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Manila eSports Championship powered by Blackmagic DESPITE REQUIRING LITTLE PHYSICAL EXERTION, there are many leisure activities that have attracted the label of 'sport' – darts, lawn bowls and golf, to name a few. The latest activity vying for this status is eSport or, as married adults would know it, 'playing video games'. Live production at this year’s Manila Major, one of the biggest gaming Championships in eSports, was delivered using a live solution built around Blackmagic Design technology. The six day tournament, which saw sixteen elite eSports teams battling for a $3,000,000 prize pot, was produced by PGLeSports and takes place at the Mall of Asia Arena, with thousands of spectators at the venue and many more watching sports channels or online. Each of the four production hubs featured an ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K switcher for localised production, while a centralised switcher and Smart Videohub 40×40 were used to bring the action together. Signal management was monitored and standardised using the Blackmagic MultiView 16 and Teranex Express. The scale of production at the event was huge, with 28 cameras and dozens of computer screens in action at any one time, so the PGL team developed a solution that split the video production into several hubs, including delivering in game content, or capturing player and commentator reactions, with content from each hub being produced through an ATEM 2 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K. Vlad Petrescu, head of broadcast for PGL explains that the ATEM’s creative features are integral to the way in which the team helps fans follow the multiple storylines unfolding through the various battles on screen.
“Blackmagic’s MultiView 16 is a crucial element in delivering onstage coverage of the players. We couldn’t monitor ten player cameras and ingest all of the various live graphics feeds via the ATEM alone. Having separate hardware multiviewers made monitoring all of that action a lot less painful,” explained Vlad.
“As well as traditional picture in picture effects, we also created a ‘Tri-Lane Cam’, with two screen wipes alongside the main camera shot, so fans could follow the three paths in the game simultaneously,” he said.
The final live program mix was screened throughout the arena on four 16x9m large scale LED screens and streamed out to a global audience through Twitch. tv and mainstream broadcasters including TV5 in Manila and VIASAT in Poland.
Signals were also combined with PGL’s own graphic production, which used DeckLink capture cards for player statistics and scoring overlays. All camera, computer and CGI inputs were standardised using Teranex Express processors to PGL’s default 720p5994 format, before being taken into a central video router.
“Capturing those special plays that differentiate a great player from a casual one, and complementing this with the live audience reactions is so important,” concluded Vlad. “Achieving this in eSports is far more complex than in traditional sports broadcasting. Blackmagic’s hardware has allowed us to develop a very robust solution for live production, but in a way that is really easy to operate in a highly pressurised live environment.”
Signal monitoring was managed with a package of Blackmagic hardware including SmartView HD preview monitors, Blackmagic Audio Monitor and three MultiView 16s.
Visit www.blackmagicdesign.com
Immersive Platform Explores Endurance Sports SPORTS FANS ARE ABOUT TO GET a whole new way of experiencing the upcoming Tour de France and select endurance sports at the Rio 2016 Olympics, thanks to a start-up out of CSIRO’s Data61 group. This year, spectators through doarama.com were able to access customised 3D interactive map visualisations of the routes which were be used for the Tour de France (July 2nd to 24th). Fans were able to interact with the maps by controlling how they view the route in a 3D virtual world. Spectators were also be able to preview selected routes for the Rio 2016 Olympics. CSIRO’s Data61 Software Engineer and head of Doarama, Pete Field, said the 3D maps are changing how endurance events are experienced, either as a spectator or an athlete.
SPORTSCASTING
“Until now we’ve ‘made do’ with a 2D overhead map and a separate terrain profile,” Mr Field said. “3D fly-through maps were only available to large media broadcasters, and even then, these maps were limited to a single point-of-view, and only made available for the largest races. With Doarama, sport routes can be made available online, and it is completely interactive. The viewer can move around inside the 3D world while the route is laid out before them. For athletes, sports enthusiasts and event organisers, Doarama gives you an edge when preparing for that big event.”
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“Paragliders and ultra-marathon races in Italy, France and California and the RedBull XAlps Competition have been early adopters,” Mr Field said. “We’re expanding into more sports including base-jumping competitions and we’re excited to see the new ways people use Doarama.” Doarama is free to use, works on desktop and mobile devices, and gives sport enthusiasts the opportunity to experience the walk, run, hike, rock climb,
Doarama’s 3D visualisation of the 2016 Olympics Marathon course.
paraglide, cycle or ski route, using its GPS route visualisations. Other key features include: • The ability to share experiences on social media. • Ability for anybody to create their own 3D maps. • Ability for content providers to embed Trayse into their web service. Originally launched in 2013, the revamped Doarama platform has seen great uptake with approximately 400% user growth this year by offering a new, engaging way to gain a deeper understanding of the environment and obstacles that athletes are tackling. “Television and 2D maps just don’t compare – with Doarama, it’s visceral,” Mr Field said. Visit http://doarama.com