BBC Sport's Tokyo Olympics studio [video] | Hacker News Reader

BBC Sport's Tokyo Olympics studio [video]

bbc.co.uk

134 pointsOJFord42 comments

If you think this stuff is neat, there's a neat improvement on this using what are essentially video walls. Replacing the greenscreen removes the problems with green or white, and gives presentors/actors better idea of their space.

Tom Scott did a quiz series showing off the technology, linked to timestamps where he explains things:

https://youtu.be/zV14G-Sxu7M?t=781

https://youtu.be/Odq0ggVVRyM?t=545

https://youtu.be/RDsRFpVp0kk?t=597

https://youtu.be/xIDr5n9UIR4?t=479

See also roughly the same technique being used in the Mandalorian TV show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUnxzVOs3rk

One problem I see a lot with these LED walls is that in close-up, the details of each individual LEDs destroy the video quality especially in live streamings that have to use ABR (or similar).

But then the video can't change perspective based on the camera position for the correct parallax views, or if it does the presenters get screwed on perspective.

Check out the Tom Scott videos - the presenters get a screwed up perspective, but sight lines work correctly.

Also, anything aligned with the video panels (most notably the floor) is correct from all angles.

Video walls can change perspective. They're heavily in use for shows like the Mandalorian among others.

They'd essentially just show what's being composited in behind them, and react to the camera tracking.

This is how the Mandalorian works

This is the Way

Take a look at how they filled the Mandalorian. Quite a lot of it was filmed inside a large video wall / cube. One of the big advantages for them was that it resulted in far more realistic lighting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUnxzVOs3rk

Video walls aren't very suitable for this use case actually.

The Mandalorian has very specific prebaked imagery to do what it does where latency isn't a big deal. It also uses post production to clean up.

With the kind of volume space that the BBC have, and the frame rates and sweeping camera moves, they likely can't make use of current LED walls.

They don't have the offline resources to clean up the seams in the wall panels, and they probably can't afford the latency of the walls (with walls you need much lower latency than green screen since there's no temporal room to compensate for rendering latency)

Video walls are suitable and are used. There are no seams between the panels and realtime rendering is fast enough for moving cameras. All camera movements are tracked, a virtual camera at the exact same position renders the image which is then shown on the LED wall. The image outside of the panels will be masked with a seamless transition (biggest obstacle here is video wall brightness vs. studio lights). Delays are adjusted for.

You can see how this works in a very small set here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhmYawxWfjE

And here you can see how the image moves when the camera moves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6koVH1vmLp4

The combination of the technologies is product of the last 2-3 years, but it is already used around the world and a major benefit is that there is no additional post production needed.

The disguise website has some more examples: https://www.disguise.one/en/

This seems to be good for the smaller shows and the best for interview type setting. I'm curious how it handles 2-3 hosts.

That 'ghost screen' that the BBC people were showing seems like a dimmed out screen which they have to interact with.

This has to make interviews more artificial feeling and requires experience to get used to talking into walls without fully seeing the other's expressions.

I could see the screen approach delivering a better production. But as others have mentioned it seems less flexible for a large scale production.

It's interesting to see how advanced some of these setups are – all in real-time. I recently found out how ads in football stadiums are masked out and switched in real-time depending on what location the game is broadcast: https://twitter.com/UltraLinx/status/1411807406728925196

Yes, there was a bit of controversy a while ago during Euros, when banners in broadcast for Western/Central Europe had "rainbow" versions of banners whereas the broadcast for Azerbaijan had the regular version of banners.

We stand for progressive* ideals

*where profitable

Amusing aside: I came across this linked in a woodworking subreddit - users were talking about the 'nice joinery' behind the presenter in a freeze frame of some Olympics footage; then someone pointed out it's CGI!

I immediately guessed this was a green screen studio or 'virtual studio'. It has that tell-take 'fake' look to it that is easy to spot. Not knocking the effort or the impressive technology that underpins it.

A recent development is 'virtual' sets with LED background screens replacing the traditional green screen. The blend of background and actors is seamless and impressive.

Here's a behind-the-scenes look of The Mandalorian that uses this new technology.

Why 'The Mandalorian' Uses Virtual Sets Over Green Screen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufp8weYYDE8

Back in the late 90s the BBC had virtual studios. Not as fancy, but given the time difference this was rather underwhelming.

I've seen this type of virtual sets for news at IBC/NAB for years, and always felt they looked fake, just like this one.

I can't be alone in thinking this is really cool, clever, sophisticated, ... and utterly, stupidly, pointless?

Isn't any entertainment 'pointless'?

The purpose of entertainment is to keep the masses from revolting during idle times.

I think believing that is one thing, posting it on a social media site's comment section that largely exists for entertainment purposes only is quite another.

Well, is it really entertaining?

I assume it's better value for money than actually building a set on location as they've done for previous Olympics

Not to mention the fact that we're in a pandemic and flying more folks around the world than absolutely necessary is less than ideal...

> and utterly, stupidly, pointless

Can you explain your thinking more? I don't understand how this argument differs from: Why ever build a professional studio?

This technology is nice because you build the physical studio once (green screens, tracking markers, integration) and then it is only the cost of developing/building environments in Unreal Engine and you have an instant event specific studio for minimal cost.

No flying an entire crew and support staff around the world, no physically building/tearing down multiple physical sets for different productions.

Not to mention, if you don't really want to send an entire production crew a quarter of the way around the world because there's a pandemic going on, and can find a way to not do that, isn't that a benefit? I think this tech is super cool and I think it probably gave the BBC an option that was the best of all possible ones, honestly. Very not pointless.

Ah, is it in the UK? I missed that detail if so. I can see a bit more point to that for sure.

As others have pointed out though, they do this kind of thing for UK elections and things too. And simpler green screening just to replace a London outlook with a different one.

I don't know, even so I think I just don't need to see Tokyo in the background, real or not? Just build a nice looking studio (with some real 'nice joinery', heh) and focus on the content? Even if it doesn't have windows, I doubt I'm going to be claustrophobic watching it, and obviously homogeneous green isn't any better in that regard for them or interviewees than some nice wallpaper or wood panelling or whatever.

And really, how different would it be if they were there? Stuck in a studio being fed information just the same.

I love those political broadcasts "Here I am outside a building where something is happening (but luckily someone in the studio is telling me what is actually going on)." And it's always raining.

As a viewer, I enjoyed watching it, so I think it was worthwhile. I prefer this over a plain studio in the UK.

A real Tokyo-based studio would have been better (even if not as fancy as this imaginary one) but obviously not possible this year.

I dunno I didn't really like it. Kind of felt like watching a computer game. Especially the "runway" type view just screamed "we're on a green screen set!" in the same way that the Star Wars prequels did.

Watch us walk slowly along the safe area.

Not sure what would have been better though.

The BBC has done this a lot, they've projected election results maps on to the floor and the reporter would be walking around the UK.

But it's a bit jarring how obviously fake it sometimes looks, like at 0:45.

Those poor presenters. Looking at all that brightly lit green all day would give me a headache. Also what a drab general view for all the staff.

It's behind them. They don't have to look at it.

France Télévisions did something similar with a bubble in Tokyo Bay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBiFwe-HSU

https://www.newscaststudio.com/2021/07/27/france-televisions...

Cool. I initially assumed the tables were CGI too.

Weirdly the tables were one of the most fake-looking parts of the set!

I wonder if it was a purposeful decision to make tables that would be easy to render, so they don't look out of place against stuff that was actually rendered.

Having been in a couple BBC offices, they really do just have strange furniture all over the place. It wouldn't shock me if those tables came from one of the top floor meeting rooms rather than being made bespoke for this purpose!

The tell that the tables are real is they are never reflected or bounce light against the virtual set.

Nothing real in their shots is reflected, because they're not using a screen space reflection of their real world content.

Which is why, even though this is well done, everything looks a little floaty

That is actually a real good studio however I think it has been done better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l61tE7i1frg

I can't remember what it was I watching (hockey maybe?) when the CGI glitched out randomly and you saw all the green screens as they were.

It looks really neat. Surprisingly, even only a small portion of the floor is real.

That was a more interesting video than one expects. Reality is evermore mysterious. Let's continue, with an interview of the programmers and cameramen!

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