Control systems | Media servers | Networking | Audio | Virtual
Background
FIX8Group were approached once again by The 5Gs to provide the technical infrastructure to facilitate a high profile project for Virgin Media O2 who wanted to creatively demonstrate the power of their new fibre broadband. Enabling members of the public to play video games with celebrities from the world of sport, appearing as super realistic 4k holograms.
The challenge
The creative set up involved cooperative video gaming with celebrity partners including Southampton FC players and Usain Bolt being streamed in through their virtual ‘Portl’.
The strategic placement of cameras and microphones was a significant factor in making sure the process ran smoothly, the main consideration was for the fan to feel like Usain Bolt was right there in the room, creative shot positioning was essential to achieving a natural interaction. Also, an ultra low latency connection is perhaps more important in gaming than in almost any other activity, without it, a seamless session between two players at remote locations quickly becomes unworkable. Time was a consideration too, we didn't have the luxury of arriving on site to begin long term experiments to see what would work, preparation was critical to allow us to hit the ground running and get all the moving parts working together quickly.
The solution
To facilitate the bi-directional streaming requirements of audio and video, we implemented our SD-WAN technology and ultra low latency, point-to-point video transport system. On top of this, a full, site wide communications system was deployed allowing all of the production team to communicate in real time and cue the various elements needed for the recording of the advert. Discreet in ear monitoring was provided so that clear and concise interaction could take part between everyone involved in the shoot.
Due to the bandwidth and quality available on the Virgin internet connection we were able to achieve high bit rate transfers and reduce latency to as low as 95msec this allowed celebrity guests to appear crystal clear as the holographic image and enabled a smooth gaming session. The use of our own Master Control Room here at our facility in Manchester enabled us to provide off site recordings and share these quickly with various stakeholders.
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Ben Hyman, Senior Project Manager
Conclusion
It was fantastic to continue to develop our relationship with The 5Gs through more TV advertising projects and the athletes involved were a pleasure to work with, and it's great to take our point-to-point video systems into new environments, with different use case to test and demonstrate the flexibility of what we can do.
The workflow tailored for this particular event had to be developed and tested, and as always, continual learning allows us to be more reactive in future scenarios and gives us more experience to take forward into other projects.
You can read more about the project at Virgin Media O2's own news site here
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