
BT Sport on its vision for augmented live sports broadcasting becoming reality with 5G By Heather McLean, Editor
Monday, September 14, 2020 - 17:05
Print This Story
Boxing with a 3D AR version of the match on your coffee table could become a reality with BT Sport
BT Sport recently became one of the winners of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) funding boost for 5G, under the 5G Create competition.
Named 5G Edge-XR, the consortium led by BT's Media and Research teams alongside TheGridFactory, Condense Reality, Bristol University, Dance East, and Salsa Sound, will develop virtual and augmented reality experiences for live sport, working closely with BT Sport.
5G Edge-XR will enable people to view immersive sporting events from all angles, across a broader range of devices including smartphones, tablets, AR and VR headsets and TVs.
The project is worth a total of £2,558,494, with £1,486,004 of that figure coming from the DCMS out of the 5G Create competition fund. The project will run over 20 months, using 15 full time employees.
Immersive sporting experiences
Speaking to SVG Europe, Matt Stagg, BT Sport's director of mobile strategy, explained the idea behind 5G Edge-XR's goal: We've been looking for a long time at how we can provide more immersive experiences as technology evolves. We had a vision for how we can use 5G for doing exactly that, around how we can take the value we have as a broadcaster for people within stadiums and then using the technology and our capabilities [to work out] how we can bring that stadium experience into the home for people who can't go.
Already, we've got a lot of interactive and immersive things on the BT Sport app, but it's [about] how do we take that to the next level, and that's all around volumetric capture, augmented reality, and virtual reality, he notes.
This is the most exiting area of sport technology I've ever been involved in, the vision for 5G and augmented experiences for sport is coming to life
BT Sport is pushing everything within this vision under the mixed or cross reality (XR) banner, because XR really changes your actual reality to increase the experience either through immersive means or access to content and experiences you wouldn't have had otherwise, with the ability to be able to turn that on and off, to be the curator of your own experience in the home and outside of the home, notes Stagg.
Stagg wrote the vision for this project at the beginning of 2019.
View the video of this vision
He says the question now is, how do we bring this to life? He goes on: That's why I'm so excited about it is because we put a visionary video out there and everybody said that looks amazing, but people were sort of sceptical that that could ever happen or any of that could actually be done, but we were already working on it so we knew it could be done, but we didn't know how to do it at scale or what the correct architecture was, and how that worked out from a commercial viewpoint, from a technical viewpoint, you know, can we do these things?
Realistically we have to do a proof of concept to make sure this work, but the learnings from that will come out [as we work out how to] do something commercially; is there a model for this? Is it too processor intensive or is it unrealistic now that we know how much [processing power] it takes to do it?
MotoGP is working with the 5G Edge-XR consortium to bring the millions of data points captured in each race to your living room
Creating and testing
Making this work in a live sports environment for distribution to wearable devices involves volumetric capture. That may include a set up using 16 x stereo pairs in four vertical clusters, capture with 32 x 4K cameras at 120fps, eight capture PCs, 1 Fusion PC to encode and contribute, cloud processing and encoding, cloud-based editorial tools, and delivery to apps at 30Mbps.
Ingest will go over fibre or 5G, depending on what is available, while distribution will go out over the 5G network. Location and tracking from the wearable devices will need to feed back into the system with 10ms to 30ms latency to create a realistic, enhanced XR experience for the end user.
A number of use cases are going to be the object of the project, including one with the data-rich sport of MotoGP to create a sports fan experience delivered over 5G and powered by edge cloud compute GPU facilities, enabling a photoreal, real time MotoGP Viewing Suite to be rendered and streamed to viewers' smartphones, tablets and headset devices.
I'm really, really passionate about this because it's limitless. Some of these experiences will change the future way of how some things are done
The MotoGP demonstrator will focus on a 5G delivered cloud XR rendered AR experiences, using high polygon (5M) 3D models, multiple video streams, immersive audio and data integration. Among other functionalities, it will hopefully deliver a video wall of multiple live race video streams with corresponding immersive audio, a 3D track view of riders, immersive halos for 8K 360 video, and rider and team profiles, stats and a replay area.
Comments Stagg: We've been working on a demonstration MotoGP. MotoGP is a very good way of showing what augmented experiences can bring because you have so many data points and so much content coming from it, and then you look at how you create your own experiences from that data.
Another demonstrator will be with a boxing event, allowing a real time virtual volumetric hologram to be interacted with on the viewer's coffee table at home, allowing them to watch live action and replays from all angles, simultaneously alongside BT Sport's live feed, creating an editorially-driven experience including commentary.
Yet another demonstrat
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...
07/08/2025
July 8 2025, 22:30 (PDT) Tata Motors & Dolby Bring Dolby Atmos to Harrier.ev, R...
12/07/2025
Ryan Coogler accepting the 2013 Vanguard Award. Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez.
Editor's Note: In honor of Fruitvale Station s 12th anniversary, we're d...
12/07/2025
Key Code Education, the professional training division of Key Code Media, proudly announces a major update to its Adobe Premiere Pro Engineering and Advanced Op...
12/07/2025
Key Code Education, a leader in instructor-led post production training for over...
12/07/2025
As the death toll continues to mount, with at least 120 killed and more than 170 people still missing on July 10 from devastating Texas floods, a number of broa...
12/07/2025
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., and MIAMI -DirecTV and TelevisaUnivision have signed a deal that will make the ad-supported premium subscription tier of ViX, ViX Premium wi...
11/07/2025
PARK CITY, UTAH, July 11, 2025 - The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the 11 producers chosen for its annual Producers Labs, returning to Ucross Fou...
11/07/2025
If you've ever wondered what might be playing in Clark Kent's headphones...
11/07/2025
L3Harris Technologies President of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Jason Lambert and General Manager of L3Harris Waco facility Sean Ling held a ce...
11/07/2025
ARLINGTON, Va. WETA, the flagship public media station in the national capital area, has launched WETA+, a new streaming service tailored for the local Washingt...
11/07/2025
The Federal Communications Commission has emerged as one of the central players in the broadcast TV landscape in 2025, with its deregulatory policies sparking h...
11/07/2025
Calrec will introduce usability, customization and system enhancements across its entire range of Argo consoles during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Amsterda...
11/07/2025
LONDON Encompass Digital Media said it will support live and on-demand viewing of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup across multiple global regions for sports enterta...
11/07/2025
Two-thirds of broadcast engineers reaped the benefits of a pay raise within the last year....
11/07/2025
CARY, N.C. SmallHD has launched the Quantum 27, a new 26.5-inch Quantum-Dot OLED monitor designed to deliver postproduction image quality in a compact, set-frie...
11/07/2025
The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau and Tegna have entered into a consent decree that will settle an investigation into the accidenta...
11/07/2025
WASHINGTON Following news in early July that Paramount had settled President Donald Trump's lawsuit, Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Ben Ray Luj n (D-N...
11/07/2025
Model/Actriz Performs Lead Single Cinderella on The Late Show with Stephen Colbe...
11/07/2025
Behind the Mic: Amazon Prime Preps for First Season of NBA Action; MSG Networks ...
11/07/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Suite Studios' Craig Hering on Adapting to Client...
11/07/2025
2025 SVG Content Management Forum Breaks Down AI's Impact, Continued Transit...
11/07/2025
A Journey HOME: University of Nebraska's HuskerVision Goes IP Leaders from the HuskerVision and Lawo share their IP learnings By SVG Staff
Friday, July 1...
11/07/2025
CMSI, Remote Picture Labs, Ace ESPN's Cloud-Based Editing Efforts for Wimble...
11/07/2025
Netflix Enters the Live-Boxing-Production Ring for Round 2 With Historic Taylor-...
11/07/2025
Back to All News
Too Hot to Handle: Italy Is Coming on July 18 Only on Netflix
Entertainment
11 July 2025
GlobalItaly
Link copied to clipboard
July 11, 20...
11/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Will Release Death Inc. Seasons 1, 2 and 3
Entertainment
11 July 2025
GlobalSpain
Link copied to clipboard
Season 1
Season 2
Se...
11/07/2025
AI and Multimedia Authenticity Standards Collaboration launches two papers to guide the future of AI integration, today at the AI for Good Global Summit
The...
11/07/2025
Ceramics - the humble mix of earth, fire and artistry - have been part of a global conversation for millennia.
From Tang Dynasty trade routes to Renaissance pa...
10/07/2025
The current holder of the prestigious Thomson Foundation Young Journalist of the Year Award has been forced to stop reporting over fears for her safety in Afgha...
10/07/2025
Spotify is turning up the volume on Australian music with a multipronged initiative designed to highlight the dominance of Australian artists on the global stag...
10/07/2025
This is not a drill: Oasis is back on the road-marking its first live performanc...
10/07/2025
The music industry depends on fresh ideas, bold voices, and emerging talent. Yet across the U.K., too many young musicians lack the space to develop their craft...
10/07/2025
NEW YORK - July 10, 2025 - Nielsen, the global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics, today announced that it appointed Richard Pacheco as head of ...
10/07/2025
Local newscasts don't exist in a vacuum. News directors and station management constantly evaluate what's working, what isn't and perhaps most impor...
10/07/2025
Lawo has announced that Stuttgart Media University (Hochschule der Medien, HdM) has comprehensively modernized its central recording studio after selecting an I...
10/07/2025
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) has opened early-bird registration for the Media Technology Summit, which will take place in a ne...
10/07/2025
NASHVILLE, Tenn. TNDV Television has launched Aspiration 35, a new version of its 40-foot Aspiration truck reimagined for cinematic multicamera productions....
10/07/2025
BURBANK, Calif. Key Code Education, a provider of instructor-led postproduction training, is growing its curriculum with new programs for beginner and intermedi...
10/07/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. Actus Digital will demonstrate how broadcasters can transform compliance monitoring from a necessary expense into a strategic revenue driver at...
10/07/2025
The Federal Register has published a summary of the Federal Communications Commission's Public Notice seeking comments on its ownership rules that lists a d...
10/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Presents the Official Trailer for SuperestarPlay Video
Play Video
Entertainment
10 July 2025
GlobalSpain
Link copied to clipboard...
10/07/2025
In the race to understand our planet's changing climate, speed and accuracy are everything. But today's most widely used climate simulators often strugg...
10/07/2025
As one of the world's largest emerging markets, Indonesia is making strides toward its Golden 2045 Vision - an initiative tapping digital technologies and...
10/07/2025
10 Jul 2025
VEON and Cohen Circle Secure Investor Commitments for Kyivstar Listing Kyiv, New York, Dubai, and Philadelphia - July 10, 2025 - VEON Ltd. (Nasdaq:...
10/07/2025
5G for all? What the DFL's use of Easy5G and RefCam could mean for events in...
10/07/2025
Save the Date: PGA TOUR Studios Welcomes SVG Remote Production Summit on Oct 14-...
10/07/2025
Cloud on the Road: How Remote-Production-Service Providers Are Adapting to a New...
10/07/2025
Seattle Kraken's Ryan Schaber on the NHL Team Taking Live Game Productions I...