A new world of graphics
Carlo Lisa, Director of Sales & Business Development, of deltatre, from Turin headquarter tells us: “We created 16 ob-vans of 4° generation, completely dedicated to graphics and data handling on major European sports events and Italian soccer”. All data gathering from the venues is processed and then redistributed on several media”.
In every sports venue all signals and data of the optical tracking systems, plus the “spotters” placed in the grandstand inserting penalties, corners, goals, etc can be used locally as official graphics of the promoter of the event, in several languages for the various broadcasters and even in each proprietary style.
So for instance graphics is created in English for the “multilateral” and simultaneously -with frame accuracy- in German and Italian for respective visiting broadcasters going to broadcast “unilateral” following their team on away game.
Contemporarily the output can be delivered within the stadium on giant screen scoreboards, and feeds are delivered to vip “hospitality lounge” along with all other datas from other venues, team results, etc. Another output is the video streaming which reaches said lounges and again the so called “printouts”, or statistic data composed, distributed to the several professionals involved, journalists and commentators.
Each deltatre ob-van in every venue is IP connected to Turin main Operation Center. All graphics generated 2D and 3D data can be delivered on up to simultaneous 8 feeds managed by a video matrix driving also a multi switch
and a six 40” flat monitor wall is used as a monitoring system.
The workflow is completely “SDI-less”, all graphics data travel on IP protocol on DSLs and internet through various VPNs.
Instead, all live video streaming from the 16 international soccer fields are received in Turin via satellite links, ingested and encoded in proper internet suitable formats and mingled with other IP data from the OB-Vans. Then deltare Diva Player takes care of all managing and distributing the packed services to subscriber customers.
Another important service these OB-Vans supply is called “Live Player Tracking”. It allows to acquire for every of the 22 players, the ball and referee, 25 times per second, all coordinates of movements and changes in position on 3 axes, x, y, e z: it's an incredible volume of data gathered in every moment of the match. An appropriate algorithm matches these data and generate high level statistic surveys like top speed, total distance covered in Km, average speed, mileage covered in “sprint”, “jogging” or “walk” modes, etc.
The public at home, sports organizations and broadcasters are hungry for such info which are sold on agreements and bundle basis.
The project of such OB-vans was implemented by deltatre together with Sony Broadcast Italy and Basingstoke headquarter following a long and profitable relationship.
All trucks can be driven with normal driving license (patente B in Italy), created on Iveco “passo lungo” track mounting special and effective pneumatic suspensions which were a form factor for choice because the 2 big racks containing the matrix, the video servers and comm equipments are all placed beyond rear axis.
The heart of this OBVan is a multi-view wall with 6 monitors and a 3G 64x64 upgradable to 64x128 Evertz Matrix, power supply and double control board redounded, plus six graphic servers to handle 2D and 3D signals completely reconfigurable via software (proprietary of deltatre). They are based on Windows, six core on Dell hardware and graphic engine by Nvidia, plus Bluefish frame buffer.
