aseball may have been invented in the US, but Japan has some of its biggest fans. The country has a long tradition in the sport, and beat the Americans
to gold at this year ’s Olympic Games. The fan following goes down to high school level, as the country keeps an eye on up-and- coming talent. The 25th Japan High School Girls’ Baseball Championship, held at the historic Koshien Stadium, couldn’t have a full complement of fans, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But viewers at home were treated to an engaging watch. Japanese telecom giant KDDI streamed the event, providing viewers with the opportunity to switch between four different angles of the game in real time, on their mobile device or PC – including batter and pitcher POVs. Offering fans a multi-angle experience isn’t new. BT Sport, for example, provides it for select events – but it is generally a rewatch feature. Being able to switch between camera POVs live is challenging. Wide use of 5G may alleviate a lot of the problems, but the main hitch in multi-angle live sports is synchronisation. The technology for delivering multiple streams simultaneously, and allowing a user to swap between them, isn’t groundbreaking – but getting those streams to sync perfectly is a test. KDDI
wanted to offer a seamless experience, in which different viewpoints could be selected with flawless fidelity to the timeline, and without any dropped frames when switching POVs. The enabling technology was provided by Silicon Valley-based VisualOn. The company’s MultiStream Sync technology harmonises internal clocks on set-top boxes, smart TVs, PCs and mobile devices – allowing multiple HD streams to be played or selected and remain in perfect sync. With around 80 employees and a large development centre in Shanghai, VisualOn has been providing codecs and video player technology for smartphones since the very beginning of the mobile revolution. About ten years ago, they began transitioning to OTT video, and now cater to top-tier streaming companies, counting Netflix, Prime Video and Twitch as customers – as well as top mobile carriers, like AT&T, Verizon, China Mobile and KDDI. “This was our second project with KDDI,” says VisualOn CEO Yang Cai. “A couple of years ago, we helped them develop a second-screen application. Viewers watching a live event could also access different angles or statistics on their devices.” The partnership was for KDDI’s presentation of the FIVB Volleyball World Cup – the first live sports stream in Japan to use ultra-low latency
MAJOR PLAYERS VisualOn has worked with KDDI on two big projects
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