British Telecommunications (BT) has been looking into ways to incorporate 360-degree videos into its sports broadcasts, according to DigitalTVEurope.net.
The emergence of second screen experiences could be a solution for integrating them into live broadcasts. According to the report, BT executive Andrew Gower said at Marketforce’s The Future of Broadcasting conference that BT is “looking at picture-in-picture that could replicate what you have on a companion screen and sync those together.” The 360-degree content seen on a companion screen device could conceivably also be displayed on the TV broadcast.
However, that idea has drawbacks: a picture-in-picture feed would result in a delay relative to the live action, requiring that users “buy in to the idea that they are watching 40 seconds behind [the live stream],” according to Gower, the head of the interactive media research group at BT.
It could prove difficult for BT to convince people to accept a broadcast delay for popular sports like soccer and tennis. BT has tried VR with soccer, though; it broadcasted the UEFA Champions League final in 360 degrees and given out Google cardboard. BT is also carrying a slate of Premier League games, including Manchester City’s opener, this coming season—perhaps an opportunity to further test the capabilities of VR integration.
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Another option BT is exploring is 180-degree video, and yet another possibility is limiting the virtual reality feed to the viewer’s field of vision, according to the article. BT has also collaborated with two other companies to take 8K video of a user’s specific viewpoint and transmit that rather than a full 360-degree view, the article said. Though Gower told DigitalTVEurope that this option would require low-latency networks to limit lagging, it would allow BT to provide a higher-quality experience at potentially lower bandwidths.
BT is also playing with the concept of virtual reality incorporated into the TV broadcasts. Gower outlined other challenges to the project in the article, most notably the speeds required to stream VR content at different resolutions: a 4K feed needs 135 megabits per second, and an 8K or higher feed could require at least 540 Mbps, and that’s without security features. “If we tried to make it secure you are talking about 5Gbps, which is a large number,” Gower told DigitalTVEurope.