Partnering in Change

Change two things about live event streaming and you change everything.

First, imagine bringing the immersive impact of the best apps, video games and augmented experiences to live broadcast. That means sharing more than cameras alone can capture. Sensor and beacon data, along with metadata, news and social feeds, would come together in a rich, all-new user experience. Users could interact with it, switching between camera views and navigating the experience – be it a sports event, concert, even an educational or training event – in real time. They could even join in, participating with the audience (or even the talent) in real time, no matter where they were.

Next, imagine removing the barriers of budget or scale from access to live events. Viewers could watch a city league soccer playoff in real time on whatever device they wished, with the fidelity they’d expect from a professionally broadcast showdown. Anything from local sports, music festivals, community arts and culture gatherings to highly specialized trainings could reach global audiences with the quality of a major event.

We don’t have this today, and that’s a problem. Live viewing of high-budget broadcast is waning. People want more than simply “watching” can deliver, and they have choice in what they choose to view. Yet there hasn’t been a single path for content providers – from the biggest to the most local – to deliver next-gen experiences in affordable, scalable, high-fidelity ways.

We see a better future, and we’re building it at AerNow. In our vision audiences engage and interact with live games, races, performances or other happenings in ways today’s livestream experience simply doesn’t deliver. This vision enhances any event, from a regional competition to an expert’s lecture to a sold-out music festival you’d do anything to see. All of these, we believe, should be available to viewers as immersively and interactively as the most engaging augmented experiences.

Delivering this depends on two breakthroughs and on bringing them together:

• unifying video content with diverse data sources to enable all-new experiences
• dynamically federating video networks in a frictionless, seamless way.

At AerNow, we’re building the first: bringing video content and data into a unified operating system that orchestrates unique, immersive user experiences that leverage machines and  automation.

In partnership with Tata Communications, we’ve found the second: the ability to bring this platform to a media-aware network delivering synchronized audience experiences anywhere, on demand. This groundbreaking capability allows audiences to experience and interact with live experiences in real time, wherever they are and whatever devices they use.

This is something new and powerful – something we wouldn’t attempt without the reach and scale of Tata Communications’ global network. Working together, we’ll connect audiences everywhere to the content and experiences they want most, making local events global while making global events as personal and relevant to viewers a continent away as they are to a fan in the grandstand. What would you watch if you could view anything you wanted?

How do you see the landscape of live broadcasting changing? Let us know in the comments below.