In a perfect world, consuming live 360-degree video and virtual reality content involves zero lag. Though with thousands of miles sometimes separating an event and your device, a delay or slow connection is inevitable. Ultracast, a broadcaster of live 360-degree broadcasts, knows this better than most. The company has chosen Tata Communications‘ global network to help expand its offerings of 360-degree video and virtual reality content.
For Ultracast, creators of content primarily in the motorsports space (NASCAR, 24 Hours of Le Mans, etc.), latency is the key to bringing in viewers and keeping them watching. Hence why they’ve started using Tata’s Ultra Live Video Delivery Network (VDN), designed to reduce latency in any broadcast.
“For us, it’s super, super important to make sure there is no lag time when users access it because we do most of our events…I would say 90 percent of our stuff is live,” Ultracast CEO Dmitry Kozko said. “Latency is super important.
“We’re all hoping that tens of millions, maybe a hundred million log on to our particular Ultracast. But let’s say we’ve reached that success and all of a sudden their [the network’s] backbone starts crumbling or people start getting a bad experience…we will never have a second chance of attracting that large, massive audience again.”
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To give you an idea of Tata’s capabilities, they put together a live, 360-degree environment at last year’s F1 Grand Prix in Singapore. Viewers were able to watch in full 360 VR every time a driver like Lewis Hamilton pulled into the pits. All of it was in real-time and synced frame-accurately to supplement the traditional viewing experience.
“It’s not a replacement for the primary broadcast but it is definitely a very good extension to it where you don’t have to be at the event to feel like you’re at the event or get an experience like you’re at the event,” explained Brian Morris, Tata’s Vice President and General Manager of Global Media and Entertainment Services.
“Anything they need from a standpoint of stitching video and coding video, even the reliability of video deployment are all things that are well-developed within Tata Communications.”
Ultracast and Tata have already begun working together, and Kozko described everything as smoother, better and crisper in terms of latency.
“I’ve been watching this space for a while, and for whatever it’s worth, my personal opinion, Tata’s got something special going on,” he said.