Rio 2016 has just begun! Coverage is going to be everywhere and for those of us who just can’t get enough Olympic goodness this year we’re going to have a lot more platforms beyond just our TV to watch it, thanks to a massive shift in technology developments.
Since the very first Olympic games which took place back in the times of the ancient Greeks; engineers, sportsmen and sportswomen have been working hand in hand to technically enhance sports performance and experiences. Ok back then in Ancient Greece they weren’t building cutting edge AR apps for Fifa and Virtual Reality video experiences with a national sports team, but they were developing more aerodynamic javelins.
Now in the digital age, the Olympic committee continues to push the latest in technology and engineering not only to train and enhance the sporting experience for athletes but also to enhance the fan experience.
Rio 2016 will show some of the most advanced technology seen in track, field, broadcast and interactive to date with AR and VR very much top of the technology agenda.
VR Broadcast of the Olympics
For the first time in history, the OBS (Olympic Broadcasting Service) will be broadcasting all the games not only via our TV sets and the Internet, but also over live-streamed virtual reality technology. The virtual reality streams will be licensed and provided by leading broadcasters such as American broadcaster NBC, who announced they would be showing over 100 hours of content. The BBC have released a mobile 360 app which allows viewers to watch live coverage across the Olympics in 360 mode and VR mode.
For NBC viewers the stream will be provided in 4K to Samsung GearVR devices too (it's important to note that Samsung is the official technology sponsor of the 2016 Olympics). The OBS will also be providing VR daily highlight coverage which I assume will be distributed across Facebook and the official Rio Olympics YouTube channel.
Being in the centre of the action
VR in sports is nothing new, in fact, Sports and VR go hand in hand especially in terms of it being a competitive platform. Many of the early Oculus and HTC Vive demos were simple gamified experiences where you had to drive a car through an obstacle or fly a spaceship or surf over a massive wave. The basketball superstar Le Bron James also released a VR video experience at the beginning of the year; in my opinion, it’s one of the most impressive 360 VR experiences ever, not only at a creative level but also at a technical level. Being in the centre of LeBron’s training session in stereo 360 gives a new close-up perspective to watching your favourite sports stars, something that has only existed by physically joining the sports star. However, I think sports are most exciting when watching your favoured star taking part in a live event; feeling the pressure as they do in real time, experiencing the rush of being the first to cross the finish line or the excitement of draining that final overtime basket for the win. When live sports and VR are combined in just the right way, the ultimate medium in sports broadcasting is born.
Sport broadcast VR challenges
Although all this news is exciting, there's still a significant challenge looming over live VR and sport: How do you capture the action in the most engaging, understandable and accessible way for the viewer? A director cutting between wide and close up camera angles to follow the action for 2D TV viewers is now a written language in sports broadcast and as viewers, we’re used to this language. However, in VR we have the challenge of rewriting this language again. Not only do we have to make the content comfortable (wide and close ups don’t really exist in VR), but also accessible (comfortable). I mean how do we film swimming in VR? On a technical front, to successfully stream 4K 360 video footage live to VR headsets there needs to be a balance in broadband speeds at event and on the user's end. To make sure the user receives the best picture, we need to develop ecosystems that dynamically stream the footage at a better data rate.
None the less it’s very exciting to begin these discussions. At Happy Finish we’re big fans of the pre-filmed 360 videos but we also know there’s a space for live streamed 360 events, and we've been excitedly playing with live 360 streaming ourselves, exploring where we can push the technology.
The Olympics start today in Rio and we’ll be glued throughout!
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