Foolish Human Sports Coverage Predictably Improved By Robots

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↵As with seemingly all things technology-related, sports coverage on TV is hampered only by the inadequacies of the meatbag humans who run the show. Were they left to robots, sports broadcasts wouldn’t be the simplistic affairs we have grown accustomed to. No, they would be so much more comprehensive. Which is why the metal arms are finally wresting control of TV sports from our frail hands and ball-fixated eyes. Presenting the revolutionary APIDIS (Autonomous Production of Images based on Distributed and Intelligent Sensing, of course).↵↵⇥Tracking a ball across various video streams is relatively easy, says [Catholic University of Louvain’s Christophe] De Vleeschouwer, but viewers also want to see what the players are up to. So APIDIS aims for a shot of the action that is a compromise between focusing on the ball and wider views of the pitch by tracking the ball and players simultaneously, calculating which camera captures the most detail.↵⇥↵⇥APIDIS can be tailored to viewers’ demands, says De Vleeschouwer, by giving preference to shots containing particular players, for example. It has been tested on several basketball matches, a game chosen because of its fast pace. The resulting footage was good enough to attract interest from the US sport broadcaster ESPN, claims De Vleeschouwer.↵⇥

↵↵↵Well of course ESPN is interested in a system that focuses on star players even when they aren’t directly involved in the action. They were already scooped by Fox with the Favre cam. They won’t let that happen again. Luckily so far, the system excludes crowd shots, because then some viewers might never bother to follow a sport again.↵

↵↵(H/T to New Scientist via SB Nation & Gizmodo)↵

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