Milano Cortina 2026: Winter Olympics Host Broadcaster Rules Out Remote Production

Streaming Media

article here

Is the Olympic Committee's host broadcaster warming to the notion of transitioning to virtual or REMI production for this winter's fast-approaching Milan Cortina games? 

Yiannis Exarchos, CEO, Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) insists that virtualizing broadcast and streaming workflows on such concentrated scale is simply not "realistic." 

“Being realistic, I don't think that we can say that we will stop having an International Broadcasting Center (IBC) and everything can be remote or virtualized,” said Yiannis Exarchos, CEO, Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS).

Speaking as part of a round table event three weeks out from the opening ceremony of the XXV Winter Games in Northern Italy, Exarchos explained that the sheer scale of an Olympics and current technological limitations on behalf of rights holding broadcasters meant elimination of a physical IBC was not likely soon, or even desirable.

“We need to understand the sheer physical realities of an Olympic Games,” he said. “In Milan Cortina we will have 6000 broadcasters present. Why? Because they want to be close to the action and this is entirely legitimate. Most of them need to do that. We should remember, not all broadcasters are at the same level of development as NBC [which has a huge remote operation for the Olympics out of its home base in Connecticut]. Even if we imagine that all broadcasters could receive all the signals remotely at home they simply don't have the capacity in their existing facilities to deal with it all.”

For this Winter Games OBS will produce 1000 hours of competition coverage and another 5000 hours of additional support material for rights holders to tailor their coverage across multiple platforms. In the Summer Olympics, that volume doubles.

“Even a big TV network would only produce this amount of content over three years,” he said. “No broadcaster is set up to be handling this volume in such a short period. This is why remote working in the case of the Olympics is only half the solution. The ultimate solution is virtualized broadcasting, meaning that you actually do not really need a proper physical facility to transport media.”

He contrasted the unique Olympic production to that of the next largest global sports event, the FIFA World Cup. “You might have four football matches every day but can do that completely remotely including with a commentator reporter, but here you have, at times, 27 events going on at the same time.

At the Paris Games over 24,000 media were present, over double the number of athletes.
“It is too much, but it's not like we can make things to have only one thousand media representatives,” he said. “Actually, this would mean that there is no interest in the Games. What we don't want is that they are forced to bring people here to do something that they could be doing on the other side of the world. We do not want them to come if their role can be easily replicated remotely.”

The Virtual OB van (VOB) model introduced in Tokyo then Paris continues to advance with a virtualised, private COTS cloud-based infrastructure. The VOB delivers over 50% savings in compound space, up to 50% lower power use and reduced costs by replacing bespoke OB vans with industry-standard cabins, enabling remote production for curling, sliding sports, and speed skating.

Technology is not the goal – it is the enabler

“If you had a completely virtualized Olympics, this would not be an Olympics, because things that are very human are incredibly important for what we do and for our values and for the creation of emotion. Even if technology allowed for a complete virtualization of broadcasting there needs to be a measured approach.

“Technology is not the goal – it is the enabler,” Exarchos insisted. “Every innovation we adopt is driven by the purpose of elevating the Olympic experience for audiences around the world. For Milano Cortina 2026, our focus is not on a single innovation, but on the ability to integrate and scale multiple new technologies to Olympic level. This approach will enable us to deliver the most immersive and dynamic Olympic Winter Games broadcast to date.” 

Beginning a decade ago at the Rio Olympics OBS began to switch out hardware broadcast technologies for IP systems running on COTs. It began this journey long before most broadcasters and is now reaping the dividends since in Milan the IBC is 25% smaller than in Beijing 2022 with a 33% reduction in power.

In Milan OBS is piloting a fully cloud-based Master Control Room and virtualized technical operations centers. These will also be used at the Youth Games in Dakar later this year where it is claimed will deliver 75% less rack space, use 65% lower power and a 50% faster IBC rollout

For LA28 further gains of ~40% space and ~30% power reductions are expected, with earlier system testing ahead of venue readiness.

 

Cloud expanded with Alibaba

Media functions are no longer confined to the IBC, but extend across both the IBC and competition venues, enabling more efficient workflows for OBS and MRHs. This enables MRHs to manage their own content selection via cloud-based switching, reducing reliance on on-site infrastructure. The resulting hybrid model, combining private and public cloud, results in a reduction in the size of the IBC and associated power consumption, contributing to lower carbon costs. This approach has become the industry standard for global content distribution, particularly for UHD and HDR live transmission (the master production format for MC26 is 4K HDR).

Working with tech partners

Samsung is another tech giant at Milan Cortina and providing backing for live feeds to mobile phone for the first time.

“The good thing is that because of the importance of the Olympics, a lot of the companies in the industry feel that it's beneficial for them to be investing in the Olympic Games for moving forward themselves for adopting new technologies,” Exarchos said.

Out of the IBC during the Games will be internet traffic feeding broadcasters across the world representing 70 percent of Milan’s normal internet connectivity of the city of Milan,

“The capacity that is used for the games would allow you to download a full 4K feature film in half a second,” he said. “This is serious infrastructure and takes time to be developed.”

Key to local connectivity, especially in the remote and under connected mountain regions is Telecom Italia. “Because of the distributed geography of Milano Cortina you will be losing essentially a working day moving from one location to another, and also there are limitations in terms of accommodation availability. The [3 venues outside of Milan] are small places not massive, industrialized skiing areas and this is part of their charm and their beauty. From day one, and we insistent on that we have a system that enables broadcasters to do anything from everywhere, to be able to work very, very easily and cover other venues making remote connections and remote interviews. This capacity did not exist in the mountains until now. This technological capacity is a very significant legacy of the games that's being done by Telecom Italia.”

New production innovation at MC26

Drones entered the Olympics as a production tool at Sochi. Now FPV drones will be used across a range of outdoor winter sports, delivering dynamic first-person perspectives that follow athletes through competition courses. For the first time at a Winter Games, FPV drones will also be used in sliding sports, showcasing the speed and intensity of these events.

Exarchos said, “This new generation of technology allows for a very safe use of drones which go very close to the action and offer you a sense of being part of the competition. In many of the sports you will be see images that we have not seen before.”

For the first time and in collaboration with Alibaba, OBS is introducing real-time 360-degree replays, a combination of multi -camera replay systems and stroboscopic analysis delivering multi-angle views, freeze frames, and slow-motion sequences that showcase skill, technique, and moments of precision.

Breaking new ground at the Olympic Winter Games, an advanced tracking system for curling will visualise each stone’s path, speed, rotation and timing in real time. Subtle trajectory graphics and live data reveal strategic elements as play unfolds, complemented by a new overhead rail camera and ice -level views that enhance storytelling and viewer understanding.

OBS is testing an Automatic Media Description (AMD) platform to help teams manage the huge volume of live video from the Games. AI breaks broadcasts into searchable clips, suggests shot descriptions and keywords, and helps users quickly find key moments or highlights, making storytelling faster and easier.

For the first time at an Olympic Winter Games, automated highlights will transform the journey from moment to media, delivering ready-to-publish clips to every platform within minutes, “all while preserving the highest editorial standards” it is claimed. For comparison more than 100,000 highlights were generated during the Paris 2024 Games.

Raquel Rozados, OBS Head of Broadcaster Services, says, “Our focus is enabling MRHs to deliver the Games anytime, anywhere, on any device. For Milano Cortina 2026, we’re scaling personalised highlights, expanding behind-the-scenes content, offering immersive VR experiences, and using flexible cloud distribution workflows, along with a richer offering of short-form social media clips, providing MRHs with greater agility to tailor their coverage for diverse audiences.”

 Olympic GPT

MC26 will be the public debut of an AI driven search of content on Olympics.com. This  solution will deliver, for the first time, real-time results during the Games and will have the capacity to answer questions about the current state of events. For the first time, AI-powered article summaries on Olympics.com give fans a overview at the top of select stories.

“As with everything in the Olympics the challenge is accuracy, quality and control,” said Exarchos. “Most LLMs rely on the information that's out there on the internet, but we know that this information can be biased. Even leaving aside the ethical consideration, if you want to train an AI model on certain sports like football, tennis or basketball you can but you will not find this amount of data for every single Olympic sport. This is where it was very important in collaboration with Alibaba and with the technology team of the IOC and OBS that we brought in the experience, the terminology, the videos, and specific information that relates to the Olympics.

“We have the biggest repository of correct quality controlled data around the Olympics in the world. Every single statistic for every single competition and athlete exists there and it's correct. This is what is feeding this system and not what randomly may have been mentioned somewhere on the internet. We are also learning out of it and we are humble. There may be mistakes but we are pretty confident about what is being delivered. We have been testing intensely and seems to be working very well.”

With Winter sports federations the IOC is launching an analytics data project for MC26, where data will be exchanged. The IOC will gain deeper insights into digital sports consumption, trends and behaviours from partners’ data. Federations will access advanced data visualizations that combine sources to support their data-driven decision-making.

United in solidarity
The Winter Games begins on 4 February running until Feb. 22. “I must admit on a personal level, that following the news every day makes me want for this opening ceremony to come as early as possible,” Exarchos said. “Because I think these games can really help us recalibrate a little bit how we feel about the world and how we feel about the relations between people. What is uniquely part of the Olympics is its ability to bring people together. I feel that it's one of these times in human history where we need it so much.” 

BTS Sentimental Value

IBC

The cracks in the inheritance of DNA, relatives and property is at the heart of critically acclaimed Norwegian tragicomedy

article here

 Despite flying under the radar a little, Joachim Trier’s Norwegian tragicomedy Sentimental Value is a candidate for multiple major awards. Winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes 2025, the film is also a nine time Oscar nominee including Best Picture, Actress, Director, Editing and Best International Feature (head-to-head with Neon’s other foreign language titles, It Was Just An Accident and The Secret Agent). It has already won the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language.

It is a sophisticated drama which both pays homage to and pastiches the work of Swedish legend Ingmar Bergman while covering intense topics like grief, suicide and family ties. In brief, Skarsgärd plays Gustav Borg, a once-celebrated director eager to reclaim his former glory. When he offers his daughter Nora (Reinsve) the lead role in his comeback film, she refuses, only to learn that he has given the part to a rising Hollywood star Rachel (Elle Fanning). The presence of the American forces the Borgs to confront their fragile relationships.

Though set like Trier’s previous films Oslo, 31st August (2011)  and Academy Award nominated The Worst Person in the World (2021) in Norway’s capital, this production is a deeper and more sprawling affair. “This one is driven by multiple characters and that opened up new possibility in our writing, “ Trier says of his work with co-writer Eskil Vogt. “Jumping between characters and back and forth in time, creates a more polyphonic experience – a bigger idea than subjectively following the journey of one character.”

The film features a huge range of visual situations as it contains a multitude of time periods, from the 1930s to the present day, all coupled with a modern visual sensitivity, films within films and a rich selection of shooting locations.

Reuniting with Trier after shooting The Worst Person in the World is Danish cinematographer Kasper Tuxen who highlights the distinct look of Oslo as a city, and its very specific light.

“The main location, the house, offered a lot of opportunities but also a fair share of challenges. It has large windows in every direction, so to sustain the exterior lighting situations and keep the specificity of changing seasons was a big task.”

He spent several days in prep visiting the house to understand how the light varied during the day and how he would need to manage the natural illumination.

Trier mandated a shoot on film with Tuxen choosing Kodak VISION3 250D Colour 5207 for most of the day exteriors and brighter day interiors, plus VISION3 500T 5219 for the low-light/night interior and exteriors. The neg was processed and scanned to 2K at Cinelab often involving push-processing to subtly enhance the colours.

Paired with the Arricam LT 35mm camera and framed for 1.85:1, Tuxen selected Cooke 5/i's “because of the appealing softness they give to the image, especially on close-ups.”

A clip from a WW2-set film that Gustav has made was lensed with vintage Cooke Varotal zooms treated with a bleach bypass at the lab. For flashbacks set in the ‘20s and '30s he used an Arriflex 416 16mm camera with a classic 16mm T1.8 16-40mm zoom.

The house as lived in character

The red wood trimmed central house itself is the same one as seen at the end of Oslo 31st of August and owned in real life by musician Lars Lillo-Stenberg. Most of the present day scenes in the film were shot inside but they rebuilt a replica of the first and second floor layout on a soundstage at Gateway Studios (Drammen, outside of Oslo) in order to redress the set for time periods ranging from the early 20th century through the 1930s to the sixties up to the 80s.

“Design is like an extra layer of narrative,” says production designer Jørgen Stangebye Larsen. “I worked a lot on finding the story of the house, how it changed through the years and why. The house is physically altered by time, grief and artistic inspiration just as the generation of characters which inhabit it.”

The stage was ringed with LED screens which would not only change with exteriors or time and season but reflect light back into the rooms.

“Shooting LED screens on analogue film works really well,” Tuxen reports. “Film grain does a whole lot to make the pixels invisible, and the results looked great. We shot everything on-stage with LED screens, except for the final scene, where we replaced the LED walls with traditional bluescreen.”

The film’s prologue sets out the geography of this family home along with a voice over driven narrative relaying its history

“It's intentionally cut as if the house is a character and were witness to the tragedy and drama,” editor Olivier Bugge Coutté explains to CinemaEditor. “We use a lot of shots with windows, which are - if you will - the eyes of the house. The scene is often cut in a way that shows an empty frame, then a person enters the frame and they exit again, giving the house a subjective view.”

Other locations included Nora’s flat which was shot in Sweden and at Deauville in France during the town’s film festival where Tuxen had to light an expansive stretch of beach at dusk for scenes in which Gustav meets Rachel.

An unusual sequence in the film, not scripted, is a black and white montage of the faces of the Borg family superimposed on one another. It is not an FX shot but done in-camera by Tuxen by physically rewinding the film and shooting a new face on top, inspired by a personal documentary he was making of his own family.

The final scene is a lengthy ‘oner’ in which the camera operated by Tuxen on a dolly aided by key grip Christian Scheibe winds through the house following Nora and was achieved after nine attempts.

“It was quite obvious that take number nine was the best,” says Coutté. “Even though I know how the film ends when I watch this scene I feel all the emotions of the film and of the chaos that this family has gone through and a fear for Nora’s mental state.”

Coutté has edited all six of Trier’s features and their relationship goes back thirty years to the time they met at film school in Copenhagen.

“We're great friends on a personal level. Even though I live in Denmark and he lives in Oslo and we both have children we try to juggle private life and work life. We have this rule that on Sundays during editorial I send a lot of Quicktimes to Joachim and rather than have him write long emails with notes to me we arrange a remote session and record his feedback live.”

He says that while some of the drama is personal to Trier, the character of Gustav couldn’t be farther removed.

“Obviously there is a meta narrative of making movies and performers performing but I can’t say I see Joaquim in Gustav. I would say that his personality is blended into all his characters but he’s not Gustav. He's actually a very present dad to his daughters.”

Is ultra-low power the way forward?

IEC e-Tech

article here

This new emerging field is particularly energy efficient and promising. While some standards for it already exist, more will be required.

The number of devices connected to the internet is projected to reach 40 billion worldwide as we move into the era of the Internet of Things (IoT) and, even more so, what some pundits call the Intelligence of Things. Forecasts suggest this could put a strain on global energy use and count for as high as 25% of all energy consumption as soon as 2030. Currently, connected devices do not compare to power-hungry sectors such as transport or buildings, at an only five to seven estimated percentage of total energy consumption. But with the huge predicted growth, energy requirements are expected to escalate.

This increased demand was anticipated by some researchers theorizing the IoT a couple of decades ago. They foresaw that the exponential rise of the IoT and the concomitant increase in energy used to power billions of microelectronic devices required a new approach. And one of the results of this new approach is the burgeoning field of ultra-low power microcontroller, or ULP MCU, systems.

“It became apparent that for the IoT to be realized, we couldn’t continue to use traditional and in some cases energy-intensive approaches for electronic devices,” says IEC expert Leszek A. Majewski, who chairs the technical committee which prepares standards for printed electronics, IEC TC 119. He is also a lecturer in electrical and electronic engineering at the University of Manchester and has a PhD in the development of low-voltage organic field-effect transistors. “Although lithium-ion batteries and lithium-polymer batteries are currently being developed with smaller form factors and greater energy storage capacity for gadgets like smart home sensors, the increase in demand for new microelectronic applications in industrial monitoring, healthcare and space exploration requires approaches based on new materials and structures where batteries are not necessarily the answer,” he confirms.

ULP MCU systems fit in with this new approach. They are deemed essential to facilitate the growth of the IoT and the success of new applications which require extended operation without frequent charging or battery replacement and are often in discrete form factors.

A booming market and a hot topic

The value of the global ULP MCU market is forecast to hit USD 15,27 billion in 2030, driven by the rising adoption of devices such as consumer wearables, medical monitors and IoT sensors. “It’s a very hot topic and also a pretty wide field in terms of the new materials and techniques being explored,” adds Majewski. “In order for microelectronic devices to work, they need to be on pretty much all the time. Depending on the function, always-on devices would have to draw a minimum amount of power to stay on as long as possible. You don't want to have to change them in the field. You want to minimize maintenance.”

Consequently, ULP MCU devices need to be operated with very low supply voltages of 1 V or lower and consume minimal power, typically measured in milli- or microwatts. This significantly decreases power consumption amid rising energy costs.

Engineering challenges for ULP design

Since a lower-power device cannot generate, store or transmit vast amounts of data, the principal limitation is that its functionality needs to be simple. According to Majewski, depending on use, the design of a ULP device will often have to balance size and reliability against energy efficiency and performance.

“The range of the device is limited since the signals cannot be sent far, but you accept that this is an inherent property of a low-power device that you design for. You do not expect it to deliver a huge output. So, it must be something really basic with one or two parameters. Many of these devices are for new use cases that we would never imagine without low power.”

Ingestible devices are one of the applications

One example are ingestible electrochemical sensors, which can be swallowed to monitor health and detect disease as they pass through the body. Electronics can now be directly integrated into moulded plastic objects and devices. In-mold electronics (IME) is driven by the automotive industry because it “significantly reduces the cost, weight, waste and energy required to produce vehicle interior parts,” according to the group which has standardized its development.

IMEs can include all the surface-mounted devices included in traditional electronics to increase functionality, such as sensors, LEDs and microcontrollers. “You could integrate an array of micro low-power devices, like a matrix of transistor-based sensors, which can increase an application’s sophistication and capacity but will also increase power consumption,” Majewski says.

One avenue of enquiry proving particularly beneficial to wearables is that of e-textiles. Consisting of woven networks of flexible fibres, e-textiles can be readily deformed into stretchable, flexible form factors. This makes them ideal for use in wearables like smart watches which require motion tracking of human body’s physical or mechanical movements.

Rather than using hard substances like silicon to make transistors, organic soft matter is an emerging field of research. “Skin-like soft electronics offer conformal, stable interfaces with biological tissues – including skin, heart, brain, muscle and gut – enabling health monitoring, disease diagnosis and closed-loop therapeutic interventions,” researchers explain.

Energy harvesting works for ULP devices

Energy harvesting is the process of capturing and converting energy from the environment into electrical power, in principle as a perpetual and sustainable power source. It is a particularly energy efficient source of energy, as it can be even derived from body movement or heat. “There are a variety of methods to achieve it, and each one will convert the source power into usable energy in a different way,” explains Majewski. “Energy can be harvested from radio waves via a radio frequency (RF) antenna or heat via an infrared (IR) optical rectenna, for example.”

Thermal sensors on vehicles can harvest the radiant heat from the road surface. Other sensors on moving vehicles could obtain power from the motion energy “if placed in high-vibration locations, such as near the wheels or engine components.”

Similarly, energy for wearable devices can be powered by the kinetic movement of the body (piezoelectric) or from body heat or body fluids. Research shows that body-powered kinetic motion could add 10 mW to the primary power source for ULP MCUs.

“In the design of e-textiles you would take account of energy generation from a variety of mechanisms including thermoelectric generators that harvest body heat or you could use materials that incorporate solar cells. The use of piezoelectric mechanisms show particular potential for wearables since just the basic squeeze of the material will generate energy,” Majewski explains.

“However, all of these technologies are currently limited in terms of the amount of energy they are able to generate and in the consistency of energy generation. Consequently, energy harvesting for ULP MCUs is currently for use in limited applications, such as augmenting [extending] battery life,” he adds.

Wireless charging and data transmission

A number of wireless solutions for power delivery are gaining market adoption. These include the Wireless Power Consortium’s Qi standard (Qi2 and Qi2 25W versions) for wireless charging of mobile, handheld electronic devices and NFC Wireless Charging (NFC WLC) supporting lower power 1 W applications over a distance of 2 cm. Backed by the NFC Forum, the latest NFC wireless charging specification supports Qi induction charging platform, which delivers up to 15 W over a distance of 4 cm.

“Devices can be powered using near field communication (NFC) via an RF type of antenna,” explains Majewski. “The device is dormant, and until it is activated for a short period of time, it turns itself off again.” Technologies like Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Wi-Fi 6 and Zigbee are already designed to minimize radio-on time and therefore keep power needs to a minimum.

Existing IEC Standards and new ones required

The IEC is also paving the way for this new technology and has embarked in this field within several of its technical committees. TC 119 standardizes materials, processes, equipment and products for printed electronics. The TC is working on the first edition of IEC 62899-202-13, which contains measures for the conductive layer in IME and tests of printed thin-film transistor-based pressure sensors.

Printed electronics technology is not only low-cost but sustainable, says Majewski. “It is generating a lot of interest in manufacturing circles. TC 119 is therefore a key source of safety and performance standards for such technologies.”

IEC TC 124 publications relate to wearable applications, and there is ongoing work on the standardization of low-power electronics, according to Majewski. Further, TS 60747-19-2 provides a guideline for the specifications of a low-power sensor allowing autonomous power supply operation. It also provides a guideline for specifications of the power supply to drive smart sensors in a smart sensing unit. It is published by IEC TC 47 which, among many things, standardizes discrete semiconductors and sensors. It also publishes the IEC 62830-1 series, which includes methods for evaluating the performance of vibration-based piezoelectric energy harvesting devices.

Standards for piezoelectric technology are also developed by IEC TC 49, which addresses piezoelectric, dielectric and electrostatic devices. This includes IEC TS 61994-5, which gives the terms and definitions for sensors, intended for manufacturing piezoelectric elements, cells, modules and the systems.

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 41 is a joint subcommittee established between ISO and the IEC to standardize all aspects relating to the IoT, and therefore offers guidelines on the testing of IoT devices, including networks of sensors. “Standardization at the IEC tends to focus on test methods so that can we can ensure a particular device behaves as intended,” Majewski says. “But we need further research to consider the low-power options of new materials including, for example, human body tissues,” he concludes.

Energy – especially ultra-low-power forms of it – can indeed be sourced anywhere and everywhere. This opens up new opportunities for standardization bodies, but also for our future energy requirements in the race to meet our net-zero targets.

 

The potential of AI for urban intelligence

IEC E-tech

article here

Artificial intelligence (AI) can supercharge urban intelligence with the help of digital twins and sensors, as long as international standards are part of the equation. The citiverse is on the horizon!

Rome won the title of Smart City of 2025 at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, which took place in November last year. The award was to reward a data-driven initiative that improves governance and public services, with the Italian capital rolling out 1 800 Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and more than 2 000 cameras connected by Wi-Fi, 250 km of fibre-optic cables and 5G networks across its public squares and busiest metro stations.  

The concept of “smart cities” emerged in the early 1970s, when civic authorities began to collect and analyze data about services to help them make decisions about planning and policy. As the volume and capability of digital sensors and communications networks have advanced, so too has the scope of smart cities. Projects now range from managing more efficient transport and traffic systems to security surveillance, faster emergency response, enhanced medical care and sustainable energy use.

AI and digital twins

The fast development of AI is viewed as a means of accelerating those goals. “Cities globally are sprinting to adopt AI,” says consultancy Deloitte in its report AI Powered Cities of the Future. AI is seen “as a driver of greater productivity and efficiency and, ultimately, economic growth and competitiveness”.

A key part of smart city development is digital twin technology – a digital replica of the city – which makes it possible to see how decisions affect urban life before they are deployed in the real world. This is now evolving into the citiverse, an AI-driven virtual city which is expected to be more efficient, more interactive and more transparent than a smart city, ultimately supporting more participatory governance.

Sensors are everywhere

Fortune Business Insights projects that the IoT sensor market will surpass USD 4 trillion by 2032, growing at a remarkable 24% a year. IoT sensors can be added to digital devices like cameras and non-digital street furniture like waste bins to measure the status of garbage containers while air quality meters measure pollution and light levels.

There is clear overlap between the markets for the IoT and that for smart cities. The value of the latter is estimated to top USD 3,7 trillion globally by 2030 growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29,4%. Rapid urbanization, which according to some figures, will see 68% of the world’s population living in cities by 2050, is putting governments and municipalities “under immense pressure” to improve infrastructure and adopt sustainable and efficient city planning solutions.

Such solutions include smart LED lights with motion detectors to save electricity; interoperable smart home technologies to reduce carbon emissions and electrotechnical waste; more accessible and personalized healthcare; and connected transport systems which monitor traffic conditions in real time with safety and traffic management benefits.

Virtual simulation

The holistic data-centric and real-time view of a city is increasingly being visualized virtually. By creating 3D digital twins of cities, “planners can simulate and test the impact of new developments, identify potential issues, optimize city services and proactively create policies to avoid future impact,” explain analysts at Capgemini.

Singapore is widely held to have launched the first virtual model for smarter urban planning. Dozens of other cities include Helsinki, with its virtual rendering of the city’s environment, operations and changing circumstances; and Rotterdam, which debuted its Open Urban Platform last January, and into which not just the city authority but companies, schools and residents are encouraged to participate and “exchange all kinds of data”.

Big data requires AI and machine learning

In order for projects like these to scale, smart cities must be able to manage the “unprecedented surge in data generation and flows” from diverse datasets of public and private infrastructure. Urban Data Platforms – described as the “central nervous system” of a smart city – perform the role of aggregating, processing and analyzing data from across the urban area, captured by sensors. The application of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to this platform layer (and to the IoT sensors themselves) is claimed to supercharge performance by enabling cities to “move beyond reactive management to proactive, data-driven governance”.

For example, AI/ML algorithms can analyze historical and real-time data to predict traffic congestion or potential crime hotspots. Beyond prediction, AI tools can recommend actions, such as optimizing waste collection routes, and identify data anomalies that might signal water leaks so that preventative measures can be taken before the situation worsens.

According to one report, it is the application of AI that “turns connected devices into smart devices”. Calling this shift “urban intelligence”, a developer of AI-powered sensors says that cities in Australia suffered “persistent problems” in managing urban environments before the introduction of AI. Issues related to “manual data collection, unstructured data and limited feedback loops with residents” led to delayed or inaccurate insights and missed opportunities.

Devices and software augmented with AI and fed into a urban platform can unify disparate data sets, spot patterns and apply analysis rapidly to deliver insights or automate responses. One result, given by the Australian developer, is the automatic optimization of traffic signals to ease congestion, which in turn leads to “smoother commutes, reduced emissions and increased public transport reliability”. 

Challenges and standards

The caveat is that while there is strong interest (from 96% of city mayors in one survey) in using AI to augment smart city infrastructure, today there is still little practical implementation of the technology. Questions remain around the impact of AI on city services and its ethical, legal and social implications.

That is where international standards can play a role: their use and implementation can reassure decision-makers that these aspects have been taken into consideration. Standardization in AI is carried out by the joint technical committee formed between the IEC and ISO, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42, which considers the entire ecosystem in which AI systems are developed and deployed. The committee develops horizontal standards that provide a foundation for creating AI solutions across diverse industries. It is increasingly addressing societal and ethical issues, such as how to avoid bias or how to protect human rights.

The three mains standardization organizations, the IEC, ISO and ITU, have just published a joint statement on the governance of AI during the International AI Standards Summit, which took place in Seoul in December 2025. The statement sets out a joint vision and commitments from the three organizations for how international standards will support the development and deployment of trustworthy AI systems that benefit society, drive innovation and uphold fundamental rights.

From smart cities to citiverse

The first meeting of an initiative designed to shape the future of cities in relation to AI-powered virtual worlds convened in November 2025. Led by ITU and United Nations International Computing Centre (UNICC), the meeting touched upon the concept of citiverse, which is partly viewed as the ideal future of the smart city.

“The citiverse can be seen as the next digital frontier for cities,” explains Cristina Bueti, the Counsellor on Smart Sustainable Cities, Citiverse & Virtual Worlds at ITU. “It goes beyond the smart city by creating a trusted, immersive digital environment where cities can leverage enabling technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality and extended reality.

“In the citiverse, AI acts as the backbone, allowing cities to offer citizens new immersive experiences and to enhance the city itself through digital layers that are interactive, predictive and participatory. This creates a shared digital space where leaders can test decisions in advance, improve services and design better solutions before implementation. It allows cities to anticipate drawbacks and understand the real impact of policies from the citizens’ perspective”, she adds.

Interoperability is the key requirement

A shared citiverse is being built under the European Union’s Digital Decade Programme 2030 where different cities can interoperate and collaborate. “Interoperability is the first challenge to address,” Bueti says. “Today, many cities cannot even share data with their neighbouring cities because they rely on vendor-specific platforms. A shared citiverse would allow cities to share data, procurement solutions and services, achieving efficiency gains in cost, time and service delivery – all with the goal of better serving citizens.”

Learning from neighbouring cities and sharing data improves the quality of decision-making by allowing cities to base policies on broader datasets rather than isolated local information. “In Europe, this aligns well with an existing human-centric framework that emphasizes accessibility, interoperability, safety and the protection of fundamental rights,” Bueti stresses.

Fourteen European countries have declared participation in the project including the Netherlands where Rotterdam recently upgraded the head of its digital city programme to be the world’s first Chief Citiverse Officer. As Bueti notes, the citiverse is a nascent concept and is dependent for its success on the building blocks of regional data, service interoperability and metrics to evaluate progress. It is also dependent on standards for interoperability and trustworthiness. The more standards are used, the less likely solutions will be proprietary and not talk to each other.

In December 2023, the Standardization Landscape for CitiVerse was published by European standardization experts, listing around 350 standards and other deliverables. It includes standards such as ISO/IEC 30141 for an IoT reference architecture, and the future ISO/IEC 3018 for a digital twin architecture, both published by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 41, as well as IEC 63205 for a smart cities reference architecture, published by the IEC Systems Committee for Smart Cities.

In addition, the IEC has recently joined forces with ISO to create a new joint technical committee, ISO/IEC JTC 4, which prepares standards for smart and sustainable cities and communities. The committee aims to build on the existing work of the IEC and ISO to foster the development of standards in fields such as sustainability, community infrastructure, digitalization, and more.

“We strongly value the long-standing collaboration between international standards organizations such as the IEC and ISO. Our goal is not to reinvent the wheel, but to build on the excellent work already done. Frameworks being developed will help cities think from the start about the technical structures they need to adopt the citiverse effectively,” Bueti concludes.

 

 

Drone cinematography achieves lift off with Helicopter Girls

my interview & words for RED Digital Cinema

article here

Drones have revolutionized the potential for aerial cinematography with powerful shots and never-before-seen camera movement. The latest exhilarating development is first person view (FPV) shots giving audiences an immersive experience of diving down the sides of buildings, scooting between trees at phenomenal speeds, chasing cars or zipping over jungle rapids.

No company has done more to innovate this growing aspect of visual storytelling than The Helicopter Girls, a UK-based global drone services company which has created aerial shots for Fast X, Peaky Blinders, Wonka, Saltburn, The Diplomat, Bridgerton, The Witcher, Paddington in Peru, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale and Wicked. 

“We first encountered FPV in 2016 when we read about 15-year-old British pilot Luke Bannister winning the drone racing world championships in Dubai,” explains Emma Boswell, co-founder of The Helicopter Girls. “We recognized that if we could harness the sheer agility of the drones and the raw skill of the racing pilots that FPV would bring us a new language in aerial cinematography.”

With its skilled fleet of FPV pilots – including Bannister - experienced camera operators and engineers, The Helicopter Girls continues to push the boundaries of cinematic FPV.

“Our goal was to bring FPV into a dual operated discipline, stabilising the horizon and enabling pilot and camera operator to master a new style of flight and a level of storytelling that would open many more possibilities,” says Katya Nelhams-Wright who co-founded the company in 2011.

Such innovation would not be possible without a system that enables small, lightweight drones to fly accurately at speeds of 110 mph while recording action at cinema quality.

“Cinema-quality cameras have been getting smaller and lighter which has allowed us to develop FPV drones with high performance and a small footprint which enables us to move the camera into spaces a larger drone wouldn’t fit,” Boswell says. “For us, that camera family is RED.”

The Helicopter Girls worked on the aerial sequences for Universal’s Oscar-nominated musical fantasy Wicked. The aerials in Wicked: Part 1 were largely captured using heavy lift drones carrying RED MONSTRO paired with Panavision Ultra Panatars.

Filming Wicked: For Good, the team worked with Sam Renton, second unit director of photography, to execute a thrilling FPV forest chase sequence on location.

“It was an especially challenging environment to work in to achieve the shots that Sam wanted,” explains drone camera operator Will Roth who planned and shot the sequence with Bannister. “The ability to manoeuvre in tight spaces at speed was key. We needed the smallest camera possible with the highest resolution possible and something that would be suitable for a relatively heavy VFX sequence.

“RAPTOR was the obvious choice,” Roth says. “The RF mount gave us plenty of lens options so we could choose some smaller, quality lenses to cover the VistaVision (VV) sensor.”

“The FPV work that Luke and Will managed to achieve was incredible,” Renton informed British Cinematographer. “The speed they flew at and the accuracy they delivered enabled us to think differently about a sequence that, without their ability, may have ended up boring and pedestrian.”

What was extraordinary about this shot was that it was accomplished using a gimballed FPV, an innovation that is set to take aerial cinematography to new heights.

“It's very difficult to fix and balance any cine-style camera and cine lens on a FPV drone let alone one carrying a gimbal and achieve superb quality images,” explains Boswell. “What Luke and Will were able to do is to tune the aircraft carrying a very small form factor RS 3 gimbal optimized for V-RAPTOR. You wouldn’t think we’d be able to fly with the top-mounted gimbal, but Luke’s engineering is so exceptional that we've been able to fly V-RAPTOR in this tiny configuration. The images are incredibly stable straight out of the camera. It doesn't need any stabilization. We were able to thread the drone through tiny spaces at incredible speed.”

With a fully stabilized head the DP now has control over pan, tilt and revolve to point the camera wherever the action is and achieve dynamic shots which couldn’t previously be achieved.

“A gimballed FPV flown by the phenomenal partnership of Luke and Will offers the director and DoP so much more agility and it adds this incredible layer of dynamism,” Boswell says. “With V-RAPTOR we've got a remarkable 8.1K full-frame camera in these extraordinary positions. There's nothing else that matches it.”

Helicopter Girls’ has subsequently flown gimballed FPV with the V-RAPTOR for Ben Davis BSC on Stuntnuts: The Movie, an action film directed by Damien Walters; and for Ben Smithard BSC on the recently released Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. Here Roth and Bannister captured incredible FPV shots of racehorses on the V-RAPTOR with Zeiss CP3 100mm.

“What’s remarkable about that shot is that it doesn't look like it could possibly be from a drone,” says Boswell. “It looks like it should be from a tracking vehicle or a wire-cam. It's an astonishing sequence and certainly an exciting direction for FPV. The V-RAPTOR is just brilliant for that work.”

For Knuckles, the miniseries created for Paramount+, based on characters from Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog video game, Helicopter Girls created a FPV shot inside bowling alley.

“It's all about performance-to-weight ratio,” Roth says. “We can fly whatever you want to fly but usually the pilot will prefer to fly the most agile and powerful platform with the smallest package. V-RAPTOR is the ideal cinema package.”

Agile drone arrays for volume plates

Drones capable of lifting heavier payloads are necessary for capturing high resolution plates destined for VFX or playback on a volume stage. Helicopter Girls has developed three types of array optimized for RED’s KOMODO: A toe-in 3-camera configuration; a bespoke 3-camera 181-degree array and a 360-degree 4-camera array with Laowa 12mm lenses. Every lens is calibrated for zero distortion with timecode, sync and run/stop control. Plus, the drones have full permission for flying in congested areas.

Indeed, under new regulations, The Helicopter Girls is set to be the only drone company with authorisation to operate drones over 25kg in European territories.

“For safety, you’ve always got to consider a drones’ weight in relation to proximity near people,” Boswell advises. “So, when we design multi-cam arrays we want to provide something which is practical for clients to use. You don't want anything that's heavier than 35kg which would preclude operation in London, for example.

“It's really important for us that we keep the form factor small enough to be usable while retaining the ability for cinematographers to shoot full frame lenses. There's no point having a large array if you can't fly it within 150 meters of the public and can only use it on location miles from anywhere.”

Helicopter Girls can now provide its clients with unparalleled flexibility, cost savings and continuity for productions shooting in popular European film hubs including Malta, Spain and Italy.

For Paramount+ spy thriller The Agency starring Micheal Fassbender, Helicopter Girls’ Chief Pilot and Engineer Pete Ayriss was asked by the show’s VFX Supervisor Matt Kasmir to adapt their 3-camera array to increase the field of view for background plates captured at 181-degrees.

The plate shoot for Sony Pictures’ Paddington in Peru was led by 2nd Unit Director/DP John Sorapure in Colombia’s remote rainforests. Helicopter Girls partnered with local drone operator Eagle Films on the eight-week prep and shoot and supplied five drones including an Alta X lifting a three-KOMODO array and another operating with V-RAPTOR.

None of the cast travelled to Colombia so the plate shoot was critical as the backdrop against which all the action took place. A POV of Paddington’s boat hurtling down whitewater required particular technical precision. The combination of high velocity, the unpredictability of the rapids and the positioning of the camera as low as possible, made it exceptionally demanding.

“Along the route there were a couple of big boulders that were fairly close together so to make the shot more dynamic I flew the drone right between them as low as possible,” reports drone operator Aaron Cole.

Aerials integrated into the camera team

While primarily a drone filming company Helicopter Girls increasingly sees itself as a creative technology hub.

“We keep up to date with our inventory and certainly find that it’s very helpful to have REDs in-house,” says Boswell. “We want KOMODOs and RAPTORs here because we need them all the time. If they are not out flying on production we are prepping them for the next shoot or designing and testing with drones in R&D. We prefer to have anything that we use on the FPV drones in-house because we're doing so much development and innovation.”

With drones integral to so many productions, Helicopter Girls are also on a mission to embed their unit with the camera team as much as possible.

“We're doing everything we can to integrate with camera teams because the earlier we talk to them the better we are able to advise on different kinds of technology, techniques and solutions,” she says. “The more we do that, the more productions are comfortable with the language of drone cinematography.

“For instance, our drone operators are adept at hand catching, hand launching and hand-offs [from operators and equipment] to maintain fluidity of shot. V-RAPTOR and KOMODO are the best quality and lightest camera for that sort of work.”

MovieLabs: Creating an industry-aligned vision for the future of media creation

IBC

How MovieLabs is building on two decades of development in film and television to help guide the future of media creation.

article here

At a time when the media and entertainment industry faces changes from everywhere all at once, studio joint venture technology research lab MovieLabs offers a clearer vision and path for the future. For two decades, it has built practical solutions to real world problems by working closely together with industry stakeholders.

It’s an approach that has produced tangible results. Whether lifting media out of proprietary silos, mapping a path toward collaboration in the cloud or guiding the secure, interoperable use of artificial intelligence, the primary focus is never about technology for technology’s sake. It is to empower creative teams to be able to achieve more.

If workflows can adapt to new situations and technologies, then creativity can be more flexible. If production processes are automated and sped up without losing creative control, there’s simply more of the most precious resource – time.

Despite its foundation by Hollywood Studios with the name 'Movie' in the title, these ideas have resonated far beyond film and TV. In January 2025, the independent research lab launched the MovieLabs Industry Forum to embrace new members with companies spanning technology to talent, from global industry leader to start-up. The collective aim is to enable creativity with greater efficiency and flexibility, in the knowledge that no one company can do so alone.

“The MovieLabs 2030 Vision is now the industry's vision for the future of media creation,” says Richard Berger, MovieLabs CEO.

The MovieLabs origin story

At the time of founding in 2006, the film and TV industry was beginning a generational transition away from physical media to digital delivery. This required the entire infrastructure for distribution and protection to be standardised and upgraded with more efficient, more secure workflows using the latest technologies and software systems.

For 15 years, the organisation’s efforts were central to a number of standards, common specifications and best practices that streamlined and automated distribution chains and secured creative assets. The goal was always to deliver new experiences to viewing audiences worldwide.

Its achievements include a suite of specifications for online distribution (MovieLabs Digital Distribution Framework (MDDF)) and the Entertainment ID Registry (EIDR), a universal unique identifier for content that automated digital distribution of film and TV titles just as UPC codes had revolutionised traditional retail. Both technologies won technical Emmys for their contribution to the industry.

Further work devising the Enhanced Content Protection (ECP) scheme helped secure digital content for consumer distribution of new formats, including UltraHD and HDR. Widely implemented since 2013, the latest updates to ECP were published in August 2024 in response to evolving threats.

Launching the 2030 Vision

In 2019, while continuing to innovate in distribution, MovieLabs opened a parallel track in media creation. Building on its heritage as a forum for cross-company cooperation, MovieLabs engaged its studio members and, crucially, the wider production, post-production and technology community. It quickly found alignment around a bold vision that extended production, post and VFX into the cloud, commonly referred to as the MovieLabs 2030 Vision.

It helped that MovieLabs is an independent non-profit. Since it doesn’t make products or services, it is not in competition with any of the companies it works with, clearing the way to focus on a common agenda.

“We could bring in market competitors to sit side by side in our meetings and on our panels,” says Berger. “We have competing cloud companies and creative application companies talking together. This is essential to achieve interoperability. Our formula is to be very transparent about where we're going and what we're doing.”

The outcome was a blueprint for the evolution of media creation. This 10-year plan for a more efficient media pipeline established principles for moving all assets to the cloud, for a security and access methodology based on Zero Trust and for standardised deployment of software-defined workflows. Additionally, MovieLabs has released the Ontology for Media Creation (OMC) and continues to extend its functionality. The OMC is a set of defined terms and a common data model enabling interoperability between people, organisations, and software.

“Creative enablement is at the heart of what we're doing,” explains Berger. “We want to facilitate more secure, efficient, and interoperable media creation workflows where creators can choose whichever tools and services they want and just know they’ll work seamlessly together. We're enabling friction-free collaboration from wherever you are and whatever tools you're on.”

Fortunately, MovieLabs developed the concept before COVID hit, when the entire world had to pivot to remote distributed connections overnight. In a post-pandemic world, everyone understands there are many good reasons to keep doing it this way.

Eddie Drake, SVP/CTO of Disney Studio Technology, says: “The economic landscape has changed, but the Vision is still extremely relevant. While we have to be more efficient, we also have to enable the best experiences we can for the creative community.”

Practical action, tangible benefits

The 2030 Vision was never a prediction or a proscription; instead, it is the ‘North Star’ and blueprint to guide the industry. “The reason why the 2030 mission is still relevant is because it is a set of principles for making the future what we want it to be,” says Drake.

Since every cog in the machine is moving at a different pace it was always likely that the transition in some parts of the industry will happen into the next decade. At the same time, dozens of companies have already implemented parts of the Vision. MovieLabs has been collecting some of these case studies as public reference points under the 2030 Showcase Program.

This series of case studies recognises an array of organisations, including Lionsgate, Riot Games, Marvel Studios, the Royal Opera House and Accenture, that are applying emerging cloud and production technologies in accordance with 2030 Vision principles.

MovieLabs is now working on the next phase of implementation. The 2030 Greenlight programme matches technology companies with service providers and creatives to build and deploy solutions to everyday challenges and inefficiencies using the 2030 Vision as a template. According to Berger: “This process highlights gaps in the 2030 Vision, providing an honest assessment of what went well, where the industry needs to improve, and how the vendor community can help in solving issues.”

“While we’ve made meaningful progress, there’s still important work ahead for the industry,” says Drake. “I’m excited to see the solutions we'll build together.”

Dealing with the security challenge

Perhaps the biggest hurdle in the 2030 roadmap is production security. Swapping out decades of ingrained thinking in terms of locking down a physical facility, to one based on a Zero Trust approach to data on a network, is a monumental piece of change management.

Berger explains: “Productions are naturally very risk-averse, so changes to any aspect are very challenging. Most security today isn't security by design. It is security as an add-on after the workflow has been designed. There’s a perception that better security will get in the way of the creative process but doesn’t need to be the case.”

MovieLabs has prioritised a Zero Trust education program and has also partnered with the Trusted Partner Network (TPN) which writes and maintains Motion Picture Association content security best practices. One of MovieLabs’ key messages is the principle of ‘least privilege’. This fundamental concept in information security states that a user, process, or program should have access to only the specific data, resources, and applications necessary to perform its intended function. Least privilege aims to minimise the risk of unauthorised access and misuse of sensitive information.

“Security requires a lot of planning,” says Drake. “Applying Zero Trust to legacy infrastructure is tough. It's easier when we can look at greenfield opportunities and design Zero Trust from scratch without legacy facilities.”

Industry Forum for dialogue

Work on developing and implementing the 2030 Vision is grounded in the MovieLabs Industry Forum. This provides a safe space for vendors and their clients to come together in frank discussions about interoperability, cloud workflows and metadata exchange.

“Forum members can be there to tell us of a solution or advise on what we need to do to make the Vision a reality,” says Drake. “For us, the Forum is invaluable because we can provide insights that inform vendor roadmaps. We can talk about the technology challenges that we're seeing with vendors who can then bring that information back to their dev teams and react to it.” He adds: “We also hear a lot from vendors that it's much easier to enhance their products to reach the goals of the Vision when studios are all aligned. At the end of the day, we need to be working together to move the industry forward.”

Yoshikazu Takashima, SVP Advanced Technology at Sony Pictures Entertainment, agrees: “MovieLabs has access to a wide community of creatives, technologists and academics who can collectively test ideas far quicker than we could alone. We appreciate the honest, direct feedback we get at the Forum.”

Future media creation through 2030

As technology has converged and video as a communications tool has become ubiquitous, a far wider community of technology companies and creative businesses has coalesced around the 2030

Vision. The MovieLabs Industry Forum has expanded to facilitate common ground for any company that is actively re-inventing and re-tooling its supply chains in alignment with the 2030 Vision.

Nearly 50 organizations as diverse as Final Draft, United Talent Agency, Prime Focus Technologies, and Bria.ai have joined forces with the Forum’s Leadership Council (Adobe, AWS, Avid, Dolby, DreamWorks Animation, Microsoft, Paramount Global, Skywalker Sound, Slalom, Sony Pictures Entertainment, The Walt Disney Studios, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. Discovery) to shape the future. The door is open to technology and creative service providers, application developers, production companies, and infrastructure providers.

“Only by embracing expertise across the entire digital media value chain will the industry be able to align on, collaborate and solve issues common to all,” affirms Leon Silverman, Chair of the MovieLabs Industry Forum.

Where some see only uncertainty and fragmentation, the MovieLabs Industry Forum points toward the future of media production.

Artificial intelligence and 2030 Vision

No issue is more urgent than assessing the impact of artificial intelligence. There are many dimensions to the technology so it’s worth stressing that MovieLabs’ focus is on how AI can be applied in the context of helping achieve the 2030 vision.

“We coined the term IA (intelligent automation) as a powerful combination with AI,” says Berger. “That pairing can be very effective in taking some of the mundane tasks out of the workflow. Using AI for more creative tasks is a choice for creative teams like any other creative technology.”

Pertinent questions for MovieLabs Industry Forum include ‘Can AI enhance interoperability?’ ‘Is there a common approach to improving GenAI outputs?’ ‘Would a standard vocabulary for training AI models be beneficial?’ And ‘How do you track the provenance of creations from both genAI and humans within a workflow’? Since AI introduces new threats and security considerations – as well as potential solutions for defence – the risk and merits for content protection are another key consideration.

At a crucial point in the industry’s evolution, MovieLabs stands as a beacon for collaboration for a future that honours the past while embracing innovation.

“It is essential to continue to embrace emerging technologies in ways that empower storytellers and the entire creative community,” Silverman says. “While much work lies ahead, we are gathering the right companies and voices to realise the 2030 Vision future that has inspired so many.”

James Crossland, EVP, Head of Global Content Operations at Warner Bros. Discovery, concludes: “We've got a huge change management challenge in front of us, but if there is a through line, we will find it in the MovieLabs Industry Forum. We will do our part to continue the mission to apply the 2030 Vision and as we find more and more use cases you will see an accelerating groundswell of adoption.”