The FIA Formula E Championship, better known as, Formula E, recently announced a partnership with Virtually Live. The car racing series will be using Virtually Live’s innovative VR to bring fans closer to the action. The two companies have been testing out their partnership recently, and they will soon be ready to give fans a glimpse of the full and unique VR experience.
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Virtually Live is a San Francisco based VR company that specializes in bringing fans closer to the events they love through immersive Virtual Reality action, in real time. The company takes a unique approach with their VR sports experience, and it involves four steps. First, they use innovative technology to track a live event in order to collect data and other information from all participants. Secondly, a replica of the venue where the action is taking place is recreated in VR. Then, the action that is being tracked is transferred into the newly created virtual world in real time. Lastly their unique VR experience allows the user to interact with each other while they pick and choose where they view the event; which can be anywhere from the field to executive suites.
Formula E is a car racing series that only uses electric cars. It officially began in 2014, after the initial concept was conceived in 2012. This racing is similar to other Formula racing events, since it is one seat open wheel car racing. However Formula E consists of 10 teams, 1 driver per team, but they use two different cars during a race, as they are battery charged. Therefore about half way through the roughly hour long race the driver changes cars. The races take place all around the world on outdoor tracks with drivers reaching speeds of up to 150 miles per hour.
VLive Formula E Demo Teaser from Virtually Live on Vimeo.
The two companies began working together to test live VR broadcasts during a few races this year. On April 2nd when the Formula E series heads to Long Beach California, Virtually Live will host events to showcase their VR technology for race fans. After the race people will also be able to download the VR experience for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Both parties seem to be very pleased about the possibilities of this partnership.
Alejandro Agag, the CEO of Formula E stated. “As an innovative championship, we’re excited to partner… Virtual reality is one of the most exciting new ways to broadcast live sports…Now, we can give fans that cannot attend a race in person the opportunity of feeling like they are actually immersed…from any perspective.” While, Virtually Live CEO Tom Impallomeni asserted, “We are very excited about the partnership and believe that we are an ideal match. Both Formula E and Virtually Live…are pushing innovation and technological boundaries…”
Virtually Live will provide Formula E and its fans a VR experience that allows users to feel like they are on the track with the drivers in real time. Their partnership will benefit from other recent endeavors from both companies. Virtually Live, recently partnered with STATS LLC, as we covered here, to help improve their player and object tracking capabilities. Formula E is currently using 360-degree cameras to give fans a greater viewing experience at home and at the track. All of the cars in the series have 360-degree cameras mounted for every race to capture all the action from every angle.
At the end of the 2015-16 Formula E season more details about the extent of this partnership will be revealed to the public. As of now the two unique entities will continue to innovate for the future, one where Virtually Live and Formula E could give fans a VR experience unlike anything else in the racing world.