Ericsson readies AR and Discovery at NAB

April 2016 – Ericsson is a mobile technology infrastructure provider, a global CDN and an infrastructure provider for Pay TV and OTT. In providing solutions across this space they have recognized that a major feature requested by the content providers is being able to deliver global personalized content as a service. Their major content delivery clients report that 85% of the end users do not find what they want to see, even using OTT platforms.

The current environment has 200M pieces of metadata, 12,000 channels and 10M programs. There is no consistency on the metadata, how to access it and where to locate a lot of this content. For that reason, Ericsson has created and deployed a Discovery Recommendation System. This cloud based system can be operated through a Set Top Box (STB) or a mobile device from any location. The system collects the users viewing history and builds a profile to drive the recommendation engine to search for content that is appropriate. The discovery recommendation engine is available through an SDK to developers.

Ericsson Piero Augmented Reality 3D Studio Graphics Projection

At NAB they were also announces the launch of Piero Augmented Reality system. This is a cutting-edge software system that gives broadcasters the ability to enhance sports programming by overlaying 3D graphics in real-time during live studio productions and sports games. The Piero graphics can be produced instantly during the broadcast and the graphics are then projected onto the floor of the studio as a 3D image allowing for illustration of in-game analysis. The software is currently being tested by the BBC for its iconic football highlights TV program, Match of the Day. An overview of the Piero system can be seen at Piero demo. 

Effects and features of the Piero Sports Graphics system, include:

• 3D Virtual Replay – visualize a replay of the match on the studio floor
• 3D Heat Map – a customizable heat map based on Opta touch data
• Goal Build Up – visualize the passes sequence to a goal or a shot
• Pass Map – visualize a team’s passes map during a game
• Actual game footage projected in 3D on the studio floor
• 3D Shots on goal – visualize shot trajectories and attempts on goal
• Penalty Heat Map – customizable heat map based on Opta penalty shots data

The AR graphics system is resolution agnostic and supports SD – 4K resolutions as well as standard – HDR color.