Deutsche Telekom and MediaKind carry out the first 360º multi-camera streaming in 6K

MediaKind together with Deutsche Telekom, Tiledmedia, Magnum Film, Iconic Engine and INVR Space develop a 360-degree live streaming in 6K during a basketball game in Germany.

The collaboration between MediaKind y Deutsche Telekom has pushed the boundaries of immersive live event viewing with the world's first demonstration of a live sporting event in streaming format. 360-degree video with 6K resolution in collaboration with Tiledmedia and Magnum Film.

He 360-degree multi-camera live streaming showed the match between Telekom Baskets Bonn and EWE Baskets Oldenburg from the Telekom Dome in Bonn, Germany, on December 9.

The live streams were delivered to customers of Deutsche Telekom's Magenta VR commercial service via a consumer app.

MediaKind led the technical management of the project, working alongside Deutsche Telekom, Magnum Film, Tiledmedia, Iconic Engine and INVR to build and manage the entire end-to-end live system. Deutsche Telekom commissioned Magnum Film to acquire and produce the 360-degree video sporting event on-site. This groundbreaking demonstration marks the latest milestone in an 18-month collaboration between MediaKind and Tiledmedia to illustrate how 360-degree viewing of adaptive ClearVR video can augment consumers' traditional live streaming experience and bring fans closer to the action.

Angel Ruiz, CEO, MediaKind, states, "Consumers are always looking for new ways to experience their favorite sports content. Thanks to the rapid evolution of 360-degree technology, we have the potential to push the boundaries and take the consumer to the heart of the game itself. The success of this world's first live sporting event using 6K 360-degree video in ClearVR tile format is a major milestone for our team of engineers and our partners who turned things around in a short space of time. This “Demo encompasses MediaKind’s singular goal: enabling our customers to efficiently create and deliver immersive media experiences.”

360-degree live encoding was made possible by MediaKind's virtualized software encoding technology deployed on the Google Cloud platform. The development approach to deployment and operation used MediaKind's software-based probes to monitor every point of the data traffic flow and cloud processing operation, create detailed and customizable operational dashboards using common cloud visualization tools, and orchestration to deploy, scale, and tear down the entire public cloud-based 360-degree live encoder workflow as needed.

The event saw active participation from Deutsche Telekom's T-Labs research team, which is carrying out an evaluation of the next generation of 360-degree virtual reality technologies. Deutsche Telekom already has a commercial VR service, Magenta VR, launched last year, as part of its national IPTV/OTT service Magenta TV in Germany.