The TV of the future may not be a rectangle, but a sphere.
Some visitors to the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week got a peek at a new way to view 360o video.
The new viewing experience was shown as part of a collaboration among several partners including French video software firm Ateme and British-based Pufferfish Displays, which makes the spherical projection module.
Photo: AFP
Although 360o video can be viewed on a standard television or tablet, the spherical module adds a new dimension, Ateme general manager for the Americas Mike Antonovich said.
This “can augment the experience of viewing a live concert or sporting event,” Antonovich said.
Using the sphere makes the viewing an interactive and collaborative experience, Pufferfish’s Geoff Kell said.
“It will be an addition to the viewing experience, but it also has great value as a data visualization tool” for research or other purposes, Kell said.
Ateme and its partners recently produced the first live 360o broadcasts using the trademark LiveSphere.
“You can view from different angles, so if you are watching a concert you might want to be part of the audience, and then switch to be part of the band,” Antonovich said.
While 360o imaging has been around for several years in services such as Google Maps, Ateme said it is far more challenging to produce the effect for live television.
Other partners in LiveSphere include Finnish technology group Finwe and France-based Kolor, which specializes in “image-stitching.”
The partners are working with broadcasters around the world to produce live events, using the 360o interactive format.
While stunning televisions and sizzling content services starred at CES, not far away a light was shone on cable service-plundering pirates.
“Pirates closely follow legitimate technology innovations,” Irdeto senior security director Mark Mulready told reporters while demonstrating streaming television piracy gear and tactics in a hotel suite not far from the CES show floor that closed on Friday.
“Pirates are moving to rebroadcast over set-top boxes,” he said.
Piracy has become such an established and lucrative business that it can be challenging for consumers to figure out which streaming television services are legitimate, according to Mulready.
Irdeto, an arm of South Africa-based Internet services titan Naspers, specializes in hunting down and sinking pirates.
“Set-top box piracy is really a global problem that is growing very fast,” Mulready said.
Manufacturers in China openly hawk set-top boxes that pirates can distribute to subscribers, according to Irdeto. The set-top boxes themselves are legal — the trouble begins when pirates rampantly restream cable programs without permission.
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