Crafting AR innovation at the Super Bowl
with Silver Spoon and Stage Precision

 

use case // 2024

Overview

 

In the world of live sporting events, few spectacles rival the reputation and magnitude of the Super Bowl. As the world’s eyes converge to watch this annual sporting and entertainment spectacular, the pressure to deliver a flawless broadcast is undoubtedly sky-high.

 

For Silver Spoon, a real-time graphics and animation company, the 2024 Super Bowl live broadcasts on CBS and Nickelodeon presented an unprecedented opportunity: to redefine the boundaries of what is possible in the realm of augmented reality and live broadcast. Central to this endeavour was Stage Precision, whose cutting-edge SP tracking and control solutions played a pivotal role in orchestrating several broadcast firsts during this year’s show.

 

 

Challenge 

 

“The scale and complexity of the Super Bowl demanded a bullet-proof solution that could seamlessly integrate across multiple broadcasts and platforms,” recounts Matthew Houstle, Director of Technology at Silver Spoon. “SP’s tracking solutions emerged as the linchpin of our operations, providing us with the precision and reliability we needed to execute our vision.”

 

 

Part of the vision was to bring the Super Bowl to a younger audience through the first-ever simulcast of the event on the children’s broadcast channel, Nickelodeon. The simulcast would recreate the action of the Super Bowl game in an alternate reality from the SpongeBob SquarePants world of Bikini Bottom, with over three hours of live AR coverage.

 

The scope of the project extended even further, making the Super Bowl project the largest on-site AR deployment in broadcast history. Alongside the Nickelodeon broadcast, Silver Spoon handled all AR content and operations for both the CBS Studio shows at the Bellagio and the game broadcast on CBS, utilising a total of 36 Unreal Engine servers and a 32-person on-site crew. This included AR-enhanced touchdown celebrations and mixed reality scorecard signage across several Las Vegas landmarks, including the prestigious Bellagio Hotel & Casino.

 

Key Stats

 

  • 15 tracked cameras

 

  • 36 Unreal Engine servers

 

  • Three simultaneous shows

Client quotes

“The scale and complexity of the Super Bowl demanded a bullet-proof solution that could seamlessly integrate across multiple broadcasts and platforms, SP’s tracking solutions emerged as the linchpin of our operations, providing us with the precision and reliability we needed to execute our vision.”

 

– Matthew Houstle, Director of Technology at Silver Spoon
“With SP we have full visibility over diagnostics across the entire production and can identify problems quickly and solve them straight away. If something pops up, I want to be able to tell clients I know where the problem is and how long it will take us to fix it. With SP acting as a kind of workflow detective across the entire network, I can do this.”

 

– Dan Pack, Managing Director at Silver Spoon
“SP’s software and custom-built APIs allowed us to calibrate cameras quickly and accurately; literally in the space of minutes, the integration with Pixotope was instrumental in managing primary and backup cameras, as well as facilitating failover seamlessly.”

 

– Matthew Houstle, Director of Technology at Silver Spoon

Solution 

 

 

We had 15 tracked cameras across three shows,” elaborates Houstle. “Bringing SP into the fold was essential for streamlining our operations and ensuring seamless integration across all platforms.” Key to the management of such a complex project was the development of a unified backend system – a single server infrastructure that could manage the diverse array of cameras and broadcasts. “SP allowed us to consolidate our infrastructure into a single server, reducing backups across all shows and unifying our engineering team,” Houstle explains. “Their software not only facilitated camera tracking but also managed our server failover seamlessly.”

 

Axel Lambrecht, Co-Founder and Solutions Director at Stage Precision worked closely with the Silver Spoon team to realise their vision. “Axel and his team went above and beyond our expectations,” continues Houstle. “Their expertise and dedication were instrumental in building out an incredible system that was customised to be as comprehensive as possible.”

 

Running all camera tracking data through the unified backend of SP allowed Silver Spoon to craft an innovative server failover system, that not only gave greater visibility of the whole workflow, but also saved on costs. “Without SP, every render engine for each main camera required a backup server, and this gets expensive on a show of this scale,” explains Houstle. “We wanted to avoid this extra cost, so we built the system with a 50% backup idea going into the project and SP allowed us to set up a camera switching logic so that with a single button press the camera and server could be switched over instantly in case of failure.”

 

SP’s advanced diagnostic tools emerged as an invaluable asset in identifying and resolving real-time data issues, a critical aspect of any live event production, but especially a broadcast with such a large global audience. “Having all the data go through SP gave us great diagnostic tools,” Houstle explains. “Their software allowed us to pinpoint issues such as double packets and dropouts, ensuring the reliability of our camera tracking throughout the event.”

 

The calibration of cameras presented a unique challenge, particularly for hero shots such as the “beauty camera” views of the stadium. SP’s camera calibration features and tools streamlined this process, allowing for quick and accurate calibration. The integration of numerous custom APIs ensured Silver Spoon could use their entire toolkit of technologies, yet have control, visibility and failover within a single source of truth in SP.

 

 

In the case of the Super Bowl, SPnet, an openly available protocol that allows real-time object-based data streams to connect seamlessly in SP, was adopted by Pixotopefacilitating the control of multiple instances in only a few clicks.

 

 

“SP’s software and custom-built APIs allowed us to calibrate cameras quickly and accurately; literally in the space of minutes,” Houstle elaborates. “The integration with Pixotope was instrumental in managing primary and backup cameras, as well as facilitating failover seamlessly.”

 

Throughout the project, SP’s technology empowered Silver Spoon to overcome challenges and push the boundaries of live event production. “SP’s technology provided us with peace of mind, knowing that we could deliver a flawless broadcast to the largest audience in the world,” confirms Dan Pack, Managing Director at Silver Spoon. “Products like those from Stage Precision have levelled up the operations in our industry giving us complete confidence to deliver highly conceptual executions live on the biggest stages.”

 

The visibility and control made possible with SP have been another key to the successes at the Super Bowl. “With SP we have full visibility over diagnostics across the entire production and can identify problems quickly and solve them straight away. If something pops up, I want to be able to tell clients I know where the problem is and how long it will take us to fix it. With SP acting as a kind of workflow detective across the entire network, I can do this.”

 

 

The 2024 Super Bowl broadcasts across CBS and Nickelodeon represented a triumph of innovation and collaboration between Silver Spoon and Stage Precision, with SP’s tracking solutions and Silver Spoon’s expertise serving as the cornerstone of the achievement. As the world looks to the future of live event production, one thing remains clear: SP’s technology has redefined the possibilities of mixed-realitybroadcasts, paving the way for a new era of immersive entertainment.