- Formula 1 and Amazon Web Services collaborate to convert decades of racing footage to a consolidated cloud database.
- The company’s database systems had evolved in response to demand from various divisions, resulting in a maze of systems that made finding specific footage extremely challenging.
- AWS will provide real-time statistics during F1 races and aims to provide more insight into race strategy.
Amazon Web Services and Formula 1 collaborate to convert decades of racing footage to a consolidated cloud database to provide better race day experiences for spectators by utilizing the newest cloud analytics technology, says an article published in TechRadar.
Videos from 1950
Rob Smedley, F1’s Chief Engineer and Director of Data Systems, explained that order would be applied to the mess of video content on file, some of which dates back to the 1950s.
“There’s such a rich seam of data available to us, but it’s about ensuring we can actually get to it all. It’s a typical big data problem: you can have masses and masses of data, but unless you can get to the bit you want (and quickly), that information is rendered almost useless,” he added.
Going back in time
Back in the day, Formula 1 had already digitized all of the films that had previously been stored on real celluloid tape as part of the last modernization project.
The key problem, in this case, was bringing together video stored in a variety of codecs and across a variety of databases and organizing it uniformly to optimize searchability (and therefore usability).
The company’s database systems had grown organically in response to demand from various internal divisions, resulting in a maze of systems that made locating specific video exceedingly difficult, if not impossible.
Started from scratch
According to Smedley, the two went down with a “blank sheet of paper” to figure out how to construct “a single repository where all the data is normalized and captured so it can be put to use.”
AWS Media2Cloud, a highly flexible solution that helps ingest video assets and metadata into the AWS environment, created the new archive. For the layperson, an AWS official used an F1 analogy: migrating to the cloud using Media2Cloud was like “taking the engine out, customizing it, and using it in the way we needed to.”
In the 1970s, just a few reels of film were shot at each race, but the latest Grand Prix are captured from tens of different angles (including shots from the cockpit of each driver) and often at 4K resolution.
Good News, Sports fans
F1 fans are already benefiting from real-time statistics during races; previously, the organization could only provide simple stats such as cornering speed, but it can now undertake on-the-fly computations to estimate tire degradation and other complex elements. The goal is to provide more insight into race strategy.
On a more basic level, while spectators will not have direct access to the entire collection of material, it will be easier for journalists covering the races to produce entertaining video products that pay homage to the sport’s past. AWS collaborates with the NFL, NHL, PGA Tour, NASCAR, and the German Bundesliga on similar efforts to manage their video archives.
Ongoing projects
The Bundesliga is creating a cloud-based archive that automatically marks specific frames with metadata such as game, player, kit, team, and venue. Meanwhile, NASCAR is digitizing 70 years of information that is now preserved on tape in its archive. The sport’s governing body has already uploaded 15PB of video assets to the cloud, which will serve as the foundation for new AI models that promise to provide “new entertainment experiences for fans.”
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Source: TechRadar
