The adventure of a tennis VR immersive experience

Nadal Tennis

YBVR has an outstanding expertise of video VR experiences around tennis tournaments. Davis cup in 2018, Australian Open in 2019 and Mutua Madrid Open in 2018 and 2019 are the most important milestones in YBVR’s journey. They are convinced that tennis is a privileged test environment for develop a video VR experience. The size of the court gives a good opportunity to get the best of video VR capabilities, also, the exclusivity of first-row boxes adds an important value to the opportunity to share this immersive experience with a wide group of excluded fans and high skilled public. YBVR installs some 360 and 180 degrees cameras into the court, covering the general overview of the venue and also some first-row positions: close to the net, behind the players, aside the court judges… getting a high quality video source (8K at 60fps). A live production set compounds the content, adding digital and graphic information as the score board, players bio, match analytics, graphic advertisement and other data. Additionally, they insert the TV signal as a giant screen over the horizon, showing close-up images and replays. Tennis fans following the matches from outside of the main court could wear the VR headsets and watch the game into VR. YBVR technology allows experiencing 8K-60fps quality into a conventional VR headset by live streaming, giving an immersive feeling of what is happening in the court. The user can also decide what camera to watch from, in a non-interruptive transition. A map with different camera position is offered to the user to be chosen whenever. Last May, in Mutua Madrid Open 2019 tournament, more than 4,500 people visited the experience. Users could watch some live matches and the highlights of the previous days. Average time of watching was 4,9 minutes per visitor, increased to 7,1 minutes during live streaming. Other outstanding data is that more than 63% of users of this experience were kids and teens, that shows the power of VR to connect with young audiences. But notice that the main power of this technology is to be based on streaming, with bandwidth below 20Mbps per headset. This opens the experience to be enjoyed from home, maybe in a virtual-ticket model or a fan-immersive-channel subscription. We hope to see soon these kind of offerings in the VR world, joining VR high quality (8K/60fps), live events, interactive experience (camera change), data enrichment (TV screen, match analytics, score board, players bio…) and easy to use and access.

YBVR selected by NEOTEC funding

NEOTEC

YBVR has been appointed to receive NEOTEC 2018 funds by CDTI (Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial). CDTI is the Spanish Government office focused on promoting innovation and technological development for enterprises in Spain, depending on Science, Innovation, and Universities Ministry. NEOTEC is a CDTI program with the goal of supporting and empowering companies based on technology, for the development of products or services that require the use of technologies or knowledge developed from the research activity. With € 25 million funding, projects selected can receive up to € 250.000 to support OPEX and amortizations in one or two years. YBVR Europe S.L., based in Madrid, presented the project “360 video optimization for streaming with dynamic FOV adaptation” and was selected, with other 93 companies, to receive funding supported by the NEOTEC program. A detailed description of the project, the marketplace analysis, and future forecast, and the state of the art in this technology was presented to NEOTEC, joining the 5-years business plan with commercial and financial analysis and planning. NEOTEC has a hard selection process and YBVR is very proud to be included in this group of exclusive innovators. Most of these funds will be focused on research and software development to develop and deploy VR video streaming products and solutions for live and on-demand content, to build really immersive experiences based or video and virtual reality. Actually, YBVR projects deployed along this year have confirmed immersive video possibilities in live sports broadcasting over the internet for entertainment, such as Australian Open, last January, or Mutua Madrid Open, last May, with close to 900 hours of viewing time. We appreciate to CDTI and the Spanish Science, Innovation, and Universities Ministry for this appointment and support. We are committed to the evolution of immersive video experiences over the internet with virtual reality, a new way of entertainment, learning, leisure, and news reporting. Subsidized by the CDTI and financed by the Spain National Budget in charge of the application 27.12.467C.74908.