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Artificial
intelligence (AI) is breaking the conventional frame of broadcast production
and transforming the fundamentals of content delivery and viewers’ experience.
In less than a year
the torch will be lit at the Olympic Games in Paris with record breaking
audiences expected to watch the competitions online. The International Olympic
Committee’s broadcast services arm, OBS (Olympic Broadcasting Services) has
been experimenting with new digital technologies and in 2024 promises a visual
and data-rich feast.
The previous
Olympic games in Tokyo 2020 proved to be a watershed moment in the
history of Olympic broadcasting with digital output up 34 % on the
previous ones in Rio. It is part of a wider trend in which the
distribution and consumption of TV is shifting from broadcast TV to streaming
over the internet.
With broadcasters
reluctant to invest further in the (satellite or internet bandwidth)
infrastructure needed to lift picture quality to 4K ultra high definition (UHD)
resolution, attention has turned to using innovations in data and artificial
intelligence (AI) to bring the sport closer to home.
The IOC’s ambition,
unchanged for a decade but thrown into greater urgency during the
Covid-affected 2020 Tokyo Games, is to deliver “the most realistic experience
one can get from viewing a sporting event without actually attending in
person.”
Using the power of
data
Data from Paris
Olympics venues will be used on screen to inform and engage fans and behind the
scenes to speed up content production. Trialled at Tokyo and again at the
Winter Olympiad in Beijing, the IOC will expand the use of specialized
algorithms – or AI – applied to data in Paris.
This includes an
Automatic Media Description system which combines existing data from the TV
signal with image recognition based on an athlete’s bib. This will be used to
make the process of tagging footage for use in media production much more
efficient.
“If we were to tag
all our content, it would require an incredible effort and a large number of
human operators,” explained OBS Chief Technology Officer, Sotiris
Salamouris. “By using trained AI systems, this could be accomplished in a
fraction of the time (and cost), while increasing both the speed of searches
and the accuracy of the search response.”
The same system can
be used to customize content for broadcasters, or even for individual fans,
wanting to view the action of a particular country or athlete.
In Paris, AI-based
motion tracking technology will help commentators and viewers keep track of the
position of the athletes during events like marathon, road cycling, triathlon
and canoe sprint. This has proved tricky before given the nature of the course
terrain.
IEC Standards can
help
ISO/IEC
JTC 1/SC 42 is the joint IEC and ISO committee that develops
international standards for AI. The committee works on horizontal standards
that provide a foundation for developing AI solutions across a wide and diverse
set of industries and applications. For example, ISO/IEC 23894 shows
users how to manage AI-related risks effectively in order to achieve objectives
and improve performance.
Sport climbing
returns after making its Olympic debut in Tokyo and to help audiences
understand the challenges involved, OBS will use augmented reality technology
to overlay live shots of the wall with virtual ones to display information
about the holds, angles and routes.
IEC is paving the
way for the use of virtual and augmented reality technology in a variety of
different fields. IEC TC 110 prepares standards relating to VR viewing,
including VR, AR and MR eyewear displays, for instance IEC 63145-1-2. The
IEC and ISO have formed a joint subcommittee, SC 24, which works on the
standardization of interfaces for information technology based applications
relating to computer graphics and virtual reality.
5G, cloud and
biometrics combined
Alibaba Cloud is
the IOC’s official cloud services partner and will provide
cloud-based broadcasting, big data analytics, logistics support and
tracking of athletes’ performance on the field. Its contract runs until 2028 at
the Summer Games in Los Angeles.
In Paris, expect
this to include biometric data such as the heart rates of competitors in
archery. From cameras focussed on the athlete’s face, the system analyzes
slight changes of skin colour caused by the contraction of blood vessels.
Audiences will be able to chart the adrenaline rush experienced by archers as
they shoot their arrow in an on-screen graphic.
Also in Paris,
expect greater use of 5G wireless technology to open up more of the same
real-time performance data from other sports. While data from sensors can also
be gathered by other types of wireless technology, 5G can offer ultra-high data
collection speeds with very low latency.
Although the
Olympic Games tends to push the technology boundary more than any other live
broadcast, similar innovations are being deployed across elite sports.
Other sporting
events use AI
At the Wimbledon
tennis championship this year, raw ball and player tracking data was ingested
into an AI-driven software from which a range of new data points were
extracted.
“To date, all
tennis data has centred on the first and last hit of a rally, but you could
have 42 shots in a rally and lack the ability to capture every shot – until
now,” explains James Muir, Wimbledon’s Broadcast Technical Manager.
“In a game as
nuanced as tennis you want to use data to help viewers understand, for
instance, why a forehand won the point, or how the tennis champion Alcaraz is
able to apply extra spin to a slice backhand,” he adds.
Automation is on
the cusp of making significant inroads into sports production. Indeed, the most
high-profile events are already benefitting from AI-empowered tools. At the
Qatar World Cup, FIFA used semi-automated offside technology in support of
match officials to help them make faster, more reproducible, ideally more
accurate, decisions.
Leading soccer
clubs are adopting AI/ML as training aids. An AI player tracking software is
being used by AFC Ajax to help coaches make snap analysis during training
sessions or matches.
Fully automated
sports production, including remote operated cameras and the software to
automatically record and cut video, offers huge cost savings in terms of
equipment and technicians for sports like US college basketball or
second-division Scottish Professional Football which do not have
mainstream media rights partners.
AI not quite ready
for all applications
Computer vision
techniques are not yet smart enough to understand every sports action. Sports
with predictable movements, like track cycling, are relatively easy to automate
and so too are distinct moments in soccer (like ‘goal’ or ‘red card’ or
‘corner’) for an AI to track, record and playback as a sequence. It is the
myriad of other permutations which prove harder to programme.
“For example, if
there’s an injury to a player the AI will have no clue about what’s going on,”
says Michel Bais, Chief Product Officer at a US developer of automatic
sport production systems. “The AI might instead start filming the goalkeeper
because that is where the ball is at that time. After 30 seconds it may realize
something is wrong but not know how to correct it.”
Developers of AI
sports production solutions believe that their technology will be used
alongside experienced human crews for some time. Familiar production roles will
change to accommodate the growing use of AI. An ‘AI production technician’
might be someone who installs the technology onsite, ensuring the data is
processed correctly. An ‘AI production director’ might be responsible for
supervising the AI generated output of a highlights reel, perhaps adding a more
human emotional layer to the presentation.
“Lots of time is
needed to train AI to be good enough to be relied on for top tier programming,
so by default, it’s quite expensive,” says Bais. “You’d need an innovator like
Sky or Fox Sports to put AI front and centre.”
During the Tour de
France this year, a 3D graphic helped show viewers the gradients faced by the
peloton that are often so tough most people couldn’t walk up it let alone cycle
it. “This is where the audience expects to go in sport,” said Scott Young,
SVP content and production at Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe. “They want
to be on the field of play. They don’t want to be in the grandstand anymore,
from a television viewing perspective. Trying to bring the enormity of what the
athletes are actually up against into our studio is the biggest challenge we
face.”
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