Recently an impressive development in immersive technologies, such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and 360 video, has been witnessed. However, methods for quality assessment have not been keeping up. This paper studies quality assessment of 360 video from the cross-lab tests (involving ten laboratories and more than 300 participants) carried out by the Immersive Media Group (IMG) of the Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG). These tests were addressed to assess and validate subjective evaluation methodologies for 360 video. Audiovisual quality, simulator sickness symptoms, and exploration behavior were evaluated with short (from 10 seconds to 30 seconds) 360 sequences. The following factors' influences were also analyzed: assessment methodology, sequence duration, Head-Mounted Display (HMD) device, uniform and non-uniform coding degradations, and simulator sickness assessment methods. The obtained results have demonstrated the validity of Absolute Category Rating (ACR) and Degradation Category Rating (DCR) for subjective tests with 360 videos, the possibility of using 10-second videos (with or without audio) when addressing quality evaluation of coding artifacts, as well as any commercial HMD (satisfying minimum requirements). Also, more efficient methods than the long Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ) have been proposed to evaluate related symptoms with 360 videos. These results have been instrumental for the development of the ITU-T Recommendation P.919. Finally, the annotated dataset from the tests is made publicly available for the research community.

This paper proposes a methodology to assess video quality, spatial and social presence, empathy, attitude, and attention in 360-degree videos for immersive communications. The methodology is validated in an experiment which simulates an immersive communication environment where participants attend three conversations of different genre (everyday conversation, educational, and discussion) and from actor and observer acquisition perspectives. We consider three experimental conditions: (A) visualizing and rating the perceptual quality of contents in a Head-Mounted Display (HMD), (B) visualizing the contents in an HMD, and (C) visualizing the contents in an HMD where participants can see their hands and take notes. In all conditions participants visualize the same 360-degree videos, designed and acquired in the context of international experiences. Fifty-four participants were evenly distributed among A, B, and C conditions taking into account their international experience backgrounds (working or studying in a foreign country), obtaining a balanced and diverse sample of participants. Finally, the annotated dataset, Student Experiences Around the World dataset (SEAW-dataset), obtained from the experiment is made publicly available for the research community.

We are rapidly moving to a hybrid world, where telepresence technologies play a crucial role. But, are current technologies ready for such a shift? Do they provide adequate support for interaction and collaboration? In this workshop, together with the participants, we will try out a variety of telepresence technologies for hybrid meetings. Based on small hybrid group activities we will explore how different systems compare in terms of immersion, interaction, and usability. Additionally, we will reflect on the social implications of telepresence. The aim of the workshop is to bring together the lived experiences of both remote and local participants, with activities that stimulate reflections on our experiences. These reflections will fuel group discussions, to identify future research areas in telepresence and hybrid meeting technologies. Results from the workshop will be published as a white paper with recommendations for the design of future telepresence and hybrid meeting technologies.