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A summer of sports that has been stolen by technology
This summer is undoubtedly a carnival for sports enthusiasts, with Euro 2024 in Germany and the Paris Olympics in full swing.
For most viewers, sports events are athletes' arenas, and for us who are science popularizers, sports events are often an important window for discovering scientific and technological achievements, taking the European Cup as an example, not only the game is wonderful, but all kinds of new technologies are also competing to appear on the stage "live" - before there is the European Cup broadcast patch advertising of the true and false dispute, after the Belgian legend Lukaku celebrated three times with zero goals funny scenes, from football "electrocardiogram" to artificial intelligence-assisted referees, a review of major events, It has had a significant impact on the future of sports technology.
Fully upgraded VAR, the answer can be given in 5 seconds
Lukaku's biggest fear is to hear the referee's whistle blow after a passionate celebration and draw a frame in the air with both hands. This means that at the suggestion of the VAR, or video assistant referee, the match may be controversial, and the referee must stop the game and help the referee make a decision to re-award the penalty through video replay technology.
Since the introduction of VAR in the 2018 World Cup in Russia, it has entered the process of continuous upgrading and improvement, and the semi-automatic version of VAR used for the first time in the 2022 Qatar World Cup integrates more advanced AI technology and real-time tracking chips embedded in football, and this European Cup adopts the latest iteration version - through 10 special cameras located on the roof of the stadium, combined with video motion capture technology, 29 penalty-related parts of the player's body are filmed, and the VAR system will use 50 times / The frequency of seconds sends shooting data, real-time tracking of football and player position, automatically draws a virtual offside line, and then combines the data sent by the induction chip in the ball and artificial intelligence technology to accurately judge the passing point, once the suspected offside is detected, the system will automatically prompt the referee, and from the beginning of the positioning to give the suspected judgment prompt will not exceed 5 seconds, the referee will be informed of the message through the watch and headphones in a very short time.
Lukaku's 'body hair' offside was spotted by VAR
At this time, if the referee decides to adopt the decision of the video assistant referee, the system will generate a 3D animation to explain the reason for the decision, and the generation speed has been greatly improved, the previous technology took an average of 70 seconds to return the computer-generated offside decision, but now the intervention of artificial intelligence makes the whole judgment process take less than 30 seconds, and it is played on the stadium screen and live TV screen for the audience to watch together.
The emergence of VAR technology has also made many people laugh that the Italian star "Nine Masters" Inzaghi was born in a good era, and if he travels to the present, most of his goals, which are famous for anti-offside, may be blown away by VAR. The strict judgment criteria of VAR have also caused widespread controversy, with many fans believing that VAR has ruined the unknown nature of competitive sports, and "body hair offside" such as calf and forearm crossing the line should not be punished. Of course, England legend Frank Lampard may have a different opinion, after all, if VAR and goal-line skills had been born sooner, the whistled cross-line goal at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa might have really saved his team......
Football has built-in sensors, and there is no "hand of God" in football
On June 22, 1986, in the quarter-finals of the World Cup in Mexico, Argentina vs. England, Maradona used a hidden gesture to raise his hands in the second half to hit the ball into England's goal, and the goal was ruled valid. Coincidentally, in the 37th round of the 2006/07 Spanish Primera League, Messi, who is also an Argentine superstar, slapped the ball into the net with his hand in the 43rd minute of the game, and the goal was also valid......
In the past, we could only judge whether the ball touched the player's hand from the picture of the replay video, and what can be clearly judged like Maradona and Messi is not tabled for the time being, and there are many replay angles How to judge? Fortunately, such a scene is already "no one to come", because this European Cup is implanted with an induction chip with "connecting the ball" technology, which can monitor the contact between the outside world and the ball at a frequency of 500 times per second, and can judge whether the player has touched the football at a specific time through the change of football acceleration and acceleration direction, and even form a real-time 3D image of the player's skeletal action after being used with limb tracking technology. It is very clear that the referee has touched the ball or not.
The first "victim" of this technology is still the familiar "pestle king" Lukaku, in Belgium's 0-1 group stage loss to Slovakia, his two goals were judged offside by VAR, and the other was blown away by teammates who were identified as handball by the sensors in the ball before passing the ball for him.
With built-in sensors, it is possible to accurately determine whether a player has touched the ball at that moment
Of course, the emergence of these key technologies that directly affect the trend of the stadium also makes the topic of the game less fun, such as whether Ronaldo's hair touched the football in the 2022 Qatar World Cup, although the final goal is still counted on B Fei, but after the game, it can be said that the topic is full, if football with built-in sensors was introduced two years ago, this topic can be closed at the moment.
However, when it comes to human feelings, the final decision of the game is still in the hands of human referees, and the intervention of technology also depends on the willingness of the referee, also in this European Cup, the host German team defeated the Hungarian team 2-0, and the two goals of the German team were controversial that the referee did not use technical intervention to award the penalty: the first goal, Gundogan knocked down the opposing player when he accelerated forward in the penalty area, but VAR did not intervene; In the second goal, Emrejan was suspected of handball in the penalty area, and although the Hungarian team strongly protested, the referee confirmed that there was no handball without looking at the data from the football's built-in sensors. In the end, not only did the Hungarian team lose the game, but the manager and manager also received yellow cards for protesting against the referee, so as long as the decision-making power is still in the hands of the human referee, controversy and misjudgment will still exist.
Sideline advertising is also "special"? Not so absolutely
If the first two technologies are to expose the "truth" of the stadium, then the technology of the sideside advertising of this European Cup may be a little "fake": we will even see the different "conflicts" between the live broadcast and the replay footage, which has caused a lot of viewers to discuss: Can the sideline advertising also be fake? Could it be that the massive number of Chinese brand advertisem*nts we see are exclusively for them?
Don't rush to conclusions, this is because the European Cup used virtual advertising technology for the first time, and the technology has already been used in other commercial sports leagues, the most typical is the NBA, in the live broadcast footage, many NBA stadium floors seem to be printed with the logo of Chinese brands, but if the picture goes to other cameras, you will find that the logos on those floors are all gone, and this is the wonder of virtual advertising technology.
Replacing rebroadcast ad content in real time is no longer a difficult task with today's technology
The virtual advertising technology used in the European Cup was produced by a company called AIM Sport, but due to technical limitations, it can only cover the display of the sideline LED in the view of the live broadcast host, and other live broadcasts and all playback shots cannot be used synchronously.
In principle, it is easy to understand, because the host position of the broadcast host is fixed, the perspective structure will not change, the system will calculate the position of the information that should be displayed in the real scene according to the virtual model and camera parameters, just like finding the corresponding position on the actual map, at the same time, in order to ensure that the information can be displayed correctly, the system will also check whether there is an object in the image that blocks the place where the information needs to be displayed, for example, if a player is standing exactly at the position where you need to display data, the system will detect this occlusion, Using AI technology to cut out images in real time and superimpose them on the broadcast screen, it is difficult to spot goofs if you don't pause and look closely.
Compared with the actual shot of the third photo, the virtual advertising used in the first two photos can still see the goofs problem when the screen is paused
In April, AIM Sport's official announcement of the partnership with UEFA made it clear that the technology would help international sponsors of the tournament display different marketing content in different languages. So if you ask if there is a special advertisem*nt, of course there is, but not only for China, in the broadcast of this tournament, UEFA has developed corresponding virtual technology service options for Germany, China and the United States.
According to our observations, Chinese customized advertisem*nts have been produced for Chinese consumers, including but not limited to Alibaba, Alipay, vivo, Atos Technology, Binke.com, BYD, Hisense, Qatar Tourism Authority, etc., but note that only Hisense did not use virtual advertising technology, because we saw Hisense's Chinese advertisem*nts in the third-view images of many on-site reporters and live audiences.
The appearance of virtual advertising is a great benefit to advertisers, a delivery, you can make corresponding advertising effects for different markets, for example, Alibaba has Taobao for the Chinese market and AliExpress for the international market, the same virtual advertisem*nt for the domestic broadcast signal will be released when the "10 billion subsidy", for foreign countries is the English version of AliExpress, killing two birds with one stone.
02
9.9 yuan to watch thousands of TV channels?
The chaos of broadcasting in the prosperous era of culture and sports
After talking about the black technology on the court,Let's talk about the new way of playing our audience watching the game,In"European Cup+Olympic Games"Under the double stimulation,The TV boot rate finally ushered in"The opportunity to be "saved",When we sigh at many black technology technologies to improve the viewing experience of sports events,In the face of a large number of "sports VIP members" who need to pay twice or even three times,As an audience, it is somewhat helpless,Compared with obediently recharge platform members,Those who claim to be permanent、Are they reliable for free viewing?
Third-party live TV software that "died" en masse
Watch live TV for free,Many people's first reaction will be to think of TV home、Fengyun live broadcast、Second-party live TV software,This kind of software often integrates CCTV live broadcast、Satellite TV live broadcast、Local station live broadcast,Even some TV channels HD live content,It is very practical for the elderly who like to watch traditional TV programs,Young people will also use this kind of third-party live TV broadcast software to watch the European Cup、Olympic Games and other sports events。
But with the emergence of a refund statement from TV at the end of last year, the entire third-party live TV software industry fell into a "shutdown" period. People found that the once familiar software either directly announced the cessation of service, or most of the content sources could not be opened, and the entire third-party live TV software track fell into a state of "suspension".
A refund statement issued by the TV home
The reason for this is that, according to the regulations of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the Internet TV live broadcast business must be legal and compliant, and must not disseminate illegal content, while ensuring the quality and safety of the program. This undoubtedly increases the difficulty and risk of operation for live TV platforms. Faced with this situation, there is an urgent need for live TV platforms to adjust their strategies to avoid risks and improve content quality.
It is foreseeable that with the intervention of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the future live TV industry will usher in a reshuffle. Some smaller platforms may exit the market because they cannot meet the regulations, while some large platforms have the opportunity to further expand their market share. However, in the face of the just-needed market and a huge user group, the small platform is obviously unwilling to quit, and after going underground, all kinds of chaos have begun to appear.
The business behind the replacement software
With the closure or suspension of related businesses of well-known third-party TV live broadcast software such as PPTV Juli and TV Home, a large number of newcomers such as small and micro live broadcast and super second live broadcast have begun to emerge under the guise of supporting "thousands/tens of thousands of TV stations and peace roads", giving people a sense of the full recovery of the third-party TV live broadcast track.
The reason why so many "newcomers" can appear is largely due to the low technical threshold of third-party live TV software. PPTV cohesion、TV home and other software itself belongs to the video aggregationApp,In short, it aggregates the resources of various video websites for users to choose,In fact, the video data still comes from the video website when you watch。 Users can intuitively understand this kind of App as a search engine,A search engine only returns relevant links when the user searches,The search engine does not store the content of the web page,TV artists just play a role similar to a search engine。
The TV home itself does not provide content
The third-party live TV software that does not provide its own content can be understood as a "shell",Its content comes from the program source/video source preset by the software,Here"source" refers to the live TV source address,Third-party live TV live broadcast software does a good job of UI interface,Embed the live TV source address,Then generate the corresponding channel button,Users can use the remote control to click to watch the program。
In the whole operation process, the source address of live TV is very important, but the radio and television channel is anti-piracy, and the source address of live TV is usually randomly modified, which is why some channels are suddenly unable to watch. When there are many TV channels that cannot be watched, third-party live TV software usually adopts the method of version upgrade, allowing users to reinstall and update the software data package to obtain live TV content.
Of course,Users can also manually add live TV source address,Regenerate or add TV channels,Convenient for their own viewing,It's just that live TV source address resolution often requires PuTTY、WinScp、Notepad++And Wireshark and other software cooperation,Simulate IPTV signals、Filter out the http protocol and grab the live TV source address,The threshold for the whole process is extremely high. More often than not, users will choose to communicate the crawled live TV source addresses directly in the community or GitHub, but no matter how you operate, its convenience is not as good as that of packaged and ready-to-use third-party live TV software. In the face of a rigid demand market, third-party live TV software is usually sold at a very low price to obtain user traffic.
Software that wanders on the "edge of the law" is sold at ultra-low prices
"Because the live broadcast software at home failed, I swiped a recommended APP on the Internet, but after downloading it, not only did it not work well, but I was always asked to recharge, and then I received an anti-fraud call and was told that the software was fraudulent software." - When users install this kind of software at a very low price, they can complete the realization through forced pop-up ads, recharge and renewal, etc. But this kind of software service provider itself is "dancing on the cliff", and running away at any time means that the recharge fee will most likely be wasted.
In addition to the third-party live TV software will be realized in various ways,Live TV source address resolution has also become a separate business,There is a special gray industry team to do live TV source address resolution services,On the one hand, you can package and sell the resolved live TV source address to third-party TV live broadcast software,On the other hand, it can also be sold directly to end consumers,But this kind of transaction also has no guarantee at all。
9.9 yuan TV U disk
"Plug in the TVU disk,Enjoy thousands of sets of TV programs"——Such an advertising slogan can now be seen on many video marketing accounts,It looks tall"Black technology"Hardware,Its core is nothing more than bypassing the smart TV app store,Directly use the USB disk to install third-party live TV software,Compared with the online net publicity,The practice of storing the software in the USB disk not only allows the third-party TV live broadcast software to accurately obtain users,It can also complete the dissemination of the App more secretly。
The essence of TV USB flash drive is"U disk + application installation package"
The emergence of TVUdisks has reduced the threshold for users to a certain extent,After all, the current third-party live TV software has almost disappeared in the app stores of various brands,This almost"plug and play"The experience is very popular with end users,But it is still a third-party live TV software in essence,The same problem that the program cannot be watched due to the change of the source address of the live TV,And for a long time,Whether the software platform can be operated and maintained is also a problem。 In addition to these potential problems,TVUdisks also have the problem of requiring users to pay for memberships after the free trial period,Or forced pop-up ads are flooded。
In fact,Not only TVUsemblew"Black technology hardware"Promote third-party live TV applications under the banner of "black technology hardware",The same is true for some TV boxes that claim to be able to watch thousands of TV programs for free,It's just that it directly integrates third-party live TV software into the firmware of the TV box system,Let users really experience the low threshold of instant use,It's hard to say how long it can last。
A relatively reliable channel to watch TV for free
From the European Cup、Olympic Games to ordinary TV programs,Copyright has always been a hurdle that can not be bypassed by smart TV software,In the face of chaos of third-party live TV software track,You may wish to consider wireless terrestrial digital TVDMB。 This way of transmitting TV signals through radio waves is not only one of the three major digital TV networks in the country, but also a national public welfare project, users can receive free TV signals as long as they use TV antennas and TV sets or receivers that support digital TV functions.
To put it simply, in fact, DTMB is the same as the principle of receiving the TV antenna with the TV antenna in the past, the difference is that the analog TV signal with snowflakes was received before, and the current DTMB received a clear digital TV signal.
After years of precipitation and promotion, the current price of DTMB antenna is only about 25 yuan, and users can connect it through wired connection after purchase. After the TV is turned on, choose DTV,Digital TV,One of the terrestrial digital TV)After entering, some TVs will show no signal、Some will prompt users to search for the station。 However, DTMB is a public welfare project after all, and the implementation intensity varies from place to place, so there is a big difference in the number of programs, some areas can watch more than a dozen stations including CCTV, and some areas only have a few local channels. Therefore, it is cost-effective to spend twenty or thirty yuan to buy a DTMB antenna, and if the local program is not enough, there is no need to buy too expensive package products.
The DTMB antenna, priced at about 20 yuan, is enough to meet the needs of most users
Overall,With the implementation of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television's provisions on the protection of intellectual property rights and the increasingly mature copyright operation represented by sports events,It is difficult for third-party live TV applications to continue"Playing side ball",Instead of various attempts to toss, it is better to directly buy Mi VisionTVThe version (Migu video)Members with rich sports event resources,After all, it is deeply bound to China Mobile,Some daily points sign-in、Points exchange and other activities can obtain a certain amount of membership use time,The convenience of user experience is also better。
