Paris 2024: Taking a Step Forwards with BBC Sport's Olympic Studio Combining Real and Virtual Worlds By Heather McLean, SVG Europe
Friday, July 26, 2024 - 7:46 am
Print This Story
BBC Sport is stepping up its studio game for the Paris 2024 Olympics, combining views of the legendary Eiffel Tower where the broadcaster will be based, with a classic Parisian square brought to viewers on a green screen.
BBC Sport's Olympics studio will focus on the outdoors, whether it is the real outdoors, or a virtual one
While for the Euros the BBC Sport studio combined the real view of the Brandenburg Gate with extended reality (XR) technology merged into LED screens to create a 360 degree, museum-style setting, the Olympics studio will focus on the outdoors, whether it is the real outdoors, or a virtual one.
Green screen magic BBC Sport has created its own virtual Parisian square that sits outside' the studio in the heart of the city
Paris 2024 will see XR, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) come into play with the real world, says BBC Sport design director, John Murphy. Speaking to SVG Europe from Salford just one day before the Opening Ceremony for the Olympics, he notes: In Berlin we were using LED screens with extended reality. Paris is different in the sense that we are not using LED. We have obviously a fantastic backdrop, with the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadero, which is a real hard set looking out.
But what we've done is we've created a 360 hybrid studio. We've put a green screen extension onto the reverse side of the studio, and that means then what we can do is we can go and have different standing positions in virtual areas.
Also what we've done is almost a little bit like Tokyo, where we've created our own Parisian square virtually that sits outside' the studio, so when there's moments for doing different kinds of conversation and chat, we can go into this virtual Parisian square, which is a bit more relaxed. They've got table and chairs there, but it's all in the same studio, in the small green screen space.
Murphy goes on: That gives us that flexibility of having the main presenting area with the Eiffel Tower, but then it gives us a chance to go and have two or three different breakout areas [using the green screen] to present slightly differently or to do different links, just to break up the programme and the day really.
Read more Paris 2204: BBC Sport unveils the Olympic storytelling and breathtaking scenery of the City of Dreams
Thinking back, Murphy states: This was never about creating a virtual studio to just be virtual. We know how good the real' is already; the virtual is there to compliment it editorially and to give us those little moments where you can break away from the day's coverage and just do things slightly differently. That's the whole idea behind it.
When presentation needs to change within the studio, the cameras turn from the real' view to the opposite wall, where a green screen is set up in the corner of the studio.
Says Murphy: The cameras effectively just turn themselves around and we've got a defined corner where you can have seating, stand ups and that kind of thing, and we change the virtual to marry up with that.
An exciting innovation in the studio is a virtual floor map. Murphy explains: One of the really cool things we've got with this studio as well is that we've created a virtual floor, which marries up with the real floor. We've created an underground, under-the-glass map, which can take you from where we are in reality to the different venues, and the presenters can stand on that and interact with it. That's pretty cool.
Outside the box The studio has been a work in progress for around 10 months. Murphy explains the process: Going back to October time, when we knew where we knew we had the location where we were going to be at the Eiffel Tower, we did a pitch process for designers to come and pitch a physical set design, but married with our brief which was to also combine that with a 360 design of the studio as well. Following that pitch process, Toby Kalitowski of BK Designs and Jim Mann of Lightwell, who we've worked with before on the Tokyo Olympics set, our Winter Olympics set, and our Match of the Day studio, won the pitch together.
The green screen enables BBC Sport to merge the real world view of the Eiffel Tower with virtual locations outside of the studio
What was great about their pitch is that they thought outside of the box; they gave us not just the 360 studio, but the idea of a separate square that you could go to at various times.
The BBC sport team of Murphy, BBC Sport's head of major events and general sport Ron Chakraborty, BBC Sport executive producer Sally Richardson, plus Kalitowski and Mann on the set and VR design, have colluded together to mould the ideas and technologies into the final studio.
Read more Paris 2024: BBC Sport on its remote production workflow for the Summer Games
Moov won the graphics contract pitch process, and is implementing and operating the VR and AR. Murphy says: So as well as the onscreen graphics and everything else, Moov is delivering the implementation of the studio design and controlling it for us and operating it for us, and doing the keying and the AR control and all of that. But also with that, we're using the BBC's Vizrt platform which is in Salford - we sit on that real estate anyway so we're using all of that - and we've got our own small BBC Sport graphics team, and we've had people helping Moov with that control and everything as well.
The studio is being powered by Unreal Engine for virtual rendering, plus BBC Sport's Vizrt kit which is controlling the system from Salford under the stewardship of BBC Sport senior software e
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Paris 2024: Taking a Step Forwards with BBC Sport's Olympic Studio Combining Real and Virtual Worlds By Heather McLean, SVG Europe 
