“I don’t remember those moments, I don’t even remember!”
As we wrote a service that will bring democracy to the world of sports, beer and TV
For TV channels, and indeed for all who broadcast, we wrote a new service - “Virtual Commentator”. Its essence is that any viewer can be a commentator, if the owner of the broadcast allows. Viewers who just want to watch, switch commentators in real time and listen to one of them who seems interesting. Participants of the process will not need any special tools - only a laptop and an open browser.
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Commenting here can be called a national sport. It was not for nothing that Sergey Yuryevich Belyakov, a resident of Taganrog, who loves to talk with the TV - also, a kind of, “virtual commentator”, appeared among the heroes of “Our Rashi”. Recall also Ivangaya, a video blogger from a Ukrainian village who fools around the camera and emotionally comments on the gameplay. The number of views of his clips exceeded 1.5 billion!
We believe, there will always be sport (and e-sports too), there are a lot of nugget commentators, and services for them is a very promising thing.
About history
The idea of the “commentator” was given to us by the managers of one large TV channel, and the situation when one commentator replaces another can be called a classic one. This happened even at the final match of the Challenge Cup in February 1979, which is considered one of the most important matches in the history of hockey. Then the legendary commentator Nikolai Ozerov, who was broadcasting from New York, was replaced in Moscow by young Evgeny Mayorov, who had been a player shortly before.
The story of Ozerov and Maiorov came to light recently, no one told about it to Soviet viewers. However, an experienced fan even without this will remember more than one such case, when the connection with the scene of the event is interrupted, and the broadcast is conducted by another person from the studio. Another thing is when the author of the broadcast gives the audience the choice of which commentator to listen to, and the viewers from the people provide the opportunity to comment on their own - this, perhaps, has not yet happened.
About technology
It seems that replacing one sound stream with another is not difficult at all, and we did not invent anything special, but this is not so. Even over the very simple, at first glance, tasks with synchronization of audio and video streams, one sometimes has to break his head.
We, for example, had such a case: at conferences with foreign speakers, it was necessary to transmit and play simultaneous translation in several languages on the network. We applied this solution: the translation was in two languages, and we recorded it in stereo format - on the right audio track there was one language, on the left one another. In this form, the stream was transmitted to the Internet, and before playing in the player, our software recoded it and turned it into two mono streams, between which it was possible to switch. When the conference was translated into a larger number of languages, we transmitted more streams and lost them in several players.
While working on the “Virtual Commentator” another technical problem was solved. There is a so-called master stream - this is a picture that all viewers see. The task was to get audio streams from commentators and mix with the master stream, giving the audience the result. However, the speed of the Internet and computers are different for everyone, and audio inevitably comes with a delay in relation to the master stream. The difficulty lies in the fact that the delay is different each time.
Synchronization of audio and video streams is the reason for which, in fact, the service was created. If it were not for this technology, then the TV channels would have a reason to create their own. Setting up a lot of audio and video streams so that the image is displayed at the same time for all viewers is not an easy task, which took a lot of time.
The “resulting” stream will in any case be delayed. But what to do, the delay in the broadcast is even with analog broadcasting. In commentary booths at football stadiums, in addition to the monitor, which displays the image from the camera, they often install another monitor - with the so-called “reverse picture”. The commentator sees the video stream on it, which has already been aired, which television viewers are already watching. This is due to the fact that the graphics are superimposed on the video not in the stadium, but in the telecentre. So, the image on this monitor, according to commentators, is late by about 5-6 seconds.
Pro equipment
What other equipment does professional commentators have? Large mixing console, where you can adjust the noise level in the stadium and the volume of your voice in relation to this noise. Two monitors about which it is told above, and one more - on it the statistics is displayed - percent of effective shots on a gate, what player how many ran and all in that spirit. There is also a microphone, headphones.
Someone takes the paper with him to the commentator booth, where the teams and information are written, who are injured or disqualified. So does, for example, football commentator Vasily Utkin. A well-known cybresport commentator ReDeYe, advises to hang in front of you a sheet with the words that you use most often, and a list of synonyms opposite each, in order to diversify your speech. In general, pro-commentators don't like extra gadgets.
To work in the "Virtual commentator" you just need a laptop with Internet access and, if desired, an external microphone, but you can use the built-in one. The commenter receives from the organizer of the broadcast two links, a login and password. The first link is access to the web interface, which is a flash application (the computer must have Adobe Flash Player). The application captures the voice stream and sends it to the server for processing. The second link is the address to send.
The broadcast organizer has access to the "admin", which also opens in the browser. There he can connect and disconnect commentators. He also does not need any equipment other than a computer.
About prospects
It seems to us that TV channels and other broadcasters of sports events will greatly benefit from the use of the service. The commentator selection function can increase the number of viewers of the match by half. After all, the commentator means a lot when you choose between channels, where they broadcast the same event.
Look at the football commentators - as a rule, all others are guided by them. Someone will like Yuriy Rozanov’s analytical approach, someone’s over-emotional matchmaking from Georgy Cherdantsev (known for his “O-ho-ho-ho!” And “La-la-la!” Live), someone humor and narcissism from Vasily Utkin (he offered himself to “fuck up” when he confused the soccer player Peppe with another player), someone more like the “perfect commentator” Vladimir Stognienko, who has everything in moderation. Personally, I like the master of the commentary workshop Gennady Orlov and Victor Gusev, who holds the “golden mean” between emotions and analytics. The choice of commentator is no less important than the choice of the team for which to root, especially if the match is dull.
If TV channels are allowed to participate in commenting sports events not only professionals, but also amateurs who have gained a hand in Periscope, Facebook Live or Projector, then we may have new names in the world of sofa sports. A sports commentator is a very conservative profession. In Soviet times, the “main commentator” in the country, perhaps, was one at first it was the legendary Vadim Sinyavsky, who laid the genre of sports reporting, then Nikolai Ozerov. And now commentators have become elite - a narrow circle of people who have grown, mainly from the NTV + team. Maybe it's time for democracy?
For TV channels, and indeed for all who broadcast, we wrote a new service - “Virtual Commentator”. Its essence is that any viewer can be a commentator, if the owner of the broadcast allows. Viewers who just want to watch, switch commentators in real time and listen to one of them who seems interesting. Participants of the process will not need any special tools - only a laptop and an open browser.
')
Commenting here can be called a national sport. It was not for nothing that Sergey Yuryevich Belyakov, a resident of Taganrog, who loves to talk with the TV - also, a kind of, “virtual commentator”, appeared among the heroes of “Our Rashi”. Recall also Ivangaya, a video blogger from a Ukrainian village who fools around the camera and emotionally comments on the gameplay. The number of views of his clips exceeded 1.5 billion!
We believe, there will always be sport (and e-sports too), there are a lot of nugget commentators, and services for them is a very promising thing.
About history
The idea of the “commentator” was given to us by the managers of one large TV channel, and the situation when one commentator replaces another can be called a classic one. This happened even at the final match of the Challenge Cup in February 1979, which is considered one of the most important matches in the history of hockey. Then the legendary commentator Nikolai Ozerov, who was broadcasting from New York, was replaced in Moscow by young Evgeny Mayorov, who had been a player shortly before.
The story of Ozerov and Maiorov came to light recently, no one told about it to Soviet viewers. However, an experienced fan even without this will remember more than one such case, when the connection with the scene of the event is interrupted, and the broadcast is conducted by another person from the studio. Another thing is when the author of the broadcast gives the audience the choice of which commentator to listen to, and the viewers from the people provide the opportunity to comment on their own - this, perhaps, has not yet happened.
About technology
It seems that replacing one sound stream with another is not difficult at all, and we did not invent anything special, but this is not so. Even over the very simple, at first glance, tasks with synchronization of audio and video streams, one sometimes has to break his head.
We, for example, had such a case: at conferences with foreign speakers, it was necessary to transmit and play simultaneous translation in several languages on the network. We applied this solution: the translation was in two languages, and we recorded it in stereo format - on the right audio track there was one language, on the left one another. In this form, the stream was transmitted to the Internet, and before playing in the player, our software recoded it and turned it into two mono streams, between which it was possible to switch. When the conference was translated into a larger number of languages, we transmitted more streams and lost them in several players.
While working on the “Virtual Commentator” another technical problem was solved. There is a so-called master stream - this is a picture that all viewers see. The task was to get audio streams from commentators and mix with the master stream, giving the audience the result. However, the speed of the Internet and computers are different for everyone, and audio inevitably comes with a delay in relation to the master stream. The difficulty lies in the fact that the delay is different each time.
Synchronization of audio and video streams is the reason for which, in fact, the service was created. If it were not for this technology, then the TV channels would have a reason to create their own. Setting up a lot of audio and video streams so that the image is displayed at the same time for all viewers is not an easy task, which took a lot of time.
The “resulting” stream will in any case be delayed. But what to do, the delay in the broadcast is even with analog broadcasting. In commentary booths at football stadiums, in addition to the monitor, which displays the image from the camera, they often install another monitor - with the so-called “reverse picture”. The commentator sees the video stream on it, which has already been aired, which television viewers are already watching. This is due to the fact that the graphics are superimposed on the video not in the stadium, but in the telecentre. So, the image on this monitor, according to commentators, is late by about 5-6 seconds.
Pro equipment
What other equipment does professional commentators have? Large mixing console, where you can adjust the noise level in the stadium and the volume of your voice in relation to this noise. Two monitors about which it is told above, and one more - on it the statistics is displayed - percent of effective shots on a gate, what player how many ran and all in that spirit. There is also a microphone, headphones.
Someone takes the paper with him to the commentator booth, where the teams and information are written, who are injured or disqualified. So does, for example, football commentator Vasily Utkin. A well-known cybresport commentator ReDeYe, advises to hang in front of you a sheet with the words that you use most often, and a list of synonyms opposite each, in order to diversify your speech. In general, pro-commentators don't like extra gadgets.
To work in the "Virtual commentator" you just need a laptop with Internet access and, if desired, an external microphone, but you can use the built-in one. The commenter receives from the organizer of the broadcast two links, a login and password. The first link is access to the web interface, which is a flash application (the computer must have Adobe Flash Player). The application captures the voice stream and sends it to the server for processing. The second link is the address to send.
The broadcast organizer has access to the "admin", which also opens in the browser. There he can connect and disconnect commentators. He also does not need any equipment other than a computer.
About prospects
It seems to us that TV channels and other broadcasters of sports events will greatly benefit from the use of the service. The commentator selection function can increase the number of viewers of the match by half. After all, the commentator means a lot when you choose between channels, where they broadcast the same event.
Look at the football commentators - as a rule, all others are guided by them. Someone will like Yuriy Rozanov’s analytical approach, someone’s over-emotional matchmaking from Georgy Cherdantsev (known for his “O-ho-ho-ho!” And “La-la-la!” Live), someone humor and narcissism from Vasily Utkin (he offered himself to “fuck up” when he confused the soccer player Peppe with another player), someone more like the “perfect commentator” Vladimir Stognienko, who has everything in moderation. Personally, I like the master of the commentary workshop Gennady Orlov and Victor Gusev, who holds the “golden mean” between emotions and analytics. The choice of commentator is no less important than the choice of the team for which to root, especially if the match is dull.
If TV channels are allowed to participate in commenting sports events not only professionals, but also amateurs who have gained a hand in Periscope, Facebook Live or Projector, then we may have new names in the world of sofa sports. A sports commentator is a very conservative profession. In Soviet times, the “main commentator” in the country, perhaps, was one at first it was the legendary Vadim Sinyavsky, who laid the genre of sports reporting, then Nikolai Ozerov. And now commentators have become elite - a narrow circle of people who have grown, mainly from the NTV + team. Maybe it's time for democracy?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/300948/
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