Tricks to virtualize LaLiga: DJ, Psychology, magic ball …

LaLiga received recognition last week for its continued innovation and development within the sports industry. An award that puts him at the forefront of the world and that has enabled him to achieve nine certifications for his contributions in anti-piracy, data analysis and in the audiovisual area. The restart of football after the three-month hiatus due to the coronavirus crisis has only reinforced its leadership position: The virtualized signal of the LaLiga Santander and LaLiga SmartBank matches has not only allowed LaLiga to be the only championship to concern itself with improving the audiovisual experience for fans. from home or in public establishments, as they cannot access the stadiums due to sanitary measures, but also has achieved a milestone: that this new way of watching football on television is more followed, according to the data that the employers manage, that even the traditional one. The help of Mediapro, VIZRT, EA Sports and eTVision has been essential.

Many actors have participated in this virtualization of football, both sound and visual, and there are numerous tricks that AS has been able to learn from the mouth of his inventors. Óscar Lago, match director Mediapro for LaLiga, is the pillar of a project in which Spanish and foreign partners, such as the Dutch and the Norwegian, collaborate. “It was a race against the clock because nobody had thought that this could happen. It is the biggest challenge that I have encountered in 30 years of profession. Retransmitting soccer without an audience has been a major challenge since this has never happened beyond some time. punctual moment. The goal is to keep the feeling similar to usual. For this we have acted since April at three levels to improve the image, since soccer without spectators is not very encouraging. On the one hand, we have relocated the cameras to avoid shots with empty stands in the live and in the replays. We have done this by raising the five or six cameras from the pitch to the stands. We have also created a sound atmosphere for entertainment. And, in addition, we have used the Master camera in a different way, which is used for 90% of the game, always showing part of the stands. “

Lago adds: “There was no product on the market, neither in the audiovisual industry nor in the graphics industry, that made the audience seen on television as close to real broadcasting as possible. We never thought about looking for a hyper-realistic virtual audience That could be more of a defect, since it could distract the viewer. In those stands that are seen in open shots, without details, the viewer receives an almost blurred mass, almost a filling, even if there are later short shots. what we wanted to reproduce. Here the game is the important thing, the ball, and the priority objective, which is what is being achieved, is for the fan to psychologically forget that the game is played behind closed doors. The effect of seeing the stands with elements that remind the public and listening to fans cheer on their own makes the chip change. In fact, a commentator told me the other day that he was about to say live that the local fans were really cheering on his team… Hopefully the fans of stadiums will come back soon and all this technology can be applied for other reasons. Its impact is going to be tremendous. “

With the audio there was also a meticulous job. The audios captured by Mediapro in the LaLiga matches in the stadiums, during the last five years, are always delivered to its partner EA Sports to be edited and used in the numerous virtual games that are later released. And in this case, without an audience in the stands, the collaboration process has been reversed. EA Sports has returned those recorded sounds for Mediapro to distribute on tracks and catalog them very succinctly. to use live when the action (goal, chance or local dribble) requires it. Each stadium has its own sound, beyond those introduced by LaLiga (infinite applause at minute 20) and each club has been able to choose which songs they want to play at each moment (applause to honor a footballer, popular songs by those fans, etc. .). The most curious thing of all is that this cataloged gallery of sounds is in the hands of a sound operator in each stadium who alternates them according to what the party asks for and which works, according to Óscar Lago, “as a live DJ who assembles the soundtrack of each game. Q What we tried to avoid from the beginning is” editorialize, manipulate or condition the sound “or put those that were not positive situations such as protests to the referee, so common in football.

Chroma, graphics and infographics

To achieve this virtualization of the stands using a chroma, and graphics in general, the Norwegian company VIZRT has had much of the blame. Mauricio Ángel, engineer Professional Services, He sums up his contribution to the project in this way: “We are specialists in graphic production and virtual audiences and, therefore, in recreating fans in stadiums. Our software It helps channels and companies to tell their stories much better. We are present in sporting events and in graphic elements in news and television programs. To develop that software In a very short period of time, 17 machines had to be assembled to reach our current capacity of six productions simultaneously. “The great challenge, he explains, was meeting all the needs of LaLiga:” The biggest challenge in virtualizing the stands was ensure that the ball is not lost, since the graphics that we elaborate are always placed on all the other elements. So, normally, a deviant ball that appears in the public area would disappear from behind as a ghost and would always go behind that graphic as an audience. “This is the magic of virtualization.

wTVision, for its part, is the company specialized in infographics that works for the Mediapro and LaLiga directors. His contribution is also curious, as Willem van Breukelen relates, country manager: “We are active in 60 countries and have been working in sports for 19 years. The challenge was to find the technology that would allow the production of Spanish football to be centralized. LaLiga has asked to do all professional matches, with what is 21 games per day. And It is complicated. The traditional system for inserting virtual or augmented reality graphics involves putting sensors on the camera, something that did not work here since it would mean visiting 21 stadiums in three days. ” The solution came from teamwork with the rest of the project partners, since they were able to assemble a new system in record time since they set up the entire weekend prior to the resumption of the League (Thursday, June 11).

Joris Evers, chief communications officer de LaLiga is proud of the result: “LaLiga is not a video game, because in games everyone is virtual and in games everything that happens is real and, in addition, there are physical limits. We are very happy with the result and with the feedback What do the broadcasters. The vast majority of viewers choose the virtualized experience, it is the preferred option and it is a success. We are the only major league with this type of technology, we are pioneers, we are at the forefront and very proud of the experience we are offering to our fans around the world. “