Salford working on the future of live TV

The University of Salford is a partner in a €9.5m project to develop TV which will allow viewers to move the focus of what they’re watching – so people wanting to see what Fabio is shouting at his players can seamlessly move their viewpoint across the pitch to the dugout.

Ben Shirley and his team are working on the ‘Fascinate’ project, along with global partners including the BBC. The idea is to make live TV coverage of events, like concerts and sports matches, customisable so that people can watch any aspect without a loss of quality, defining their own viewpoint on the event.

In practise, this could mean that someone wanting to focus on Wayne Rooney during a match could grab a section of the screen and move it into a corner to follow his every move. Alternatively if they wanted to watch the action from behind the goal, they could move their whole perspective and zoom and pan their personalised view however they wished.

Whilst at live events, members of the audience can use FascinateURmobile to get a better view of something on stage they’re interested in seeing – that guitar solo for instance.

As experts in audio-visual research, the Salford team will be responsible for making sure that sound quality stays high and consistent when the view is moved. They’ll also be working on a sound system which captures the noise in a similarly panoramic way to the cameras and can render it on any reproduction system.

Mr Shirley said: “Fascinate is a major development in the way we’ll be watching TV in the future. Media companies can use the technology at a huge range of live events. The World Cup brings this sort of technology into focus, but it’s wider than just the living room. We see this turning all sorts of other live events into an even more rewarding experience as well.”

Technology like that used in this project will be incorporated in the University’s new MediaCityUK facility from 2011. Right next to major BBC departments, the new building will house research and teaching labs covering a wide range of media and digital disciplines.

Fascinate is scheduled to last for 3.5 years and more details can be found at http://www.fascinate-project.eu/

[Main page photo courtesy of vfr800guy]