International. Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft researchers have developed ai-powered technology that allows you to change the perimeter ads displayed during live broadcasts of football matches or other events without viewers noticing.
This means that each TV station can display its own content on the boards. The Swiss company ViboTec AG is bringing this technology to market.
For sports fans who regularly tune in to track and field sports, soccer, or other events on their TVs, long billboards on the sidelines are a familiar sight. These generate good money for sports event organizers and media rights distributors, and allow advertisers to reach an audience of millions. However, in the age of digitized advertising with precise audience targeting, this format has its drawbacks: all viewers see the same ads, regardless of the country or region they are in.
Now, the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS has developed a technology that allows the content of perimeter advertising panels to be adjusted to suit each target group. TV stations will then be able to use the dashboards to display content that advertisers have tailored to a certain audience or country-focused content. When a football match is broadcast around the world, millions of viewers will see the same perimeter advertising panels, but each with different content.
Magenta chroma key technology
Fraunhofer researchers have combined the chroma key process, a feature established in television productions, with an innovative technology they developed. In chroma inlay, also known as green screen or blue screen, TV presenters stand in front of a monochromatic color surface, which can overlap with any image or video.
Then it seems to the viewer as if the presenter is standing in front of a winter landscape, for example. Fraunhofer's team uses magenta as the background color; however, almost any color can be used if the colors of the players' jerseys do not stand out enough against a magenta board.
But how exactly does this work for edge ads? Modern perimeter ads use LED panels. These are electronically controlled and feature a changing content stream.
This is how Ulrich Nütten, head of the Media Engineering department, explains the procedure developed at the institute: "The flows on the LED plates consist of a sequence of individual images, each of which is displayed for 20 milliseconds. We shorten the display time to 18 milliseconds and the board shows a solid magenta display for the remaining two milliseconds. This flash of magenta is too fast to be perceived by the human eye. The time and duration of the TV camera recording are set to only record these flashes. That means the camera doesn't see the actual ads, just the boards with the solid color. This is where chromatic inlay comes into play. The magenta area of the image sent to the TV studio by the camera in the stadium is overlaid with new content. This creates an advertising flow that integrates seamlessly with the image of the television."
While spectators in stadiums see the real perimeter ads, people they see on their TVs are shown different ads. However, for them, it is as if the ads are displayed on the perimeter panels of the stadium. It doesn't even pose a problem if one of the players stands in front of a board or runs back and forth in front of it. "The technology is now so advanced that there are no stripes, color distortion or blurriness in those situations," says Nütten.
Perfect perspective even during panoramic shots
This was yet another problem that Fraunhofer's researchers had to solve. When a camera tilts or rotates, the perspective of the perimeter ads appears distorted. Externally generated advertising content must be adjusted so that it always remains within the boundaries of the forums. The IAIS team solved this problem by placing tracking modules on the cameras.
These modules continuously record camera angle and panning motion. AI-powered software uses this data to constantly recalculate the angle at which the plates are fired and to compensate for the resulting distortions in perspective. Despite the considerable computing power it requires, the system does not need a central computer. "Two commercial-grade PCs with powerful graphics cards are enough. One PC detects the magenta boards in the TV image and the other overlays them with the content of the ad."
Fraunhofer IAIS researchers have already started working on the next step: supporting tv broadcasts in ultra-high-resolution 8K format.
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