IBC 2017: Sky, Ericsson and Tiledmedia showcase industry first VR for live sports

Three members of the Virtual Reality Industry Forum (VRIF) – Sky, Ericsson and Tiledmedia – will showcase a real application of virtual reality (360 video) synced with live sports at this year’s IBC Show.

The companies will collaborate on an industry first demonstration that will show how VR (360 video) can be used to enhance the viewing experience and deliver a truly immersive live TV event in the home.

Visitors to the Ericsson booth (Hall 1, D61) will have the opportunity to see what it’s like to be in the dugout when their favourite team scores a goal or at the wheel of a Formula 3 car when it makes that vital overtake, through untethered VR headsets and tablets, seamlessly synced with the main TV screen.

The demonstration will use Viewport-Adaptive streaming technology which harnesses Ericsson’s HEVC software encoding technology and Tiledmedia’s innovative ClearVR tiled streaming technology to optimise the video quality to bandwidth ratio.

Content for the demo will centre around premier sports footage including Premier League football provided by Sky and Formula 3 4K HDR footage provided by Ericsson to illustrate different applications of how the technology can be used to complement a traditional broadcast view.

Together, Sky, Ericsson and Tiledmedia will show how the future consumer experience could change with the technology advances of VR (360 video) and how these technologies can truly make content come to life.