Tonight there's a crucial
cricket game on in the international Tri-Series involving Australia (the world
champions), New Zealand and England. My team, New Zealand, is playing Australia tonight
at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Sadly I don't currently have TV access to the sports
channel that televises cricket games here in NZ, so I have to use the Internet to follow
the play. Cricinfo.com is the Web source for international cricket lovers - and
tonight I was pleasantly surprised to discover a new live 3D service at Cricinfo. This is a perfect
illustration of the benefits of 3D on the Web, a theme we've been tracking
lately.
Cricinfo's coverage is a 3D animated representation "created from Cricinfo's rich scoring data." It's the next best thing to live tv coverage on the Web, which is no doubt too expensive for Cricinfo to purchase. Using 3D, Web viewers can see a graphical representation of the cricket shots being played live, "shortly after the actual action has taken place". After each ball is bowled, the screen refreshes automatically - just as with the textual ball-by-ball commentary that I usually tune into when I'm sans TV coverage or just busy with work.
What's more, you can choose your camera angle - something you can't do by TV... yet. There are 8 pre-set angles: bowler, batsman, the 2 umpires, and 4 fielding positions. You can zoom in and out, and pan around the stadium with a 360 degree camera.
cricinfo 3D is powered by SportFlashback, a technology represented in the UK by 3D Web Tech company. They also supply the BBC's live football and delivered the (soccer) World Cup Virtual Matchcast and Virtual Replays. This is the first time 3D technology has been used in cricket. To view cricinfo 3D, you need to download Adobe's Shockwave version 10.0 or above.
I have to say, cricinfo 3D is awesome and a great use of 3D on the Web. It takes me back to 2000, when I followed the America's Cup yacht races on the Internet via Virtual Spectator (an ahead-of-its-time kiwi company). What I like about cricinfo 3D is that I get a sense of the cricket shots being played, as well as being able to follow the textual commentary. Also the different camera angles are useful, if only to see what it looks like from the batsman's pov, or the wicket-keeper, or the bowler, etc. Sure it's not as good as seeing the game live on TV, but for those poor bastards who don't have TV coverage (for whatever reason), watching it via 3D is a pretty cool alternative.
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And it looks like the Aussies won...again. Do any other sports currently offer this technology?
Posted by: Anthony | February 4, 2007 3:28 AM
Bleak about the cricket mate, that Ricky Ponting...!
I'm in SA and loving our attack of the Paki's.
Thanks for the headsup on this 3D cricket. I'm a daily cricinfo visitor but had not checked it out... its awesome!
As this is my first comment on your blog I must also say well done. You truly do an amazing job with your writing and you have become one of my daily must-read feeds.
All the best!
Posted by: Rob | February 4, 2007 3:52 AM
This is excellent technology - only one feature sadly looking; the ability to make the England team look remotely competent in the field or with the bat. Speaking as a England fan, I'm not sure I can bear to watch our fallen heroes get beaten from many different angles, as one is bad enough at present!
Posted by: John Wilson | February 4, 2007 5:58 AM
Hmmm...I love cricket but feel the excitement with this 3D offering is only in the novelty. Long term I can't imagine it continuing to be a rich experience.
Not to say I won't check it out but it's a shame that with cricket losing popularity that that the powers that be can't see how live cricket on the net would boost interest.
My only hope is that CricInfo's innovation will be so popular that the message is sent loud and clear to the stiff "dinosaurs" who are in control of world cricket.
Posted by: Adrian Keys | February 4, 2007 6:46 AM
Anthony: plenty other sports offer the technology of Aussies winning all the time... :D
This feature takes me back to the days of World Series Cricket on my C64. Anyone else play that?
Posted by: Paul Montgomery | February 4, 2007 6:47 AM
Great feature. Next best thing to watching it on TV.
Posted by: Hindustan.Mobi | February 4, 2007 9:19 AM
you might try tvu player.
http://www.tvunetworks.com/downloads/player.htm
Posted by: Peter | February 4, 2007 9:31 AM
This is great...Let's see how they do at the end of a close game.
Posted by: Jitendra | February 4, 2007 9:41 AM
http://www.willow.tv has the online video rights to the cricket. Its not cheap but if you're in the US (as I am) you don't have a lot of options. Hook it up to your HDTV and you're laughing
Posted by: jeremy liew | February 4, 2007 10:02 AM
This is a really exciting technology. I have no doubt that in a few years we will be able to watch major sporting events in some kind of video/3d combination where the user can fly around the field.
Does anyone know if they are representing real player movements, or just general plays. For example, do they track a fielder's movement in realtime as he collects the ball or do they just have a preset animation for a specific fielder collecting a ball regardless the actual play?
Posted by: Shawn Elson | February 4, 2007 10:23 AM
Shawn, good question. Right now they don't really feature the fielders at all - it's mostly the bowler and batsmen. I suppose it would take more computing power over the Web than is generally available to include all 11 fieldsmen. The batting plays seem to be just general plays, but it's quite convincing even so.
As for the result last night... that BLOODY Ponting!!!
Posted by: Richard MacManus | February 4, 2007 2:29 PM
I spent some time in school in Oxford and learned to really enjoy cricket. However, I find it very hard to follow here in the States. In addition, I don't have my friendly cricket expert sitting in the room with me and have forgotten much of what I might have learned about the game.
Can some of you cricket fans suggest a site or book that really explains the game? One that not only gives you the jargon, but also some history and strategy as well?
Posted by: Alex Ezell | February 4, 2007 3:24 PM
I can't wait for NBA to do exactly like this.
Posted by: myspacecomments | February 4, 2007 7:10 PM
Thanks very much for the positive comments about Cricinfo 3D. We in the Cricinfo product team are excited about this offering, and it should move from beta testing shortly. We're also adding a number of other features - such as the ability to watch the wickets, look at graphical stats and so on. Any other comments on the application are appreciated.
Posted by: Andrew Hall | February 5, 2007 1:29 AM
Hey Andrew -- great initiative. As per my blog posting over at Yoick I think this would really shine if applied within a virtual world environment, together with social interaction functionality.
Disclosure: we are working on just such a product and would be happy to chat.
Posted by: Rand Leeb-du Toit | February 5, 2007 3:25 AM
Hi. In response to Alex's query about a site explaining cricket, I learned the rules from this site/ http://www.cricketvideo.com/cricket_exp.html
About things like realism, fielder movements, etc., I think the real challenge is not transmitting or displaying the movement, but capturing the details in real time. I suppose the model for the ideal system is hawkeye, which they use in live broadcasts to show whether an LBW decision was correct (and they also use the same kind of data to analyze a bowler's deliveries at times). I'm not sure whether that sort of optical capture could be used on the players, too. It's amazing to me that it works so well on just the ball.
Posted by: Alan R | February 5, 2007 4:32 AM
I saw something like this for club players too. It was like Hawkeye but you put it on your Phone and it gave you your own stats when you practice. At the end you upload it to a Library where you can do all the 3D stuff. It was called Pitchvision and is in the UK
Posted by: Ben James | February 5, 2007 5:20 AM
Richard, You know you don't need to track the score on either TV or the web when Australia is playing :)
Posted by: Nik Cubrilovic | February 6, 2007 4:39 PM
Nik, I know - I am a glutton for punishment when it comes to following the NZ cricket team :-)
Posted by: Richard MacManus | February 6, 2007 6:02 PM
hai
Posted by: mani | February 21, 2007 12:23 AM
hai
Posted by: mani | February 21, 2007 12:24 AM
vinothrajbf@yahoo.co.in
Posted by: mani | February 21, 2007 12:25 AM