Sky widens Events Centre coverage

deltatre and Opta have been highlighting their work on the Sky Sports Event Centre’s coverage of Heineken Rugby, which sees the broadcaster’s website integrate deltatre’s DIVA HD player with Opta Sports’ events data.

We wrote about this before when Sky soft launched the service back in November, but it’s worth revisiting for a few more details of the integration between the two companies’ services.
 
Heineken Cup Rugby is the second sport available on the Events Centre using deltatre’s DIVA (Data Integrated Video Application), after initially launching in April this year with UEFA Champions League matches. Integrating Opta’s time coded events data, deltatre’s DIVA integrates match data with HD video allowing for user guided consumption of live online sport. Users can navigate their way through significant moments of a game accompanied with in depth match statistics and analysis.
 
“While it is evident video continues to be a major focus for broadcasters and media companies worldwide, data is equally important in enriching the viewing experience for users,” comments Jim Irving, Head of Video and Commercial at deltatre media. “Integrating with Opta’s impressive breadth of data, we were able to use performance metrics at a much higher and deeper level than traditional match centres, helping the client deliver a premium sports experience to their audiences.”

Opta data is of the high quality required to power such an enriched online experience. Live collection of all player and team events are coded to provide exact location on the pitch at the exact time.
 
Karl Hogan, Account Director at Opta Sports, took a look at the big picture: “Multiple platform content agreements continue to be a key trend among broadcasters in 2011. This provides a great collective opportunity with deltatre to approach online video rights holders with a strong digital proposition in DIVA, powered by Opta’s renowned breadth of data for multiple sports and competitions.”