AI at the Olympics | Audiences watching the Olympics in the cloud: AR presents the trajectory of table tennis balls, and “bullet time” freezes the shining moments
2024-08-12
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Cover News reporter Ouyang Hongyu
After 60 years, the live broadcast of the Olympics has finally shifted from the "TV + satellite" era to the "cloud + AI" era.
At this year's Paris Olympics, cloud broadcasting officially surpassed satellite broadcasting and became the main way to broadcast Olympic events to billions of viewers around the world. It is understood that more than two-thirds of the live broadcast signals of the Paris Olympics will be transmitted to more than 200 countries and regions around the world through the Olympic Broadcasting Cloud. This is another major advancement in Olympic broadcasting technology since the Tokyo Olympics began using satellite TV for broadcasting in 1964.
Poor image quality and delays are the experiences of many people when watching international competitions. Nowadays, even if viewers who cannot attend the games in person watch them in real time through any terminal, they will clearly feel that the images of the Paris Olympics are of higher quality and lower delay. This is due to the fact that cloud computing has replaced satellites as the main way to broadcast Olympic events.
“Cloud + AI” broadcasting replaces satellite broadcasting
More possibilities for watching the Olympics in different ways
Walking into the broadcast room of the Paris Olympic Games International Broadcasting Center, technicians are staring at the real-time images from cameras in various stadiums on the monitor wall and selecting the best viewing angles and lenses for live signal transmission - the crucial leap, the perfect move, the fierce fight... the exciting Olympic arena is focused and magnified here.
At this Olympics, cloud computing officially replaced satellites as the main way to broadcast live Olympic events. According to reports, during the Paris Olympics, OBS Cloud, jointly built by Alibaba Cloud and Olympic Broadcasting Services, became an important infrastructure for the global broadcast of the Paris Olympics. Based on Alibaba Cloud's global public cloud infrastructure, the live broadcast signal of the Olympics can be transmitted from Paris to more than 200 countries and regions around the world. This technology has been used in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
At the same time, SenseTime's smart event broadcasting technology will also be used to broadcast the entire event of table tennis and archery in this Olympic Games. This technology can achieve multi-person, large-scale, and multi-angle scene coverage using 3D non-sensing motion capture technology without any wearable devices, and obtain spatial motion posture information in real time.
Olympic Broadcasting Services has also trained AI to automatically generate highlights based on the Intel Geti platform, which can reduce the pressure on on-site editors and directors and provide richer video content for global audiences.
In addition, based on broadcast cloud technology, AI is also used to capture wonderful moments in broadcasts. In the broadcasts of beach volleyball, tennis, judo, wrestling and other events in this Olympic Games, the director can use the AI-supported multi-lens playback system to present high-degree-of-freedom playback, allowing the audience to see athletes' enhanced slow-motion, time-still and other effects from multiple angles, just like watching the classic "bullet time" scene in science fiction movies. The principle of this technology is that through a high-speed camera array and advanced cloud computing technology, the technology will reconstruct the wonderful moments captured in real time during the game in the cloud and replay them from multiple angles. In the past, it took more than ten hours to achieve this effect, but now it only takes a few seconds.
In the view of IOC President Bach, cutting-edge technologies are helping global broadcasting organizations convey the magic of the 2024 Paris Olympics to more places and more people in a richer and more sustainable way.
Furthermore, AI may also serve as a "commentator" while acting as a "director". IBM has previously launched an AI commentator named "Henry", which is built from a large language model and has been trained with a lot of golf language habits and styles. It is currently mainly used for commentary in some golf events.
In major events such as the Olympics, the widespread use of AI technology innovation is taking the broadcasting of events to a new level. Industry insiders said that AI-supported media asset management services, which provide enhanced visual search functions, automatic classification of multimedia content, and video highlight production, have helped event organizers to truly improve efficiency in managing massive amounts of media content.
Cloud computing makes Olympic broadcasting faster and more powerful
Promoting sustainable development of sports broadcasting
The widespread application of cloud computing and artificial intelligence in Olympic broadcasting has provided more possibilities for viewers to watch the Olympics in more "fancy" ways.
Wang Peng, an associate researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, believes that at the Paris Olympics, cloud broadcasting officially surpassed satellite broadcasting and became the main bridge connecting billions of viewers around the world. This not only marks a major advancement in broadcasting technology, but also reflects the deep integration of technology and sports.
In the past, the live broadcast signals of the Olympics were mainly transmitted by satellite and traditional optical cables. These facilities are expensive and require the deployment of hardware in advance, so some smaller broadcasting organizations are unable to temporarily change their broadcast plans. In recent years, with the development of technology, cloud computing has successfully replaced traditional satellite broadcasting with its advantages of high efficiency, low cost and low latency, making the event images more textured and with lower latency, bringing an unprecedented viewing experience to the audience. At the same time, the widespread application of AI technology, such as the multi-camera playback system, makes the audience feel as if they are in the stadium and experience the wonderful moments of the athletes from multiple angles, greatly enhancing the immersion and interactivity of watching the game.
According to Zhang Yanjia, a technical expert on Alibaba Cloud Broadcasting, the "Cloud + AI" technology's reconstruction of the Olympics runs through the entire process of "collection, transmission, editing, broadcasting, and storage", involving a wide range of aspects, and the most direct impact is on the signal transmission link. Satellite transmission is simple and direct, but channel resources are limited; although optical cable transmission is stable, the laying and maintenance costs are high. In contrast, cloud transmission is flexible, economical, and has unprecedentedly strong "content transportation capacity".
"This is no longer just cloud computing, but Olympic Broadcast Cloud 3.0." Yannis Exax, CEO of Olympic Broadcasting Services, believes that cloud computing not only reduces the high cost of traditional satellite broadcasting, but also has lower latency and richer content. More importantly, broadcasting organizations no longer need to deploy equipment and systems in advance, which greatly reduces the number of on-site equipment and personnel.
In which fields will AI be more useful, as it can produce more content at a lower cost? Wang Peng predicts that AI technology will play a more important role in sports broadcasting. "For example, it can provide more personalized and intelligent commentary services, support media asset management services and other scenarios, and lay a solid foundation for the sustainable development of sports broadcasting."
"The changes in the broadcasting technology of the Paris Olympic Games not only demonstrated the power of science and technology, but also brought a richer, more convenient and efficient viewing experience to global audiences." Wang Peng said that with the continuous advancement of technology, there is reason to believe that future event broadcasts will be even more exciting.
