How do you watch the World Cup?
in living room? In your local area?given tee times Qataryou probably wore some in the office.
With tons of games happening every day, chances are you’ve seen some of them on your phone; watching live or catching highlights on the move; Twitter or whatsapp It’s always just a swipe away so you can yell right where you want Gareth SouthgateIt went wrong.
Just a lot of games ago, the idea of being able to watch a game in the palm of your hand no matter where you were was an unthinkable dream.but world cupWith its quadrennial nature and universal appeal, it has been a huge barometer of changes in technology and consumer habits.
Since the first Color World Cup in 1970, Baileymember Brazil Mexico wowed the world; a trip to Germany in 2006 ushered us into the era of clear HD; Tik Tok; We’ve certainly come a long way.
Pele opens the scoring in the 1970 World Cup final
“I was old enough to remember watching football in black and white,” said Peter Moore, who hails from sun-drenched California with nothing but color.
It is here that the former EA Sports and Liverpool FC chief executive commits to work that he believes will turn a new page in World Cup broadcast history.
“Second goal for Japan,” he said of Germany’s crushing defeat in the Group E opener.
“Goalkeeper Manuel Neuer is one of the best goalkeepers of the last decade and he makes mistakes. I’d love to put the camera in the box when he shoots and see what he’s seeing and see. See what’s wrong”
Japan’s Takuma Asano beat Germany goalkeeper Manuel Neuer from an unlikely angle
Germany’s number one will be relieved to hear that the solution is not a GoPro strapped to its chest.Japan’s contest winner Takumi Asano won’t be wearing either smart glasses Like some kind of dystopian Edgar Davis.
The solution instead draws on Mr. Moore’s past at EA, the gaming giant behind popular sports titles including Madden NFL, Tiger Woods PGA Tour and – most famously – FIFA.
impossible camera angles
“The impossible camera angles you can see in a video game, you can’t do in real life,” Mr Moore said.
“A whole generation is used to holding a controller in their hand and seeing these angles.”
In fact, for more than 20 years, sports video games have allowed players to pause the action and fly virtual cameras across the field with a precision and fluidity that real broadcasters can only dream of.
As visual effects become more realistic, the opportunity to blur the lines between digital and physical becomes more alluring.
The FIFA series allows players to zoom in on the action directly.Photo: Electronic Arts
Enter Unity, the video game software company best known for its eponymous engine, which it licenses to other developers to power their games.
But just as other game studio Epic has seen its Unreal Engine used widely outside of games, most notably creating the backdrops for the Star Wars show The Mandalorian, Unity is diversifying its product portfolio.
How does the technology work?
Mr. Moore heads up Unity’s sports and live entertainment division and gave a briefing on how the company’s technology is being applied to UFC in mixed martial arts.
The demo featured two fighters doing “volume capture” on a Los Angeles soundstage. Multiple cameras around them filmed the round, and the data was converted into “voxels” — 3D pixels that, once processed by powerful computer programs, splashed out as photorealistic models.
The result is fighters appearing in real footage, re-visualized through data, and ultimately viewers are able to dive into any angle.
You basically become your own photographer.
“Video games come to life,” Mr. Moore said, paying homage to his past as he glanced at battles on his iPad.
“It requires a lot of computing power and bandwidth, but like any technology I’ve worked on, it’s constantly evolving.”
The goal is that the capture equipment used on the soundstage will eventually transfer to the live.
Mr Moore claims that in a few years it will be “ubiquitous, accessible to anyone with a touchscreen device”, meaning it could be ready for England’s miraculous 2026 World Cup win.
Fans might scoff at such ambitions, especially those who shelled out four figures for 3D TVs a decade ago and promised it was the future of broadcasting.
Unity also believes that this technology forms part of the Metaverse we often hear about, to some It’s just a giant technological illusion created in Silicon Valley.
But when Mr Moore said anyone could access it, he meant anyone.
Had he been at his beloved Liverpool, a three-year absence in 2020 that included the club’s first Premier League title, he would have pitched it to manager Jurgen Klopp as an in-game analysis a way of.
It has become something of a dirty word among coaches, fans and pundits, but Mr Moore believes the technology could even change the way we think about VAR.
Not to mention England winning the World Cup, that is really a miracle.