It is exactly a hundred years since the last time the City of Light played host to the modern Olympic games. Much has changed over the course of the last century. The event has grown in scope and stature, becoming the foremost sporting competition on the planet. New disciplines have been added, and records have fallen time and again as the athletes, epitomising the spirit and motto of the movement, constantly redefine the envelope of performance as they seek to become ever faster, higher and stronger.
Equally, the technology used to bring the Games to the masses has changed beyond recognition. One hundred years ago, Paris laid the foundations of what has become a quadrennial broadcasting tour de force. The 1924 Olympics was the first ever edition to be transmitted over the airwaves, its live radio broadcasts essentially inventing sports commentary.
This July and August, Paris will once again blaze a trail. As the countdown clock ticks away the hours to the Opening Ceremony, Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) is preparing to deploy Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) solutions that will provide some of the most comprehensive coverage ever seen, capturing the spectacle of the Games for an eagerly waiting world, telling its story in ways that would have seemed fanciful to those Parisian pioneers who first lit the way.
As Paris welcomes the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, Olympic Broadcasting Services faces a monumental challenge in ensuring the world’s greatest festival of sport can be viewed across the globe. The sheer logistical challenge is immense, with broadcasters demanding high quality coverage within a necessarily limited time frame. Outlining some of the figures, Sotiris Salamouris, CTO at OBS explains more than 4000 hours of live competitive content, ceremonies and Champions Park coverage will be produced. With as much as half a million hours of TV and digital content expected to be watched by a potential audience of 3 billion worldwide, artificial intelligence, says Salamouris, will be used to help tell the story of the city, the Games, the environment. One year’s worth of coverage will be delivered across the 17 days of the Games.
And, given the history of the International Olympic Committee, one cannot escape the feeling that the city itself will feature prominently as the competition unfolds.
Paris 2024 will not be the first time AI technology has been deployed by OBS, but as Salamouris explains, it will mark a significant expansion in how the technology is used. “AI is becoming more and more a part of everything. Machine learning isn’t new, OBS has used machine learning since 2016, but it has intensified in the last few years. With Generative AI, we have reached an inflection point,” he says. “Paris 2024 will be the first to see an explosion in the use of AI technology.
“Paris 2024 will use AI to deliver personalised, edited highlights and customised content for a huge audience,” he adds. The technology means OBS can curate clips from multiple streams to deliver “highlights of everything” to viewers around the globe.
Reimagining the art of the possible
The variety of content and formats the technology enables is growing at an exponential rate. Beyond 4K UHD distribution, volumetric capturing realises the potential of 3D content. Intel’s Xeon processing enables volumetric videos to be rapidly processed, composited and compressed. Broad-scale, high quality and low latency delivery is enabled by Intel AMX, providing live 3D footage without the need for specialised equipment.
All-angle scanning can explain the sports as never before, with capture from within the athletes’ village bringing the story to life in a truly immersive viewing experience. “Athletes can be interviewed with volumetric scanning leveraging 20, 30, 40 cameras,” explains Intel’s Jean-Laurent Philippe, Intel’s EMEA chief technology officer. Virtual content can be integrated into live feed and augmented reality (AR) live broadcasts.
Personalisation will form a key element of OBS’ coverage. “Video is becoming pervasive,” says Salamouris, his obvious enthusiasm for the coming spectacular infectious. “Paris 2024 will use AI to deliver personalised, edited highlights and customised content for a huge audience.”
Using Intel’s Geti platform, OBS is able to create AI solutions that rapidly curate clips at scale from multiple streams. On-demand, searchable, customised highlights will be created for delivery to audiences around the globe, moments after they have happened in the arena.
For the Opening and Closing ceremonies, Intel’s AI platforms will be leveraged to showcase another first. In a proof of concept demonstration, these much-anticipated events will be broadcast in 8K over the internet. AI-optimised broadcast servers powered by the latest 5th generation Intel Xeon processors will encode and compress 8K live signals produced by OBS, once again showcasing the technological triumph of Paris 2024 and offering a tantalising glimpse into what lies just over the horizon.
And when the curtain falls on the 2024 Summer Games and attention turns to Cortina d’Ampezzo and later, Los Angeles 2028, the stellar achievements of OBS, powered by some truly groundbreaking innovation will form the starting line for the next technological leap forward which, in true Olympic spirit, will continue to push boundaries, seeking new and exciting ways to astound and delight the audience.
“The future Games’ playing field will look very different,” says Philippe. “The only limit to what can be achieved – is imagination.”
