Live from the Supercup: Softseed demos world first live 360 10K stream By Adrian Pennington
Tuesday, August 20, 2024 - 09:22
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German football league executives are buzzed about the prospect of immersive experiences and took a step closer to that goal with a claimed world-first demo of a system delivering a whopping 10K resolution VR live stream of the Supercup hosted at Leverkusen's BayArena, last Saturday (17 August).
This is not just the premiere in terms of football, this is a world premiere, said Stefan Kiwit of DFL production and technology partner Softseed ahead of the match. Of course, we have tested it, but we haven't done this live before.
Softseed is a Berlin-based startup formed early 2023 by executives with an academic and media background. It markets three products, the most important of which is called Plaiground which streams live 360 video to next-generation head-mounted displays using what Kiwit claims is a groundbreaking technology.
Every tech company says that it is groundbreaking but this really is because it offers immersive reality life experiences, he said.
The company has put together an end-to-end system from capture to display that guarantees low latency (claimed under 35 seconds glass to glass) with a consistent quality of 10K in 3D at 90Hz and a colour depth of 10bit.
Its main value lies in software able to process all of this at 1TB of data per minute.
This patented solution is based on a novel 3DIR codec which execs said was an adaptation of the MV-HEVC codec, a multiview extension of HEVC, developed by Fraunhofer ISS and for which Softseed is a test partner.
The demo at the Supercup was experienced on the Apple Vision Pro the only display currently able to reproduce a 10K resolution , but Kiwit expects all major head-mounted displays to come to market with similar panels.
Our system is agnostic to the end display and works with any operating system, he said.
The live feed is also in stereo. This would seem from SVG Europe's inspection to be processed by software rather than captured natively as 3D. One of the developer's trio of products, Loki (pronounced looky') is claimed to convert 2D video data into native 3D in real time. Further, Loki is capable of fusing two separate 180 3D video streams into a seamless 360 3D image in 8K or 10K resolution. It also uses AI-powered compute to compose, encrypt and adapt the data to the user's individual playback device.
The camera system itself is still under evaluation with three different versions used in the BayArena. These were a Insta360 8K camera, a 12K 360 camera from Chinese firm KanDao and eight cameras from an unspecified Chinese manufacturer configured in a 360-array.
Quizzed on this, Softseed said the feed from this camera array was ingested raw at 80K (8 x 10K sensors) before processing.
The production of the base signal can't be achieved with any normal camera, Kiwit said. We tried to work with existing cameras but no camera in the world was able to supply what we need. So we tried to work on software solutions for existing hardware. We've pushed some hardware providers to change the things we need to do because otherwise you can't get a resolution over 6K.
He continued: We are under 35 seconds latency which is superfast even compared to broadcast which is 45-second latency and especially when you consider we are processing 1TB of data per minute. That's why this technology is really groundbreaking because it's really difficult to handle this amount of data.
The streams are static but the viewer can move their head around 360-degrees. Just as impressively, the Supercup POC demoed three of the 360-camera positions (including one on a crane above and behind a goal and one at a corner). Any number of positions could, in theory, be switched live by the user.
You could imagine a position in the dugout putting you next to [Leverkusen manager] Xabi Alonso, said Kiwit.
Softseed was also in charge of the bespoke production of the live stream during the game.
Private tests have been made using the system on tennis with the camera positioned on the umpire's chair and with LIV Golf. Live concerts are another area of keen interest, with Adele apparently agreeing to host a demo at her run of concerts at the open-air arena Munich Messe this month where the 360-cams will be both back stage and front of house.
Kiwit was enthusiastic about the prospects for sports, fashion or music promoters to licence the tech.
Immersive data from Immersiv.io
Softseed wasn't the only immersive reality developer showcasing its development at the Supercup. French firm Immersiv.io has worked with the DFL to show how Bundesliga matches could be viewed live (in 2D, taken from the host feed) in MR headsets such as Apple Vision Pro with users able to interact with a 3D model of the action running in parallel.
It could be possible, for instance, to pause and rewind action, or click on individual players for stats and most compellingly walk around the virtual 3D model which unfolds while the live action is playing like a Subbuteo set come to life.
At last year's Supercup at the Leipzig Red Bull Arena Immersiv.io was involved in a trial of 5G networks to enable fans at the stadium to try out the features of a new in-stadium app developed jointly with DFL and Vodafone.
Read more Live from the Supercup: DFL signals intent to become best league in the world on and off the pitch
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Live from the Supercup: Softseed demos world first live 360 10K stream By Adrian Pennington 
