« drive | tv foils all my plans »

virtually real

January 6th, 2006 | tech, sport

For a few weeks now, premierleague.com has featured a section called “goal of the week” via virtual replay. They take the best five goals of the week and tech them out into a 3D type thing of the actual goal. You can select a number of different views, and also see the action through the eyes of the players, or even the ball itself. You can also slow down the speed if you want. The default view is the same shot as the main TV camera. Luckily for me I happened to have the actual footage of one of the goals so I could compare the two. Amazingly, the 3D version is quite accurate and is almost more fun to watch than the real footy.

Another site I make sure to visit on a daily basis is the BBC website. Today in the sport section I noticed this new, but familiar, feature. Wow, virtual mania. BBC now has virtual replays for a few of classic goals throughout the years of the FA Cup, all the way back to 1971. Same tech, same set-up, different goals.

So what’s the reasoning behind all the virtual stuff? Are the computer nerds creating these because it’s more fun for them than just simply adding links to real video clips, or is there something more to it? I have no idea how hard or time-consuming creating these replays are, but I would imagine it has the potential to be a pain. If I were to guess I’d say rights issues plays a part behind virtual replays. Sky Sports pays millions for rights to show Premiership games. But that doesn’t answer the BBC’s virtual goal reasoning. Why not? Well, because the BBC virtual goals aren’t from Premiership games, they’re from FA Cup games. Note: for you non-football/soccer people that noticed some of the FA Cup goals feature the same teams in the Premiership, yes some teams play in a number of different leagues/competitions during the same season. Think of it as if major league and minor league baseball teams played their seperate seasons while also having another huge “you lose, you’re out” competition where they all play against each other.

So if there is a rights reasoning behind it, would it be safe to say that without the tech of creating these vitual goals there wouldn’t be any version of these goals to watch again? Yeah, probably. Nevertheless, whatever the real reasons behind the creation of the virtual goals feature are, I’ll continue watching them from every angle and keep digging them.

2 Comments

  1. matches
    January 11th, 2006 at 9:26 pm

    I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily more fun for the nerds to create them, but I think I’d be more interested in watching a virtual composite of what you’re describing than rewatching the actual goal over and over. I’d also venture to guess that it’s not as complicated to put one together as you might think. I’m thinking they have some sort of rendering engine that lets you put in different characteristics of the goal shot and line it up with the TV footage for the default angles, and the rest take care of themselves.

    It’s a pretty awesome idea, though, and it’s cool because it really differentiates the site from the television and really gives it purpose.

  2. majafa
    January 11th, 2006 at 11:06 pm

    I still like the real footage best. But the virtual recreations are quite fun to watch because they are very accurate to the real-life version, there are multiple viewpoints (from different cameras and players), and you have your choice of viewing in real time or slowing it down.

    PDF also once mentioned that the virtual recreations probably aren’t as difficult as I would imagine. This theory is backed up by the fact that premierleague.com has in the past added them to their site within 1-2 days after the real goal was happened. But still, to the general public that uses computers but really doesn’t know much, if any behind-the-scenes stuff (like me) these things appear to be high-tech, complicated jobs. Now if only other sports had them…

Comment

Most Recent Comments

Archives

Categories