Concept video released for Live TV Show with motion tracked animations next to humans live on stage

[Karim Bizid]

Dutch Television Production company Talpa (known from concepts as "The Voice" and "Big Brother") has released a concept video and audtion calls for a live TV show with animated characters on a stage togheter with actual humans.
The animated characters are based on 2 people: One singing and talking while their face is motiontracked and one dancer in a sensor suit creating all the movements
and the dances for the characters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No video content availible in English yet but the interview with an AVASTAR along the video is in English

 

 

Quote

"With the newest motion capture and augmented reality tehcniques both a singing and a dancing taltent are being converted into 1 supertalent: an Avastar. (...)
"(...) The show will air October 2022. In AVASTARS people with different talents, singing and dancing, are selected togehter to one couple. With the help of programers and stylists every couple creates their own Avastar.
The Avastar can be either human based or an animal. Gender, shape, hair, skintone, apparel and make-up: the couple can change it all. (...)

Everyone with singing and dancing talents can still apply for ar role in this new show."
 

Source: Metronieuws NL (translated from dutch by me)

 

Animations next to real life humans is nothing we haven't seen before, but doing it live and with 2 motion capture sources at once for 1 character is something I might call: ambitious.
Although John de Mol, the man behind Talpa Media, has had alot of international succes with television formats I am not quite sure if it has ever involved such groundbreaking technological features.

I have personally worked on either live and taped TV projects with AR before (as an Audio Engineer so no credtis here ) and it always involves alot of latency issues due to
the graphical AR content that has te be generated. And that simply takes time.
AR on TV has been around for a while now and there are rumours about video cards existing with quite some serious specs nowadays (#sarcasm),

so I think this might be something that was bound to happen.
The Dutch have already had some groundbreaking technological steps in TV world in the form of cloud based controlrooms that are able to connect to either different local studios as well as

locations at the other side of the little country, so I actually could really see them doing this.
If we've learned anything from the past: Nomather where you live. This will eventualy be on your TV schedule as wel.
That has never been a problem for John de Mol.
 

Sources

Metronieuws (NL)

Broadcastmagazine.nl (NL)

[Kisai]

26 minutes ago, Karim Bizid said:

Dutch Television Production company Talpa (known from concepts as "The Voice" and "Big Brother") has released a concept video and audtion calls for a live TV show with animated characters on a stage togheter with actual humans.
The animated characters are based on 2 people: One singing and talking while their face is motiontracked and one dancer in a sensor suit creating all the movements
and the dances for the characters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This looks like there is some potential, but it seems like it might have the worst appeal of both vtubers and parades/festivals. Digital avatars are only limited by their broadcasting environment, so once you throw in a stage, the performers needs to have access to space roughly as large to do the performance. That said, also not always the case.

 

This is already done a certain way

https://ricedigital.co.uk/kizuna-ai-nyanners-teddyloid-concert/

 

But a concert is done once and it's over, a tv show has to be done repeatedly with different people.

[Karim Bizid]

2 hours ago, Kisai said:

 

Digital avatars are only limited by their broadcasting environment, so once you throw in a stage, the performers needs to have access to space roughly as large to do the performance. That said, also not always the case.

 

This is already done a certain way

https://ricedigital.co.uk/kizuna-ai-nyanners-teddyloid-concert/

 

In the video they do explain that there is a second stage on which the actual humans have to perform.
So that is still a thing.

 

The concert thing is actually also a really cool idea.

I can't help it to also fear it a little bit.
There is going to come a time where we are going to combine this with deepfake like stuff.

[samcool55]

I think this is a case of, when coming up with stuff you should not only think if you could do it, but also think if you should do it...

Even if technological wise it all works fine, 2004 called. they want their characters back.

 

Also the video does not work outside the Netherlands so basically nobody knows what they look like

Feels like a bamboozle before anything happened.

 

 

[Sauron]

Ok, but why? I can't really think of something you could do with this that wouldn't work just as well if it were prerecorded and edited.

 

Then again I also don't get the appeal of shows like "big brother" so maybe I'm totally off base.

[Karim Bizid]

2 hours ago, samcool55 said:

Also the video does not work outside the Netherlands so basically nobody knows what they look like

 

That's a shame. It looked like it was public for any region. My mistake.
I'll check if I can find anything accessible for everyone.

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Ok, but why? I can't really think of something you could do with this that wouldn't work just as well if it were prerecorded and edited.

 

Then again I also don't get the appeal of shows like "big brother" so maybe I'm totally off base.

Totally agree with you. I can't think of any other why than hyping things up to sell for a lot of money, but the problem with these technological advances:

there already are conficliting media post about how it actually works because it's not that simple to understand if you're not tech savy.

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

Ok, but why? I can't really think of something you could do with this that wouldn't work just as well if it were prerecorded and edited.

 

Watch live vtubers on Twitch when they  are doing something other than playing a game. Like visually, Code Miko already looks better than this, but also there are many toon-shaded vtubers who have expensive 3D models but use VR trackers for the actual movement rather than bodysuits.

 

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

Then again I also don't get the appeal of shows like "big brother" so maybe I'm totally off base.

There's more appeal in reality shows when there is a live component to it. So most people who are watching those shows however are actually seeing a curated edited portion on the TV, while there is usually some real-time monitoring available on the website.

 

However I've never really seen the appeal of Big Brother because it seems more staged than anything. That's what happens when corporations do a show rather than indies. Corps may have the budget, but they are risk-adverse, so you'll never see anything progressive or "Brand-unsafe" actually broadcast. I can't help but think that BB contestants got into activities at the coaxing of the producers.

 

[Fnige]

Does anyone know what the content is within it? 

[HeathCliff]

soon