Hoping to give viewers a unique perspective from football’s grandest stage, Fox Sports said it will use technology from Intel for a “Be the Player” replay enhancement that will offer a player’s eye view of the action from Super Bowl LI.
The enhancement, coming way of the Fox Sports Lab initiative and using the Intel 360 Replay technology, will provide the POV perspective without requiring a physical camera to be attached to the player, they said. Intel’s platform uses a system of HD cameras positioned around a sporting venue along with servers to capture and create a 3D rendering – from multiple angles-- of the on-field action.
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“We tasked Intel to push their amazing Intel 360 Replay technology to the limit of what it could do, using their array of cameras circling the stadium to synthesize a player’s view on the field,” said Michael Davies, FOX Sports SVP of Field & Technical Operations.
“The cameras, backed up by a huge bank of Intel computing power, allow a moment to be recreated in 3D space, so that a ‘virtual camera’ can be placed at the player’s eye line -- not unlike how limitless camera views can be created in video games,” Michael Davies, Fox Sports’s SVP of field and technical operations, said in a statement. “This broadcast enhancement is like no other -- it literally brings the audience down to the viewpoint of the player at the critical decision-making moment. What other choices did he have? Was his sight blocked? It all looks much different from field level, and can assist our announcers in describing what actually happened on the field.”
This video from the Foster Farms Bowl game between Indiana and Utah illustrates the POV feature that will be employed for Super Bowl LI.
Fox Sports said its production for Super Bowl LI, set for Feb. 5 at NRG Stadium in Houston, will utilize three production trucks and more than 30 cameras (including the use of Super Motion and 4K cameras) to deliver more than 20 hours of programming a day from “Discovery Green” in the city, and 70-plus cameras to cover the game itself.
