Live From Paris 2024: OBS's Matt Millington on the Expanded Use of Athletes Moment' and Launching an AR Studio OBS digital efforts take leap as the power of video beyond the big screen continues to grow By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Thursday, August 8, 2024 - 5:41 am
Print This Story
The efforts that OBS puts into digital-related projects and services continue to expand. At the Paris Games, the effort is highlighted by an AR studio for athletes at the Olympic Village, the expansion of Athletes Moments to more venues, and content components of the OBS Video Player made available as widgets for easy integration into a rightsholder's own apps and digital environments.
OBS has traded virtual reality for augmented reality, most notably with an augmented-reality studio in the Olympic Village, where athletes can do interviews with rightsholders or have OBS staffers shoot social-media clips. The beauty of augmented reality for us, says Matt Millington, director, digital content production, OBS, is that it is super-easy to distribute, with no app required, no special equipment.
The studio has 29 cameras in a circle to capture the actions of an athlete in the middle of the circle. The signals from the cameras are processed, and CPUs synthesize all the angles with audio. The end clip is a high-quality digital representation of the athlete that the viewer can spin around and view from any direction.
OBS's Matt Millington in an AR studio that is located at the IBC and is similar to the one at the Olympic Village
When they do a back flip or do flares on floor, says Millington, you can spin them around and look at them, pause them and look at them. It gives a really good perspective on the athlete's movement.
A couple of render passes improve the quality, he adds, noting that, in less than an hour, the clip is ready for distribution. Athletes can distribute content on their own social media, and a library of clips is accessible by rightsholders and national organizing committees.
Because this AR image of Matt Millington in the studio was live, its quality does not match the final quality once the image has been rendered a few times.
The intention was to get a mixture of styles of content, says Millington. We've got some people doing sport guides or showing their poses for things like throwing a javelin or their training exercises. But we've also got lots of humorous and goofy ones, which is actually what they tend to prefer to do. We've got probably more of those than we have of the sporty ones, but we've got a good mix.
There had been concern that the athletes might not want to do it, but there has been a ton of athlete interest. And the athletes themselves have benefited: in performing a skill, they can see their form from all angles - suggesting the potential for the technology to become a training aid.
We've done around 900 videos, says Millington. Some of those have two, three, or four athletes as they do a group video. That means we've probably got more than 1,000 athletes taking part, which is way more than we anticipated.
Helping drive athlete enthusiasm is that, in many respects, this year's Games are the first involving a large number of athletes who have grown up with social media and understand the power a clip can have in reaching current fans and making new ones. Some athletes' poses or moves, for example, are trending on TikTok. And they're familiar with vertical video, adds Millington, which is how we're presenting it.
As for the interviews, rightsholders can tap into the augmented-reality set from either the IBC or their home-country studio. We can offer a live interview with an athlete in either 2D or 3D, depending on their integration capability, says Millington. If they're able to use something like Unreal Engine in a virtual studio, we give them the 3D version. The beauty of that is, they can pan around the athlete with their camera.
Rightsholders are in more of a test mode with that feature, he notes, but it could possibly be an important production tool for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, given the long distances between event clusters. We could give instant access to the athletes for a rightsholder who is unable to have teams in every one of these locations. Then we will really see the benefits.
Expanding the Athletes Moment Project Millington and his team oversee the Athletes Moment, a workflow born out of the pandemic to bring some emotion to venues where there were no fans. A video-conference call, using a large TV monitor, is set up between the athlete at the venue (and prior to their hitting the mixed zone for interviews) and family or friends at a remote location. The technical infrastructure for Athletes Moment has been expanded to include about 20 sports.
The athletes loved it, says Millington. Coming to Paris, obviously, there are crowds, so there was a concern that maybe it wouldn't be as popular. But there are a lot of families who cannot make it to Paris for a number of reasons, so we decided to keep going, and it's doing really well. With several days still to go, we've already got more Athlete Moments than we did for Tokyo 2020.
The workflow once again involves a control room in Brussels, where the Moments are coordinated with moderators at each venue (family members are sent a link with instructions on when to dial in), and the quality of the experience has been improved. We fined-tuned it a bit so it looks nicer than in the past, says Millington. There is also no jarring delay. The production team at the venue now has a pure live feed, which is a big improvement. In addition, we can handle about 12 Moments at once.
The Athletes Moment is available to all the athletes, not just medal hopefuls and those expected to do well
North America Stories
16/07/2026
This recent graduate and Georgia native has turned an early fascination with live production into a growing passion for camera work
In the live-sports-video in...
16/07/2026
TNDV is marking the first anniversary of Aspiration 35, a mobile production truck built around ARRI Alexa 35 Live camera systems. Over its first year, the truck...
16/07/2026
ATSC has completed a major revision to its A/85 Recommended Practice: Techniques...
16/07/2026
FloSports has announced an exclusive global media partnership with CrossFit for the 2026 CrossFit Games, presented by Air National Guard, beginning July 21 in S...
16/07/2026
Sennheiser has released firmware version 1.4 for its Spectera wireless system and announced the Spectera Command Button (Cat. No. 701014). The update adds comma...
16/07/2026
ESPN and the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) have announced a multi-year...
16/07/2026
Audio-Technica has announced the 20 Series Control Application, a Stream Deck plug-in for compatible Audio-Technica USB microphones. The application is compatib...
16/07/2026
The fifteenth season of The Voice - La plus belle voix on TF1 used four Solid St...
16/07/2026
Gray Media and the Atlanta Hawks have announced a broadcast partnership that wil...
16/07/2026
Season 3 of Netflix's docuseries, which dropped this week, follows Jayden Da...
16/07/2026
The Texas Rangers and Rangers Sports Network presented by Progressive (RSN) have announced BZZR as the new direct-to-consumer distributor for Rangers game broad...
16/07/2026
With England's FIFA World Cup 2026 team getting ready to fly home after losi...
16/07/2026
In a return to Royal Birkdale, the team enjoys partnering with ETP and Gravity M...
16/07/2026
Along with a new studio at Ball Arena, the Colorado-based RSN is working with XR...
16/07/2026
Austria was back at the World Cup for the first time in 28 years, and the team d...
16/07/2026
With 42 RF cameras and high-power radio mics deployed, the spectrum environment ...
16/07/2026
June brought stabilization to the television market. Poles spent an average of 3 hours and 36 minutes a day in front of their TV screens exactly the same as i...
16/07/2026
Glensound returns to IBC with a major new addition to its intelligent loudspeaker range, the Greater Divine Supernal studio monitor, alongside recent developmen...
16/07/2026
33 leading exhibitors are taking part in the GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland Pavilions and linked locations across IBC2026 (Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September)...
16/07/2026
Hitomi Broadcast will introduce Spectra, a new HDR colour verification solution measured in picture, not using VPID, at IBC2026 (Hall 10, Stand A40). Expanding ...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Zixi, a leader in live video delivery and workflow orchestration, and Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) today announced a strategic new integration to deliver ...
16/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Capture Immersive Flight for New Cirrus App
Brie Clayton July 15, 2026
0 Comments
Leader in Personal Aviation taps URSA Cin...
16/07/2026
XenData Announces LTO Archive Appliances with both File and S3 Object Storage In...
16/07/2026
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is coming to GeForce NOW at launch, with the playable...
15/07/2026
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is a big deal for DAZN, which has distribution rights in three markets: Italy, Spain, and Japan. Each requires a different editorial app...
15/07/2026
As sports-media organizations manage rapidly growing content libraries and incre...
15/07/2026
HBS director of digital Johannes Franken talks SVG Europe through the operation built to serve FIFA World Cup 2026 rights holders remotely from Stratford, east ...
15/07/2026
IBC has unveiled the conference program for IBC2026, with this year's event ...
15/07/2026
Software-defined wideband RF platform supports 96-kHz monitoring, streamlined fr...
15/07/2026
New AI-powered module enables broadcasters and content owners to extract dialogu...
15/07/2026
Weeklong gathering at EBU headquarters will test new IPMX capabilities and expand certified product ecosystem...
15/07/2026
Force Tech has announced the appointment of Bryan Adams, CTS, as Vice President of Integration. Adams will oversee AV and broadcast integration project delivery...
15/07/2026
USA Sports has announced an exclusive English-language agreement with the Bundes...
15/07/2026
ITV Sport's FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage has been produced from one of the m...
15/07/2026
Program will provide professional camera kits, training, and technical support to participating local newsrooms...
15/07/2026
San Francisco church becomes first U.S. deployment of the 2 M/E production switcher...
15/07/2026
Former ESPN and NFL Network executive to advise startup league on media, distribution, technology, and fan engagement...
15/07/2026
The Houston-based RSN is the live-game home of the Astros and Rockets...
15/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
15/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
15/07/2026
GigaCloud, a leading Ukrainian cloud service provider, and Cubbit, the first geo-distributed cloud storage enabler, today announced a new Business Alliance Part...
15/07/2026
SMPTE, the global society for media professionals, technologists, and engineers, has announced the launch of the SMPTE 110th Anniversary Campaign, a fundraising...
15/07/2026
Studio Technologies, a leading manufacturer of high-quality audio, video, and fiber-optic solutions, unveils the new StudioComm Model 762 Stereo Level Control, ...
15/07/2026
COW Jobs: Producer, Virtual Events - Hybrid, Full Time, Salaried
Brie Clayton July 15, 2026
0 Comments
Producer, Virtual Events (Hybrid | Full-time | ...
Live From Paris 2024: OBS's Matt Millington on the Expanded Use of Athletes Moment' and Launching an AR Studio OBS digital efforts take leap as the power of video beyond the big screen continues to grow By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
