NTT collaborated with the TOKYO 2020 Organising Committee to create an ultra-real, innovative spectating style for the badminton competition.

NTT endeavored to leverage Ultra-realistic Communication Technology to convey realism and unity, affording spectators unable to attend the badminton competition a sense of being on-site with the athletes.

Images of the athletes and shuttlecocks are extracted from 8K video taken on-site, transmitted using high-speed communications, and projected as holographic images on a full-scale remote pseudo-court.

Athletes and shuttlecocks in dynamic movement could be singled out for extraction without major background restrictions often imposed by chroma keying and other techniques.

Images of the athletes and shuttlecocks are extracted from 8K video taken on-site, transmitted using high-speed communications, and projected as holographic images on a full-scale remote pseudo-court.

NTT’s technology enables stable, finely differentiated transmission of images, even the occasionally overlapping figures of athletes in constant motion and the contours of small and rapidly moving shuttlecocks, which are so difficult to capture.

The project successfully created a shared presence, stirring emotions in a way not possible in TV broadcasts.

The results were praised by Olympic and Paralympic athletes and affiliated parties

and were broadly covered by overseas media outlets such as NBCU, the Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg, representing an advertising cost conversion of 420 million yen (US$3.4 million).

Application of this technology transcends sporting events, with potential for usage in the performing arts and other areas.