LIVE – Staging of Media Events
LIVE attempts to radically improve on the linear approach to TV broadcasting of live sporting events by delivering digital technologies and content formats that enable viewers to shape their own personal and highly interactive viewing experience.
The main idea of LIVE is to provide novel content production methods and new iTV video formats and services to enable interactive digital broadcasters to produce new non-linear multi-stream ‘shows’ to stage live media events such as the 2008 Olympic Games.
Broadcasting is changing
Live broadcast content represents a major investment for broadcasters, and the risk that viewers switch in and out of the broadcast, possibly switching out permanently, according to their viewing moods is high. However, despite numerous advances in technology live broadcasting still remains today a predominantly single and inflexible stream broadcast approach, served to all viewers alike.
The objective of the LIVE project is therefore to enable broadcasters to deliver a rich broadcast viewing environment composed of multiple story streams themed around a live sporting event and transmitted as ‘the live broadcast show’. Within this live broadcast show viewers can switch between stories according to their mood and interest. In response to instant consumer feedback the coverage will be adapted in real-time and other stories created to meet the unforeseen demand. Events such as the Olympic Games, offer the perfect scenario for multiple points of view on one and the same sports event.
There is always more than one story to be told
So what can the viewer expect? The viewer can expect access to multiple story streams that are created in real-time in response to the action unfolding as well as the shifting interests of the viewer. They provide alternative views of the action where possible, and unique story perspectives of the sporting event, such as historical footage of the sports-person, rules of the sport, and other stories related to the event location.
The quality of drama is maintained by orchestrating a viewing experience (the ‘show’) in which viewers switch between story streams without being cut off from the main action of the live sporting event. Novel triggers include a moderated teaser (soft trigger) or split-screen announcement (hard trigger) asking the viewer to rejoin the main story thread to watch an unexpected event.
