Telemundo Deportes Rolls Out Virtual Reality Set for Coverage of Tokyo Olympics
Telemundo Deportes unveiled its first multicamera virtual reality set that is serving as one of the studio homes of Telemundo’s extensive Olympics coverage. The set, along with a fully revamped sports studio, complements the extensive production that originates from Tokyo, providing viewers with an immersive experience during the Games.
“We are proud of the work our production and operations teams have done to embrace technology with the new VR set,” says Eli Velazquez, Executive Vice President of Sports Content for Telemundo Deportes. “We continue to leverage Telemundo Center’s resources in our coverage of big live events like the Olympics to complement the onsite production, delivering audiences the highest quality viewing experience.”
The Tokyo Olympics VR studio, fully developed in-house by Telemundo’s virtual production services (VPS) as well as HD Studio’s Principal Designer Bryan Higgason and his team , features three cameras, augmented reality capabilities, live graphics and custom interfaces to help the production team to go on air. The technology used also features a unique innovation in the way the directors and cameras work on the virtual sets, that instead of moving the cameras, the team can rotate the virtual set to be more efficient with the green screen to get all the angles as if it was a regular studio set.
Telemundo Deportes’ main set has been fully revamped with Tokyo Olympics themed elements including lighting, graphics, and the augmented reality capabilities. The AR graphics will be shown as a Parallax effect into the big LED wall. All this new technology has been integrated with the regular Sports Graphics workflow.
Telemundo Deportes’ live coverage from Tokyo originates from a standing position featuring views of Tokyo’s iconic Olympic stadium that will serve as the home of the opening and closing ceremonies. In addition, select soccer matches are being called from stadiums across Japan for both the men and women’s soccer tournaments.
Close to 250 Telemundo personnel from production, technical and operations teams are working around the clock between Tokyo and Telemundo Center to provide viewers a unique, authentic coverage of the Games. Ana Jurka and Miguel Gurwitz are anchoring coverage from Tokyo. Also from Japan, Andres Cantor and Manuel Sol are calling select soccer matches from Japan, joined by a crew reporting live from the venues. There are also three additional production crews across the host city, to bring the Olympic experience in Japan to all viewers, across all platforms.
More than 25 on-air talent, experts and Olympians are covering all angles of the Tokyo Olympics live from Telemundo Center. The team is led by Telemundo Deportes’ host of Boxeo Telemundo and TYM, Karim Mendiburu and Al Rojo Vivo’s Jessica Carrillo who is anchoring Telemundo’s recap show airing every weekday at 1 p.m. ET/PT. Universo’s live coverage is anchored by journalists Diana Rincon while the soccer competitions is led by the commentary and analysis of Telemundo Deportes’ legendary Mexican goal scorer Carlos Hermosillo and renowned commentators Copan Alvarez, Sammy Sadovnik, and Eduardo Biscayart. The team is complemented by an unmatched team of experienced Olympic journalists and former athletes and Olympians to enhance the coverage with wide expertise across all sports disciplines.