• The IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Programme unveils breakthrough 5G-driven Remote Production and XR ‘Arena of the Future’ projects

• Includes world-first 5G & LEO combined broadcast production workflows and first ever 5G enabled productions in remote regions of Kenya and New Zealand 

• Final Proof of Concept results and project demonstrations to be presented in person at the IBC Accelerator Zone and on the IBC Innovation Stage

London – X September 2022 – IBC2022 announces that two break-through projects exploring future applications of 5G will feature in the IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Programme including Proof of Concept (POC) demonstrations presented live at the show, at the RAI Amsterdam on 9th-12th September. Champions and Participants in both collaborative 5G projects are a cross section of world leading and new industry players from across the media, entertainment and technology world, plus academic partners that are catalysing new technology thinking for nascent media applications.

‘5G Remote Production… in the middle of nowhere’ will demonstrate the breath-taking potential of private 5G networks for live production, with innovative world-first configurations in workflows to enable live broadcasts from some of the most remote regions of the world. The project will demonstrate just how portable and flexible a private 5G ‘Network in a Box’ can be for live broadcast production use cases, taking the project team to some truly remote global locations – including parts of Ireland, Kenya and New Zealand – to develop POCs in August 2022. 

Learnings will be revealed at the show, along with live links throughout the day to the IBC Accelerator Zone and 
Innovation Stage from the middle of rural Scotland and the prestigious Pitlochry Highland Games on Saturday 10thSeptember 2022 – demonstrating the power, flexibility and cost-effective potential of private 5G for niche live sports coverage.

The second project, ‘5G and the Arena of the Future for XR Events’, looks to push 5G’s low latency and connectivity for Extended Reality (XR) use cases to power immersive, real-time hyper-personalisation of fan experiences, and virtual commercialisation in a 3D world. The project looks at live augmented reality technosport events involving multiple locations, platforms, and players – synchronising social interaction in a single virtual, 3Denvironment.

For the POC, the project featured a HADO tournament with teams in London and Miami playing live, while 
Vodafone provided the low latency 5G network that enabled fans to interact seamlessly via Augmented Reality (AR) and motion capture. It demonstrated that esports-style XR and other events that use AR could be held with players and fans located anywhere – at any time – enabling, in effect, the creation of a metaverse-type ‘arenaverse’ for these types of events.

“The two 5G projects exemplify the pioneering and collaborative spirit of the IBC Accelerator Programme, which brings together innovative media companies and leading-edge technology partners to drive advances that addressreal-world challenges and opportunities that the industry faces,” says IBC Innovation Lead Mark Smith. “The 5G POCs are two of eight exciting projects we’re looking forward to bringing to the show, which all underline IBC’songoing commitment to fuelling innovation.”

For the ‘5G and the Arena of the Future for XR Events’ project, the Champions include, in addition to HADO and Vodafone, BT Sport, DAZN, ESL/Weavr, Kings College London, Production Park, University of Surrey, Vodafone, and Warner Bros. Discovery. The Participants are AMD, IVC, Microsoft, Net Insight, Noitom, ProMod Esports, and uniqFEED.

Project Champions of ‘5G Remote Production… in the middle of nowhere’ include BBC, BT Sport, BT Media & 
Broadcast, Paramount, RTÈ, TV2, and Warner Bros. Discovery, plus the University of Strathclyde, Scotland 5G Centre, and SME Neutral Wireless Ltd acting as Academic Partners as well as Champions and project lead. The 
team’s Participants, the tech innovators working with the media brands to create and execute the POCs showcased live at IBC, include AMD, AWS, HAIVISION, Microsoft, Net Insight, Nulink, Singular.Live, Vislink, and Zixi. 

The project team is demonstrating five use cases of the ‘Network in a Box’, using a private 5G network developed by The University of Strathclyde that can be exploited wherever secure spectrum can be accessed. The Strathclyde team has been to each of the five locations, each of which features a different backhaul transport method, working with local production companies to enable the POCs.

They include:

• Ireland for the Fleadh 2022 music festival, which took place in the first week of August in the town of Mullingar, with transmission via low earth orbit satellite (LEO) backhaul for RTÈ. 

• Kenya – Ol Pejeter Conservatory in Nanyuki, capturing conservation stories via Whats Good Media, with transport via fibre through a local telecoms provider streaming live to YouTube

• New Zealand working with the Interim Maori Spectrum Commission, Whakaata Māori (Māori TV), using LEO.

At IBC, on the show floor and on the Innovation stage, the additional POCs will include:

• The prestigious Pitlochry Highland Games, transmitted to IBC via a 5G production from the Perthshire town in Scotland via a live link on Saturday 10th September. Produced by QTV, utilising LEO for backhaul

• A live demo on the show floor at IBC2022, capturing footage cameras at the Accelerator Zone (Hall 2 A14) throughout the event, using Neutral Wireless’s private 5G ‘network in a box’.

The two Accelerator 5G innovation sessions will take place on the Innovation Stage in Hall 2 on:

• Saturday 10th September at 11.15am-12.00pm CET – ‘5G and The Arena of The Future for XR Events’

• Saturday 10th September at 13.30pm-14.55pm CET – ‘5G Remote Production… in the Middle of Nowhere’

The IBC Accelerator Programme, launched in 2019, brings together groups of highly-engaged, leading-edge media and technology companies from across the industry. It empowers them to identify and address critical industry challenges – developing a fast-track innovation framework to design potential solutions, tangibly experiment and ultimately break new, progressive technology frontiers.

The final results and demonstrations of all eight Accelerator projects will be showcased on the Innovation Stage
and at a dedicated ‘Accelerator Zone’ each day in Hall 2 at IBC2022. Each project has its own pod that will ‘show & tell’ a full overview of its challenges, demonstrate R&D findings, and answer visitor questions.