- Innovative camera technology follows the sporting action automatically
- Deutsche Telekom is providing support in construction, connectivity and transmission
- Selected content for EntertainTV customers
- Deutsche Telekom is providing the cloud infrastructure and platform services together with its partner, Microsoft
sporttotal.tv GmbH, an affiliate of wige MEDIA AG, and Telekom Deutschland have signed a partnership agreement for the transmission of amateur sports events to the public. Why should anyone have to wait longer for their local team's away games or even miss the match altogether? sporttotal.tv and Deutsche Telekom are now showing Germany's sporting events, offering to all the opportunity to watch events either live or on demand on their smartphone, laptop, tablet or even TV screen.
The arrangement means that Deutsche Telekom is now building and installing all connectivity services as sporttotal.tv's technology partner, from the equipment installed at sports grounds and halls right up to ensuring the necessary broadband to allow fast transmission to the consumer of the very high data volumes involved in video streaming. Deutsche Telekom has chosen its partner Microsoft's cloud platform Azure as the technological base upon which to build the system. Infrastructural and platform services will be provided from German data centers in Frankfurt am Main and Magdeburg using Microsoft Cloud Deutschland.
sporttotal.tv and Deutsche Telekom also plan to cooperate in the content area. Selected live content and highlights from amateur sport will be available for Entertain customers as well as on other Deutsche Telekom platforms.
"We are delighted to form a substantial part of this exciting and innovative project in which we – together with strong partners of many years standing – will be providing the base upon which sports fans in Germany can receive sports content via the Internet at all times and from anywhere," comments Hagen Rickmann, Director for Business Customers at Telekom Deutschland GmbH.
During the current pilot phase, which is due to run until the end of the football season, the initial offering will include games – transmitted both live and on demand over the Internet – from the Bavarian regional northern and southern leagues as well as Lower Saxony's Oberliga league, with selected teams from the Northern regional league also making an appearance. In the medium term it is planned to add other leagues and sports into sporttotal.tv's portfolio.
The required infrastructure was built and installed during the winter pause in the football season. At the center of the technology is a 180-degree HD camera that has the capability to follow the events on the playing field automatically.
During the transmission, the user can direct their own coverage by moving around the 180-degree picture of the field and using the zoom function to view selected areas of the playing field or particular players more closely. On top of all this, the system also allows you to share highlights of the match over social networks.
The camera will generally be positioned over the halfway line on top of a mast specially built for the purpose or on the roof the stadium. The live stream and on-demand scenes can be viewed during the pilot phase via the sporttotal app or via the web at sporttotal.tv, bfv.de and fussball.de, or on the German Football Association's platform for amateur football.
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