Infront Productions produces the Berlin Marathon in the cloud with Sony Virtual Production

Sony's cloud-based live event streaming solution enabled Infront Productions to cost-effectively streamline its workflow and reach new global audiences via social media with high-quality live footage from the popular marathon.

The BMW Berlin-Marathon, one of Europe's biggest sporting events, has successfully experimented with a new wireless workflow with Sony Virtual Production in collaboration with Deutsche Telekom and Infront Productions.

Last weekend, the solution of Cloud-based live event streaming enabled Infront Productions to cost-effectively optimize its workflow and reach new global audiences through social media with high-quality live footage from the popular marathon.

Sporting event productions present multiple challenges, which can be very costly, particularly with the need to move large amounts of hardware to different locations. Using Sony Virtual Production's cloud switcher, Infront Productions could operate with Sony Xperia smartphones, opening up new possibilities for connecting and connecting with fans, as well as optimising resources and reducing set-up time.

Peer Seitz, director de producción de Infront Productions, comenta “vemos un cambio real en la producción. En el pasado, llevábamos el centro de datos al evento, a veces en forma de unidad móvil, pero ahora estamos acercando los eventos al centro de datos, simplemente moviéndonos a la nube y transfiriendo el contenido a través de Internet. Hemos colaborado con Sony Virtual Production para el BMW Berlin-Marathon y la configuración que estamos implementando permite una asignación flexible de recursos; en el futuro, permitirá a los operadores de producción trabajar desde donde quieran”.

"We are seeing more interaction between users and the central production, mainly through social media. With cloud-based solutions like Virtual Production, we'll be able to receive spontaneous contributions of video content from fans around the world. For us, it's a completely new way to engage viewers, which will take sporting events to the next level," he adds.

"There is a growing appetite for personalization in the visual experience. One way to increase viewer engagement is to adapt high-quality content created on smartphones into production. At Deutsche Telekom we want production companies to be able to achieve this by providing the necessary network capabilities," he says Tiana Trumpa, 5G Product Manager at Deutsche Telekom.

Stuart Almond, Director of Intelligent Media Services, said: "At Sony, we are always evolving and responding to the market and we know that viewing habits are constantly changing. This drives the need for cloud-based solutions, which help content creators reach their audiences anywhere, anywhere.

"Listening to the market, we developed Virtual Production and are excited to see the way Infront Productions has been using it. This successful app will open the doors to a whole new form of sports production and fan engagement, and we are proud to be a part of it."

Virtual Production is part of Intelligent Media Services, a portfolio of open technology and services from Sony, which enables media companies to capture, manage and deliver content while adding value at every stage.