H2020 EU-funded project 2-IMMERSE, of which CWI’s Distributed and Interactive Systems (DIS) group is a member, passed another milestone at the recent 2018 FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium between Chelsea and Manchester United. They tested their prototype end-to-end live production system for object-based broadcasting, which allows viewers to experience television broadcast in a more immersive, personalized and interactive manner. The FA Cup is the world’s oldest football challenge cup with an audience estimated to be in the hundreds of millions. In addition to the on-site achievements and to illustrate the end-to-end nature of the trial, a small number of remote viewers in UK, Sweden and the Netherlands were engaged. They got the chance to experience the interactive, customizable and multi-screen version live broadcast of the 2018 FA Cup Final.
The team for this specific project was composed with British Telecom, CWI, Cisco, and BBC R&D. They all worked on the design and development of the end-to-end system. After all the preparation the team was able to transmit live an object-based broadcast from Wembley. A television broadcast is traditionally created by compositing together a number of media objects (video, score, clock, audio…) into one stream, providing exactly the same content to every viewer. In contrast, object-based broadcasting transmits media objects independently to viewers along with the metadata describing how they should be assembled. The devices controlled by the viewers can then optimally assemble the content objects based on the context of view, the directives of the producer, and the interaction of the user.
DIS specifically contributed to this project with the production tools (including the live triggering tools) that allowed for controlling the media objects during broadcast like overlay graphics professionally produced by ChyronHego (like information about the players, statistics, score) onto the video. Furthermore, the group realized the part of the core infrastructure in charge of temporally controlling the assembling of the media objects that enables the experience of users. DIS presented the results in a number of scientific publications.
One of the next steps in the research project is to work with all the video and data captured at the final to develop a stand-alone demo showing the capabilities of the system and illustrating the end-to-end process. The results will be presented this in the 2 IMMERSE stand in the Future Zone at IBC 2018 in Amsterdam in September.
About 2-IMMERSE
2-IMMERSE is a collaborative project co-funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Research Programme. Partners in the project include broadcasters, producers, rights holders, technology companies and universities to design, build and test four prototype experiences involving live performance and sport. The project’s ambition is to deliver technology enabling services ‘to immerse’ audiences in shared and personalised multiscreen experiences.
About DIS
The Distributive and Interactive Systems group of CWI facilitates and improves the way people access media and communicate with others and the environment, in areas such as wearable technology and smart textiles, immersive media, languages and infrastructures.
Watch the DIS video on YouTube
Scientific publications
The work of DIS in this project have been reported in the following articles:
- J. Li, T. Roggla, M. Glancy, J. Jansen, and P. Cesar, "A New Production Platform for Authoring Object-based Multiscreen TV Viewing Experiences," in Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Experiences for Television and Online Video, (ACM TVX 2018), Seoul, Korea, June 26-28, 2018.
- T. Roggla, J. Li, J. Jansen, A. Gower, M. Trimby, and P. Cesar, “2IMMERSE Production Suite: A Platform for Creating Interactive Multi-Screen Experiences," in Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Experiences for Television and Online Video, (ACM TVX 2018), Seoul, Korea, June 26-28, 2018.
- J. Li, Z. Zheng, B. Meixner, T. Roggla, M. Glancy, and P. Cesar, "Designing an Object-based Preproduction Tool for Multiscreen TV Viewing," in Extended Abstracts of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM CHI 2018), Montreal, Canada, April 21-26, 2018.
- J. Jansen, D. Bulterman, and P. Cesar, “Workflow Support for Live Object-Based Broadcasting," in Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Document Engineering (ACM DocEng 2018), Halifax, Canada, August 28-31, 2018.
- I. Kegel, J. Walker, M. Lomas, J. Jansen, and J. Wyver, “2-Immerse: A Platform for Orchestrated Multi-Screen Entertainment", in Adjunct Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Experiences for Television and Online Video (ACM TVX 2017), Hilversum, The Netherlands, June 14-16, 2017, 71-72.
Source: 2IMMERSE
