More than 41 million soccer fans worldwide had access to illegal streaming feeds of the FIFA World Cup games, according to a report from Viaccess-Orca, a company that develops anti-piracy software. The company fused three reports into one global analysis that monitored how well its anti-piracy software identified and stopped illegal feeds of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

During the 32-day World Cup campaign, VO identified several important trends and details about the piracy landscape:

• The total number of piracy links detected during the football championship game was 40,713.

• Social media played a critical role in piracy during the tournament, with a total of 14,615 links for the three most popular social media networks, representing 41,371,139 viewers.

The research analyzed audience measurement figures by country for each monitored football match across different platforms. It also examined the role and responsibility of rights owners, consumers, content distributors, ISPs, platforms, ad servers, and payment providers in stopping illegal streaming.

VO helped operators combat illegal streaming distributed via networks, portals, social networks, plugins, or OTT STBs. In general, VO partners with user-generated content sites, search engines, and social networks, like YouTube, Google and Facebook to remove illegal links within minutes from any of those platforms, according to the company.

"The number of illegal streaming networks is growing, and this is an issue that needs to be dealt with urgently," said Christine Maury Panis, executive vice president, general counsel and security, at Viaccess-Orca. "Creating awareness about the end-to-end chain and sharing it with public stakeholders is important, so that each player has a deep view on the overall landscape and the part it can play in absolving this problem. We hope that these reports provide clarity about the reality of illegal streaming and show how operators can deter it with intelligent anti-piracy services."

VO will demonstrate its anti-piracy services at IBC2018, Sept. 14-18 in Amsterdam at stand 1.A51. Request a meeting here https://www.viaccess-orca.com/what-s-new/events/ibc-2018.

LOS ANGELES—Whether over standardized network protocols such as SMPTE ST2110 and AES67 or formats like Wheatstone’s WheatNet, Calrec’s Hydra2, RAVENNA, Audinate’s Dante, and others, audio mixing consoles are supporting remote television broadcast audio productions as they move in new directions. In sports broadcasts, especially, consoles are leveraging networks to implement a variety of applications, from at-home production to ensuring consistent audio quality at every connected mixer, to enabling remote control of, and set-up through, distant desks.

Glen Stilwell, audio operations manager for the PAC-12 Networks, which handles more than 450 at-home productions in a nine-month period each season, observed that IP audio networking is introducing efficiencies for remote broadcast operations. He hopes that new technology from console manufacturers will help him lower costs as the number of productions inevitably increases.

“With our development partners like Calrec, and their new RP1, we’re going to start eliminating the need to carry around big, heavy copper,” said Stilwell, who noted that all the schools in the conference have installed 10-Gig networks. The RP1 unit offers local DSP and an IP connection back to the plant where the mixer has full control of the remote inputs.

“We’re still precabling venues with copper mic cable, per season,” said Stilwell. “As we become more efficient and reduce personnel, we can’t spend the time to do that.” With devices such as the RP1, “We can put down either fiber or, over the long-term, build network drops in the field and just leave them forever,” he said.

PLAYING TOGETHER

But even with networking infrastructures in place, setting up AES67 streams between devices from different manufacturers is not yet as easy as it could be. Even using a common discovery protocol like mDNS/Bonjour, it’s currently necessary to log into a device using one brand’s web UI and create an AES67 stream, then switch to another brand’s web UI, log in, find that stream, and register to receive it.

According to Pete Walker, senior product manager for Calrec several companies are working on the problem—indeed, there is already a solution in the works. “NMOS [Networked Media Open Specifications] is going to take it to the next level,” Walker said. “You can use a central piece of software to control all your devices.” The initial NMOS tool will be IS-04, managing device discovery.

Walker says the protocol is still developing and Calrec doesn’t want to have to wait for it. “Calrec and others are looking at implementing cross-platform control systems, software that discovers all the devices on the network,” he said.

Calrec’s solution, “Connect,” will identify media streams and devices on the network regardless of their registration or discovery protocol. “You can filter, search, then drag and drop devices and interconnect them,” he said. “It visually represents all your streams and workflows.”

At this year’s three-part U.S. Open (Women’s, Senior’s, and Men’s) for Fox Sports, Senior Audio Engineer Dana Kirkpatrick leveraged Calrec’s Hydra2 network to QC the very large number of audio channels coming from the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club course in Southampton, New York. “We were feeding the router and six Calrec Brio consoles in the iso, two digital feature groups, and feeding another Brio, as well as a submix console, a Calrec Apollo,” Kirkpatrick said. “And I was creating two MADI streams for the world.”

The huge network enabled Kirkpatrick to achieve consistency across the attached consoles, he said. “The idea was that I would take everything from the golf course into the Calrec Artemis [in Game Creek’s Maverick remote truck] and EQ and distribute it. When the wind kicked up, I could adjust EQ and it would globally pass to all the mixers, so that the final product had the same EQ and the same gain structure.”

DOLBY ATMOS

Although some features need to be beefed up or even added to meet new production demands, the current generation of mixing console technology has enabled broadcasters in Europe to regularly generate programming, specifically for premium customers, in the Dolby Atmos immersive audio format for the past year or so. In the U.K., for example, all live Premier League soccer matches on Sky Sports, including a double-or even tripleheader on Sundays, have been produced in Dolby Atmos, as well as 5.1, since the start of the season in August 2017.

At a recent month-long competition hosted at multiple sports venues, U.K.-based freelance sound supervisor Pete Mercer produced both a Dolby Atmos mix and a 5.1 mix in a control room at the International Broadcast Center. For each event, Mercer received discrete feeds from the mixer in the remote stadium, including the outputs from a Schoeps 3D microphone suspended above the field of play, created a Dolby Atmos 5.1.4 mix plus six objects on a Lawo mc²96 console, and returned that mix to the competition location for encoding. He and his colleague, Felix Krückels, Lawo’s director of business development, in a second control room on a second mc²96, each mixed one or two games per competition day, Mercer reported.

The two mc²96 consoles were on the same network as the Lawo mc²56 (for stereo production) and mc²36 (for multifeeds) consoles at the competition’s 12 venues. “We could connect via a PC and Lawo MXGui software to check settings, re-patch signals, and even line up by ourselves,” he said. All audio was sent between the venues in each city and the IBC via Lawo’s Commentary system using Ravenna, according to Mercer.

Any console that supports multiple 5.1 buses may be used for Dolby Atmos immersive mixing. In Mercer’s case, the height component had no LFE or center channel information, so was, in effect, a 4.0 bus.

Mercer could monitor the 5.1.4 mix for the UHD feed via Dolby’s DP590 unit. But loudness metering of immersive mixes is still a work in progress and not yet available in consoles. However, said Mercer, “Having a separate value for the 5.1 and the 4.0 height was extremely helpful to make sure the height detail wasn’t too prominent or distant in the mix, especially when mixing extra elements into the 5.1 that didn’t appear in the 4.0 height.”

STAMFORD, CT.—Video streaming of major sporting events continues to rack up sizable numbers as the latest figures from NBC Sports attest.

Playmaker Media, the NBC Sports Group division that powers its live streaming, has been responsible for 4.37 billion minutes of live streamed content this year from Super Bowl LII, the Winter Olympics from PyeongChang, South Korea, and the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

[Read: NBC Olympics Coverage Included 2.17 Billion Total Streaming Minutes]

“To execute not just one but three major events of this size, scale, quality and stability in such a short duration is unheard of in the digital video delivery landscape,” said Eric Black, SVP and CTO, NBC Sports Digital and Playmaker Media.

NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app made coverage of the Olympic Games and Super Bowl available, while Telemundo.com, the Telemundo Deportes En Vivo app and the NBC Sports app streamed World Cup coverage.

Telemundo delivered nearly 1.96 billion live minutes of World Cup coverage to 15.5 million unique users, who generated 130 million live streams.

The Mexico-Sweden Group Stage finale from Russia peaked at 1.02 million concurrent livestreams – one of two events to ever hit the 1 million mark for NBC Sports.

Viewers live streamed 1.86 billion minutes of Winter Olympics coverage this year, and the average in-game minute audience for the Super Bowl totaled 2.02 million viewers, across multiple apps and websites, the network said.

MOSCOW--Fox Sports (the exclusive English-language home of the 2018 FIFA World Cup) and Twitter are collaborating on a live daily online show that is being streamed directly to Twitter using Telestream’s Wirecast live video streaming production software. Hosted by Rachel Bonnetta (@rachelbonnetta), the FIFA World Cup Now show is streamed exclusively on Twitter from Moscow’s Red Square each match day (27 shows, in total). It provides post-game recaps of all events, news, analysis, player and manager interviews, social media reaction from around the world, as well as original segments produced by Fox’s team in Moscow. The live coverage is in the United States to Twitter’s audience and can be viewed via @FOXSoccer on computers, tablets and mobile devices.

To create the live stream, the Fox Sports digital content group chose Telestream Wirecast to create a professional looking live stream that mimics the Fox Sports TV broadcast while offering digital elements such as responding to social media. The switcher inside Wirecast enables operators to switch sources and feature guests from anywhere in the world. The layers interface inside Wirecast enable operators to feature multiple picture-in-picture displays with graphics such as scores, stats, Tweets, and other relevant match data. Wirecast’s internal encoder will package and send the resulting live stream to Twitter.

"As soon as we started working with Wirecast, the quality of our productions increased dramatically. We're now at the largest sporting events in the world and we're happy with the partnership," said Daniela Mayock, who oversees the technical operations for the FIFA World Cup Now show.

The goal for the streaming show is to be an extension of everything the audience sees on linear TV, produced in a slightly different way, with a raw, in the moment feel. The same graphics packages and set location/desk (Red Square) are being used as well as high-quality broadcast cameras. Producing live streams at an event like the FIFA World Cup can be raucous, chaotic, and extremely fast-paced. It was important to the crew that they have an intuitive, stable and reliable tool that is cool under pressure and handles varying internet environments when working remotely.

“Wirecast is helping us extend our reach and increase engagement, particularly with a growing audience that is consuming their content on mobile, and many via social,” said Michael Jankolovits, Senior Director of Video Production for FOX Sports Digital.

The Fox Sports digital team used Wirecast previously for 4 shows at SXSW, and it was used for all of their major digital livestreams including:

Superbowl LI and 2017 NFC Championship Game

• 2016 MLS Cup

• 2017 MLS All-Star Game

• 2016 Big East Basketball Tournament Final

• College Football games

• 2016 & 2017 World Series

• 2016 & 2017 MLB All-Star Game

• 2016 & 2017 Big Ten Football Championship Game

• Daily FIFA World Cup digital on Twitter

The FIFA World Cup represents one of the most challenging and rewarding productions yet undertaken by the Fox Sports digital content team.

Scott Murray is vice president of product management for Telestream.

SAN JOSE, CA.—Globosat, Latin America's largest content and program creator, is using Harmonic’s ViBE contribution platform for live UHD broadcasts of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.

Harmonic's ViBE CP9000 contribution platform preserves video quality at the front of the broadcast chain, processing uncompressed UHD signals with maximum bandwidth efficiency, according to Harmonic.

"Harmonic video delivery solutions have been a cornerstone of our infrastructure for years, providing high reliability and excellent video quality," said Roberto Primo, CTO at Globosat. "For the broadcast of this premiere sports event, watched by billions of television viewers around the world, we needed a solution that provides the lowest latency and best video quality. With the Harmonic contribution platform on the ground in Russia, we will be able to dazzle viewers with the best video quality that UHD has to offer."

MOSCOW--With about a week to go till the World Cup final, it’s clear who the big is: live video streaming.

Akamai Technologies, which is providing live video streaming or more than 50 rights holders in 100 countries, reports the tournament is already the biggest sporting event it has ever delivered when it comes to online traffic.

[Read: World Cup Ratings A Mixed Bag For U.S. Networks]

Within the first 10 days of the tournament, total traffic surpassed all 64 games of the 2014 Brazil World Cup, and by the end of the second round, Akamai had delivered more than twice the traffic it did in 2014 and 15x compared to its 2010 total, the company said.

The July 3 Columbia-England second-round match was responsible for the highest traffic peak during the tournament so far with 18.59Tb/s. That is the all-time high mark for any sports competition Akamai has ever been involved in. By way of comparison, the peak for the 2014 World Cup was the Netherlands-Argentina semi-final with 6.9Tb/s, a record for the company at the time.

According to the company, the 15.8Tb/s video traffic spike for the June 15 Portugal-Spain match was the highest for the group stage.

More information is available on the Akamai website.

Four researchers at the University of Washington have collaborated with Google and Facebook to turn video into fully interactive holograms.

The team of researchers have developed a machine learning algorithm capable of transforming 2D football clips into 3D reconstructions.

They use video of matches, track the movements of each player individually, and then map the players into 3D models. These 3D models have been extracted from the video and projected as a 3D representation onto a football pitch on a table top - allowing the audience to watch the match without the need of a screen.

Viewers can watch the game from multiple angles and the 3D replay will also be available a few minutes after the match ends.

“Our goal is to enhance the viewing experience of sports,” Konstantinos Rematas, one of the researchers on the project, told Digital Trends. “Instead of watching a soccer game or highlights on a flat 2D screen, we convert the original video into 3D and visualise it in augmented reality. Essentially the game becomes a hologram, where you can move around and look from different viewpoints, generating a more immersive experience.”

“The next steps are about increasing the quality of the game reconstruction,” Rematas continued. “In particular, we want to estimate precisely the location of the ball and reconstruct better the players — occlusions, full 3D shape estimation, [and more].”

You can read the researchers' paper here.

MOSCOW--For the two U.S. broadcasters covering the 2018 World Cup, viewership results are a contrast in ratings, with Spanish language network Telemundo drawing record ratings while Fox is reporting lower numbers compared to similar coverage in 2014. 

Telemundo is garnering record viewership and audience engagement with its coverage of the FIFA World Cup in Russia. The U.S. Spanish language network, which reaches 94 percent of U.S. Spanish-speaking households says nearly 20 million viewers have watched the world’s largest sporting event in its first three days of coverage, according to Nielsen.

Daytime viewership for Monday’s three-match coverage averaged 1.1 million viewers, ranking as the network’s most-watched Monday daytime on record. Record viewing numbers were also set for Saturday, with 1.9 million daytime viewers. Sunday’s TV-only viewership average for Mexico-Germany of 6.56 million viewers was the most viewed World Cup group stage match on Spanish-language TVand any Mexico World Cup group stage match in any language on any network, according to Telemundo.

Read: Fox, Telemundo Offer A Clearer View Of FIFA World Cup Russia]

Through five days, Telemundo’s World Cup digital presentation has reached 4.9 million total unique users, generating 27.1 million livestreams and 362 million total minutes viewed. In addition, Telemundo Deportes fans are showing significantly high engagement with over 500K social actions to date, across all social platforms and its fan base has grown by over 71,000 through the first five days.

For Fox, however, the absence of a U.S. team has predictably hurt ratings. The network's broadcast of the Mexico-Germany match on Sunday averaged more than four million viewers and Brazil's match with Switzerland garnered slightly more, at 4.1 million. 

In comparison, when the U.S. mens team competed in 2010 and 2014, those games, broadcast on ESPN brought in more than 13.1 million and approximately 11.1 viewers respectively. 

The number of viewers tuning into the network's coverage of the PGA’s U.S. Open final round on Sunday actually exceeded its coverage of soccer, earning a 3.6 overnight rating among metered market households. 

SEOUL, S. KOREA—SBS, the South Korean television and radio network is transmitting live UHD coverage of select World Cup matches over ATSC 3.0 in immersive and interactive audio using Fraunhofer’s MPEG-H audio format. The demos marks the “world’s first” regular broadcast of immersive and interactive audio powered by MPEG-H according to the broadcaster.

In addition to the opening match between Russian and Saudi Arabia, SBS says it is broadcasting more than 30 matches in UHD/MPEG-H over the ATSC 3,0 broadcast transmission standard during the month-long tournament, including the final and all matches involving the South Korean team. To complete the experience, the loudspeakers at the stadiums from which the matches are being aired include a 5.1 surround setup. For the viewers, SBS is offering three audio presets to hear each match: S. Korean, English or “pure stadium atmosphere.”

[Read: Do We Need More Audio? A Primer On Immersive (3D) Sound]

In addition, a “Dialogue Enhancement” feature will allow viewers to individually optimize the mix of dialogue and effects based on their listening situation

Although the U.S. iteration of the ATSC 3.0 uses Dolby AC-4 for audio, South Korean broadcasters are using the MPEG-H standard for ATSC 3.0 audio. 

For a comprehensive list of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, see our ATSC3 silo. 

MOSCOW--Some technology-facing aspects of the 2018 World Cup were revealed Monday ahead of the soccer tournament's big kick off next Thursday (June 14) in Russia.

CenturyLink, which polished off its acquisition of Level 3 Communications last November said it will transmit live feeds from the tournament to top networks in the U.S. and Latin America, including Fox in the U.S., TV Azteca in Mexico, and RCN and Caracol in Columbia.

Those broadcasters, representing a subset of broadcasters in the region that will work with CenturyLink for the World Cup, will tap CenturyLink’s Vyvx Solutions to provide routes in the transmission of tournament and other World Cup content feeds from Moscow, Russia to each programmer’s master control facilities.

[Read: Telemundo Deportes Partners With Panini For World Cup AR Experience]

Fox Sports and IBM, meanwhile, said they will collaborate on an A.I. initiative across multiple Fox Sports programming for the World Cup. More specifically, Fox Sports will use IBM Watson Media’s A.I. video technology to streamline production workflows to rapidly classify, edit, and access match highlights in “near real-time,” they said.

That A.I.-facing capability will help Fox Sports curate “engaging” video clips and match highlights, the companies added. The collaboration will start with the launch of The Highlight Machine, an interactive experience developed by IBM’s iX unit that enables viewers to browse FIFA’s archive of past matches and to create custom highlights by year, team, player, and play type.

Back to CenturyLink’s involvement, the company has been working closely with local telecoms in Russia and the International Broadcast Center that puts together the source feeds for the broadcasters, Bill Wohnoutka, vice president of global internet and content delivery services for CenturyLink, explained, noting that CenturyLink will work with its broadcast partners to deliver content in multiple formats, including standard- and high-definition as well as 4K.

In addition to transmission, CenturyLink’s Vyvx platform will also handle encoding, decoding, onsite operations, monitoring, and frame-rate conversion.

Getting those logistics lined up alongside the security requirements present some of the big challenges around this year’s World Cup, as “it’s pretty complicated to get content out of Russia, Wohnoutka added.

Among the group of broadcasters working with CenturyLink for the World Cup, Fox’s networks are on tap to broadcast 64 matches live, more than the previous four tournaments combined, and the most-ever for an English-language network, Keith Goldberg, VP of global operations and transmission services for Fox, noted in the release.

“That’s more than 350 hours of total programming, and CenturyLink will play a critical role in enabling us to deliver that content to millions of viewers across the U.S.,” Goldberg added.

Update: Fox Sports also announced details for its FIFA World Cup Hub, which will provide live streams and full replays of the aforementioned 64 matches, as well as access to bonus feeds (including “team channels”), commentary, rosters, stats and highlights. Following similar work done during last season’s CONCACAF Gold Cup, Fox Sports said it will again team with LiveLike on a social VR offering that features a digital suite and three, multi-angle feeds from each match.

Fox Sports noted that its World Cup Hub will provide access to digital content across FoxSports.com and the Fox Sports App.

Fox Sports said adidas is the presenting sponsor for the Fox Sports streaming effort across digital platforms for the entire tournament. Coca-Cola is on board to sponsor the short-form 90 in 90 match highlights. Coca-Cola and adidas are co-sponsoring the Team Channels feature.

FIFA has announced it will equip every team at next month's World Cup with a special app that tracks positional data for every player on the pitch.

The platform, called the Electronic Performance and Tracking Systems, or EPTS, will be available on two devices: one for the team analyst observing the match from the media area, another for the coaching team at the bench.

EPTS will use a pair of optical tracking cameras to log positional data for every player and the ball. That data and video will be available for every team during the match, at half-time and at full-time.

The analyst sitting in the stand will have access to the application which enables telestrator drawings to be overlaid on the video feed. Still images with diagrams can be sent over the network for in-match adjustments.

A video of the Electronic Performance and Tracking Systems in action is available on Youtube. 

MIAMI—Telemundo Deportes, the exclusive Spanish-language broadcaster of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia, is teaming up with sports and entertainment collectables company Panini America to provide Telemundo’s first-ever augmented reality experience for the World Cup. The collaboration launched with the new 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia Sticker Collection by Panini, available in stores and online, and now, the AR content will live in the Telemundo Deportes En Vivo app, featuring new posts on a weekly basis.

Fans can access all of Telemundo Deportes’ exclusive Panini content in the AR menu within the Telemundo Deportes En Vivo app. The AR experience is activated via Facebook’s Camera Effects Platform, which also allows users to engage with the AR content and create sharable, filter-type content, such as their own Panini sticker available exclusively through the Telemundo Deportes and Panini collaboration.

The AR experience will include 10-second videos highlighting Telemundo Deportes talent, historic moments and most memorable goals in World Cup history as well as features on this year’s host cities and stadiums. The content will be available now and through the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia, June 14-July 15. The Telemundo Deportes’ Panini AR experience, created in collaboration with VR Americas, a provider of immersive technologies, is a finalist for “Best Campaign” at the 9th Annual Augmented World Expo 2018 Auggie Awards.

In addition to the AR content, the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia Sticker Collection by Panini features a page dedicated to the Telemundo Deportes commentary team. The partnership also includes traditional and digital advertisements, marketing and grassroots initiatives as well as Panini integrations on Telemundo platforms in advance of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia.

The Telemundo Deportes En Vivo app, is available via app stores for iOS and Android. 

ZURICH—If the grass looks greener or the sweat on the players brows seems to be a little more profusive at the 2018 World Cup in Russia the answer will likely be able to be traced back to your TV set. FIFA has announced that the 2018 World Cup will be the first to produce all 64 matches in UHD and HDR.

With the use of a hybrid UHD/HDR/1080p setup, multiple choices of video formats will be available (1080i, 1080p or UHD HDR) at the back of a single production chain. There will also be use of progressive scanning as a baseline production format.

For the games, 37 cameras will be in use, eight with UHD/HDR and 1080p/SDR dual output and another eight with 1080p/HDR and 1080p/SDR dual output. In addition, eight super-slow-motion, two ultra-motion cameras and a cineflex heli-cam will be available in each stadium. The UHD program will have its own wider-framed main camera, as well as the addition of immersive audio.

FIFA has also announced its digital plan for the 2018 World Cup, integrating the digital production and services offering as part of the overall production plan. This will include the ability to follow matches live in virtual reality as a 360-degree video on demand.

The 2018 World Cup will take place from June 14 to July 15, 2018.