PISTE: Personalised, immersive sports TV experience

• Research unit: EU RFP
• Project number: 00.0293-2

Key words (English)

Sport broadcast enhancement; MPEG4; interactive TV; augmented reality

Alternative project number (English)

EU project number: IST-1999-11172

Research programs (English)

EU-programme: 5. Frame Research Programme - 1.2.4 Essential technologies and infrastructures

Short description (English)

See abstract

Further information (English)

Full name of research-institution/enterprise:
EPF Lausanne
Faculté Informatique et Communications
LCAV

Partners and International Organizations (English)

INTRACOM SA (EL), University of Crete (EL), Thomson Multimedia R&D (F), Telecom R&D (F), Dublin City University (IRL), The PoznanUniversity of Economics (PL), Fraunhofer Institute (D), The University of Hanover(D), Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (EL), Dartfish (CH), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (CH)

Abstract (English)

The PISTE project has developed a system that provides TV viewers equipped with the PISTE's receiver platform, an enhanced TV viewing experience during the coverage of sports events. The services offered will be exploited in the context of the Athens 2004 Olympic games.
The major objectives of the project were:
1. To build a system and accompanying services that provide TV viewers an enhanced viewing experience during the coverage of sports events.
2. To provide content-creation tools that allow broadcasters to create enhanced content for event coverage. These tools are based on digital video processing, 3D-visualisation and animation techniques. They allow broadcasters to create 3D models of scenes from live video feeds originating from different cameras, produce scenes combining real and synthetic objects, and associate objects with information used to provide interactive content-based features.
3. To demonstrate and assess the applicability and acceptability of the system through experiments and involvement of real actors, through the production of enhanced content and provision of enhanced viewing services in the context of the Athens 2004 Olympic games.
These objectives have implied the following:
· Development, integration, and demonstration of advanced multimedia technology. Specifically, the key technological areas include advanced digital video and image processing techniques for content creation, compression standards, DTV interactive services, set-top box technology.
· Selection and creation of a substantial amount of compelling audio-visual material that will have been used as the basis for experimentation.
· Definition of realistic services that will fully exploit the opportunities offered by the enhanced content delivery.
The development of the system has focused on established standards. Specifically, the project used MPEG-4 for its content-based functionalities (i.e. interactivity with audio-visual objects, capability to handle natural/synthetic and real-time/nonreal-time information in an integrated way, capability to composite and present information according to user's needs), and DVB for satellite distribution.

References in databases (English)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 00.0293-2