cortex ( the brain's mainframe) with the EDS duties. We are hit twice over. Double jeopardy.

[0405] This is the science of it [0406] Magicians who also need and use the brain to fool the brain, never like a distracted audience, or then you are not so under the spell read trickery (read cognitively guidedmiss-interpretation of planted cues) and the magic does not work. You can see the joins.

[0407] This is why the technology does not fare well when you look at the EDS version andthe original at the same time. Your brain's ability to compare is impaired, and the brain's ability to generate the EDS sensation is reduced.

[0408] However, there is one very important comparison where the technology does score highly, and this is memory. And by far and in the main it is memory and not simultaneous comparisons that the public uses and is confronted with, when appreciating the difference between one thing and another. The public is rarely presented with a choice -they seldom setup a simultaneous control and measure them(re Stork versus butter (classic television commercial about the taste between butterand margarine)), instead they are just given the new, and allowed to compare the new experience with their recollections of the past feeling of the former product and/or version, and thereby feel the difference.

[0409] The measure is made against their stored memory of what the original felt like .

Andthis is a very good test for the EDS technology, as we all have very deep visual and cognitive memories of what current 2D feels like, and the EDS effect and sensation instantly feels different against this remembered sensation.

[0410] This allows people to feel the difference, even as they are watching it

[0411] To sum this up: when you use 3D glasses to look at a conventional 3D image, the glasses allow the two eyes to look at the same 2D display, and see two slightly different 2D images. These two 2D images then travel along the optic nerve to thebrain and they are interpreted as a 3D picture. [0412] The brain is doing nothing that it does not usually do, the illusion of 3D is all being created by the eyes and the display device, with the brain operating in its standard mode.

[0413] But when you look at an EDS image, the brain receives only one image, and it receives the same one image from both eyes. This should produce a totally flat 2D image. But when the higher brain sees this image, the additional data that has beenadded to the image, makes the brain do additional work, and the consequence of this, is that the brain reinterprets the information. This is all additional work by the brain.

[0414] This is why it performs differently in the side by side tests, the EDS brain is busy."

[0415] Final comment: we have all missed the implications of the current scientific understandings of the neurological design of the eye brain axis, for sight andcomprehension. This technology is designed around these understandings.

[0416] The clarity of the still photograph, when the camera first appeared in the 18^th century, has been steadily eroded, as film became more and more lifelike, indeed the motionartefact that those very early photographers struggled with -namely a little blur in the frame when the subject moved, which they tried to minimise with hidden supports forthe neck, head and back, placed behind the subject on those early long exposures, are now deliberately sought optically in front of the camera, and often enhanced digitally in post production, to heighten the realism and excitement of real life stories told on film, with the sensation of motion, very much a standard feature . What was once anartefact to be avoided, is not an entire department in film making.

[0417] By the same measure, the three-dimensional artefacts that EDS puts into the

2D image, might at first be considered unwelcome as they are additional, but the consequence is a film format that as the bird in flight example makes so clear, takesthe moving image, one step closer to the real world, as we see it and experience it.

[0418] And that is a j oumey which will not end with this new technology.

[0419] It is called progress.

[0420] Tri-am

[0421] The prior descriptions in this specific category of a depth enhanced image format that can be conveyed entirely within the modified signal and displayed entirely on conventional and unmodified displays and screen, introduced the modification of using three aligned and synchronized cameras to film and record a scene, See Fig T1.

[0422] Those three image streams, as recorded by each camera, where then integrated into one stream through the use of complex modifications and combinations of their synchronized image data, see Fig T2

[0423] One of the main principles in these prior descriptions was of the central camera being the main image -the strong image (see Fig T3) which dominated to some varying degree the final image, with the images from the two peripheral cameras being blended into the image in as a subliminal sub layer, also to some reciprocal varying degree.

[0424] The main principle in this description is that instead of three specifically aligned cameras, we replace the cameras and the scenes that they are filming, with hand drawn images from three different perspectives, by hand animators deliberately seeking to replicate the aligned input generated by the original Tri-cam design. See figs T4 to T9.

[0425] Of course the animators can be computer graphics animators as well as hand drawing animators.

[0426] The principle here is that the degree of the angle of rotation and the degree of lateral offset and displacement either combined or separately as implied by the hand drawn image or rendered perspective of the image created in computer memory, is as an alternative to the optical image, fdmed by the camera.

[0427] The angle of rotation and the degree of displacement can be combined variables or used as the sole parameter.

[0428] This approach also allows the animators to create the backgrounds and the foregrounds with different three way perspective relationships; so that the final composited image has a greater perceived sense of depth and discreteness between the optical elements within it -in this case within each frame.

[0429] It will allow animators to generate and experiment with a more depth meaningful image, using these principles.

[0430] EDR

[0431] Enhanced Dynamic Resolution

[0432] The technology description of the signal involves new picture information being created by analysis of the original content, and the creation of in between images: inbetween the original frames of the moving events being recorded

[0433] If we consider an original sequence being recorded: a falling ball, see Fig T10; then this further description is of the process of turning the original frame rate of the recording camera, into a higher frame rate and smoother flow that the original recorded sequence.

[0434] If the recording camera, was capable of being switched into a mode where it captured images at twice the previous rate, then see Fig 11, it would record a sequence with twice as many frames, with the ball being photographed in positions between the original frames. This description involves a process whereby film that has already been recorded and stored, is processed in such a way as to simulate it having being filmed at twice the original rate. [0435] In Fig T12 the intention is to convey the separate processes required to generate this higher frame rate sequence. First the original positions of objects must be digitally registered, discrete objects must be detected and ‘understood’, their positions in adjacent frames must be understood so that the degree of displacement within the frame from one frame to the next, can be calculated and a mid-position between frames, in a totally new frame image to be created, can be derived.

[0436] As a result the recorded objects appears more dynamic and appears to flow a little more smoothly, and of course the fdm now is twice the size in memory or in celluloid, but is not twice the fdm length or duration. The fdm has twice the frame number see Fig T13. [0437] The fdm now duplicates a fdm that was recorded at twice the frame rate. See

Fig T14.

[0438] The computer digital hardware required to achieve this is a subset of the systems required to generate the additional left and right eye perspective additions, in the original descriptions of the Enhanced Depth systems.

[0439] EDS: Reflectorama.

[0440] This description is of a simple but effective addition to the 1st person cinema project of presenting the Enhanced Depth image format, in a theatrical and cinematic environment and display.

[0441] Instead of looking directly at a screen that a large image has been projected onto, the audience is presented with a large mirror from which they see a reflection, see Fig T15, of a horizontal reversed image, which then plays correctly but also with added depth cues on account of the increased parallax caused by the slight planar micro distortions and aberrations intentionally created within the mirror (see Fig T16), as a result each eye of the members of the audience, both left and right, see a slightly different image on account of these planar micro distortions, and this amplifies the perceived sensation of a three dimensional image. [0442] As a result the Enhanced Depth image when projected in this way, produces an even greater sensation of autostereo depth for the watching audience in the theatre.

Claims

WHAT IS CLAIMED IS:

1. An image processing system comprising: a receiver configured to receive video data indicative of one or more video streams, the one or more video streams together depicting a contiguous area of a scene and captured by one or more video cameras, the scene comprising a plurality of objects; one or more processors in data communication with the receiver; and a memory comprising instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to: process the received video data to form output video data indicative of an output video stream, the output video stream having a first region and a second region adjacent the first region, the first region depicting a first zone in the contiguous area of the scene and the second region depicting a second zone in the contiguous area of the scene, the first zone adjacent the second zone, wherein each of the first region and the second region extend from a first edge of the output video stream to a second edge of the output video stream, the second edge opposite the first edge, wherein the first region of the output video stream corresponds substantially to a central zone of the contiguous area of the scene, and wherein processing the received video data into the output video data comprises applying a visual effect to the received video data such that substantially all objects depicted in the second region are less discernible in the output video stream than at least one object in the first region.

2. An image processing system according to claim 1, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to apply the visual effect to the received video data corresponding to the second region in the output video stream, and wherein the visual effect is applied at a first level adjacent to the first region and at a second level, different from the first level, away from the first region, wherein the visual effect applied at the first level causes an object to appear more discernible than the visual effect applied at the second level.

3. An image processing system according to claim 1 or claim 2, wherein the visual effect is such that all objects depicted in the second region appear to have one or more of a softer focus, a reduced illumination, a reduced chromatic saturation, a reduced resolution, or the like, compared to the at least one object in the first region.

4. An image processing system according to claim 3, when dependent on claim 2, wherein the visual effect is one or more of a soft focus, a reduced illumination, a reduced chromatic saturation, a reduced resolution, or the like.

5. An image processing system according to any preceding claim, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to process the received video data such that the first region of the output video stream comprises one or more 3D visual cues not present in the received video data.

6. An image processing system according to any preceding claim, wherein the first region depicts less than 50% of the contiguous area.

7. An image processing system according to any preceding claim, wherein the first region depicts more than 30% of the contiguous area.

8 An image processing system according to any preceding claim, wherein the first region is substantially rectangular.

9. An image processing system according to any preceding claim, further comprising a wireless transmitter in data communication with the one or more processors and configured to wirelessly transmit the output video data.

10. An image processing system according to any preceding claim, wherein the first zone of the contiguous area depicted by the first region is within the second zone of the contiguous area depicted by the second region.

11. A display apparatus for displaying video, the display apparatus comprising: a controller configured to receive video data indicative of a video stream depicting a contiguous area of a scene captured by one or more video cameras, the scene comprising a plurality of objects, the video stream having a first region and a second region adjacent the first region, the first region depicting a first zone in the contiguous area of the scene and the second region depicting a second zone in the contiguous area of the scene, the first zone adjacent the second zone, wherein each of the first region and the second region extend from a first edge of the video stream to a second edge of the video stream, the second edge opposite the first edge, wherein the first region of the video stream corresponds substantially to a central zone of the contiguous area of the scene, and wherein substantially all objects in the second region are less discernible in the video stream than at least one object in the first region; and one or more displays in data communication with the controller and together having a central portion and a peripheral portion, wherein the controller is configured to process the received video data to display the video stream on the one or more displays such that the first region is displayed on the central portion and the second region is displayed on the peripheral portion.

12. A display apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the one or more displays comprise one or more of any of a projector, a liquid crystal display and a television, or the like.

13. A display apparatus according to claim 11 or claim 12, comprising a headset supporting at least one of the one or more displays for viewing by a user wearing the headset, wherein the controller is configured to display the second region on the at least one of the one or more displays housed in the headset, optionally wherein the headset comprises the controller.

14. A display apparatus according to claim 13, wherein at least one display supported by the headset is arranged to be in a peripheral region of a field of view of the user when the headset is worn by the user.

15. A display apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the at least one display is arranged to be viewed by the user when the headset is worn by the user in both a left peripheral region of the field of view and a right peripheral region of the field of view of the user.

16. A display apparatus according to claim 15, wherein at least one further display of the one or more displays is arranged to be viewed by the user when the headset is worn by the user in a central region of the field of view, between the left peripheral region and the right peripheral region.

17. A display apparatus according to any of claims 11 to 16, wherein the one or more displays comprises three displays.

18. A display apparatus according to claim 17 when dependent on claim 16, wherein the at least one of the one or more displays comprises a first display and a second display of the three displays and are supported by the headset, wherein the first display is spaced from the second display, the headset defining an opening therebetween for visibility therethrough by the user when the headset is being worn by the user, wherein the second region is displayed on the first display and the second display together, and wherein the at least one further display comprises a third display of the three displays provided separate from the headset and arranged to be viewed by the user through the opening defined in the headset.

19. A display apparatus according to claim 18, wherein a width or a height of the opening in the headset is adjustable.

20 A display apparatus according to claim 18 or claim 19, wherein the third display comprises opposed left and right edges defining left and right surround regions adjacent to the left and right edges respectively and outward of the third display, wherein the headset is arranged such that, when the headset is worn by the user facing the third display, the first display is viewable to a left eye of the user, the second display is viewable to a right eye of the user, the second display occludes a view of the right surround portion from the right eye, and the first display occludes a view of the left surround portion from the left eye, wherein the controller is configurable to output the second region on the first and second displays such that the displayed second region reaches the left and right eyes at a first luminance, and wherein the first luminance is sufficient to cognitively exclude the left surround region and the right surround region from view of the user.

21. A display apparatus according to claim 20, wherein the controller is configured to output the first region on the third display such that the displayed first region reaches the left and right eyes at the first luminance.

22. A headset of the display apparatus as described in any preceding claim dependent on claim 13.

23. A camera apparatus for capturing an image of a scene, the camera apparatus comprising: a first camera defining a first endpoint of a first optical pathway from the scene; a second camera defining a second endpoint of a second optical pathway from the scene; and a first beam splitter, associated with the second camera, and configured to cause a divergence of the first optical pathway and the second optical pathway from the scene for projecting the image of the scene towards each of the first camera and the second camera, wherein the first camera is configured to capture a first region of the image, wherein the second camera is configured to capture a second region of the image, overlapping at least partially with the first region, and wherein the first region is substantially central in the mage.

24. A camera apparatus according to claim 23, further comprising a controller arranged to control the first camera and the second camera to capture the first region and the second region respectively, and to output image data indicative of the image in dependence thereon.

25. A camera apparatus according to claim 24, wherein the controller is configured to output the first region of the image in a first format, and to output the second region of the image in a second format different to the first format.

26. A camera apparatus according to any of claims 23 to 25, wherein the first region is between a first portion of the second region and a second portion of the second region.

27. A camera apparatus according to claim 26, wherein either the second camera is a wideangle camera, or wherein a portion of the second optical pathway between the first beam splitter and the second camera comprises a wide-angle lens, and optionally wherein the second camera has a horizontal angle of view of the scene of greater than 60 degrees.

28. A camera apparatus according to claim 26 or claim 27, wherein the first camera is configured to capture video of the first region at a first frame rate, and wherein the second camera is configured to capture video of the second region at a second frame rate different to the first frame rate, optionally wherein the second frame rate is lower than the first frame rate.

29. A camera apparatus according to any of claims 26 to 28, wherein the first camera is arranged substantially perpendicular to the second camera, and wherein the divergence between the first optical pathway and the second optical pathway is substantially 90 degrees.

30. A camera apparatus according to any of claims 23 to 25, further comprising: a further camera, defining a further endpoint of a further optical pathway from the scene, and configured to capture a further region of the image, overlapping at least partially with the first region; a further beam splitter, associated with the further camera, and configured to cause a divergence of the further optical pathway and the first optical pathway from the scene for projecting the image of the scene towards each of the further camera and the first camera, wherein the further region of the image is further configured to overlap at least partially with the second region.

31. A camera apparatus according to claim 30, wherein the first region, the second region and the further region of the image are each substantially identical.

32. A camera apparatus according to claim 30 or claim 31, when dependent directly or indirectly on claim 23, wherein the first camera, the second camera and the further camera are video cameras, wherein the controller is configured to control the first camera, the second camera and the further camera to capture video of the image at a first frame rate, and wherein the controller is configured to control the first camera, the second camera and the further camera to capture the video starting at different time points, being spaced by less than a time spacing between adjacent frames captured at the first frame rate.

33. A camera apparatus according to claim 32, wherein a spacing between the time point associated with the first camera and the time point associated with the second camera, and a spacing between the time point associated with the first camera and the time point associated with the further camera is 0.01 seconds or similar.

34. A camera apparatus according to any of claims 30 to 33, further comprising: a first reflector provided in the second optical pathway between the second camera and the first beam splitter for reflecting light from the scene towards the second camera; and a second reflector provided in the further optical pathway between the further camera and the further beam splitter for reflecting light from the scene towards the further camera.

35. A camera apparatus according to claim 34, wherein each of the first camera, the second camera and third camera are arranged in parallel.

36. A camera apparatus according to any of claims 30 to 35, wherein each of the first beam splitter and the further beam splitter are each arranged for rotation from a first position to a second position, such that, when the first beam splitter is in the second position, the second camera is configured to capture a third region of the image, at least partially overlapping with the first region, and, when the further beam splitter is in the second position, the further camera is configured to capture a fourth region of the image, at least partially overlapping with the first region.

37. A camera apparatus according to any of claims 23 to 36, wherein the first beam splitter is a prism or the like, and/or wherein the first reflector and the second reflector are provided by a silver-sided mirror or the like.

38. A camera apparatus for capturing an image of a scene, the camera apparatus comprising: a first camera arranged to receive a central region of the image of the scene; a second camera arranged to receive a first peripheral region of the image of the scene, the first peripheral region being at least partly adjacent and extending outwardly from a first lateral boundary of the central region; a third camera arranged to receive a second peripheral region of the image of the scene, the second peripheral region being at least partly adjacent and extending outwardly from a second lateral boundary of the central region, opposite the first lateral boundary; a support frame having mounted thereto each of the first camera, the second camera and the third camera.

39. A camera apparatus according to claim 38, comprising: a controller in data communication with the first camera, the second camera and the third camera and configured to generate image data indicative of the central region, the first peripheral region and the second peripheral region of the image in dependence on an output of each of the first camera, the second camera and the third camera, and to output the image data in dependence thereon.

40. A camera apparatus according to claim 38 or claim 39, wherein the first lateral boundary and the second lateral boundary of the central region of the image are each configured to be substantially vertical.

41. A camera apparatus according to any of claims 38 to 40, wherein less than half of the central region of the image overlaps with any of the first peripheral region or the second peripheral region.

42. A data signal for encoding a video stream depicting a contiguous area of a scene, the scene comprising a plurality of objects, the data signal comprising at least one data channel carrying data indicative of a first region of a video stream and separately carrying data indicative of a second region of the video stream, the second region adjacent the first region, optionally wherein each of the first region and the second region extend from a first edge of the video stream to a second edge of the output video stream, the second edge opposite the first edge, optionally wherein the first region of the video stream corresponds substantially to a central zone of the contiguous area of the scene, and optionally wherein the video data is processed such that substantially all objects in the second region are less discernible in the video stream than at least one object in the first region.