Vantrix Seeks To Enhance Sports-Viewing Experience Through 360° VR

The Sports Video Group is pleased to welcome Vantrix as a premier sponsor. Montreal-based Vantrix is a global leader in next-generation video services for transcoding and 360° virtual-reality systems. Since 2004, Vantrix products have been deployed in more than 75 networks, serving more than 1 billion subscribers worldwide.

Vantrix products include a broad range of media-processing solutions, such as bandwidth and media optimization, ultra-high-density edge transcoding, just-in-time transcoding, software-defined multiscreen video for OTT, cloud services, and camera systems for 360° virtual reality.

“We believe our products are a perfect match for broadcasters and sports leagues, who can attract and engage a new generation of viewers by embracing VR as a new and complementary type of media and taking a system-wide approach focusing on high-quality immersive video,” says President/CEO Jean Mayrand. “We are pleased to align with the Sports Video Group and look forward to working with the SVG community of sports professionals. We truly believe in 360 VR’s potential to fundamentally change the sports-viewing experience, allowing users to independently explore their own field-of-view ‘being there from anywhere’ and also opening up new monetization opportunities for broadcasters and sports leagues.”

At IBC 2016, Vantrix launched the Vantrix PRO series of VR cameras for broadcast and live streaming, and the Vantrix 360° glass-to-glass system for live 360° VR capture, delivery, and experience.

The Vantrix PRO series is a purpose-built broadcast-quality capture system for live coverage of sports, news, and concerts, as well as for studio production and postproduction. The Vantrix PRO25 camera is designed for the ultimate capture quality and is ruggedized with an IP-67 rating. The camera uses a single lens to capture hemispherical distortion-free 360×182° video output that requires no stitching, reducing postprocessing time significantly without quality degradation. The camera delivers broadcast-quality video with a market-leading resolution of up to 5000×5000, up to 12-bit color depth, and 240-fps frame rate. The video feed is processed by the control station and prepared for cloud live streaming and/or handoff to broadcast production via four virtual HD-SDI camera outputs at 60 fps.