Intel creates Hollywood studio for sports and entertainment VR

Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich announced today that the company will create a studio in Hollywood to produce 360-degree sports and entertainment virtual reality experiences.

The studio will build on Intel’s 360 Replay technology that was used in the NBA Finals to freeze the screen and rotate the view of action in basketball games. That takes dozens of cameras and lots of Intel servers to process in near real-time.

Intel wants to take that technology even farther with new kinds of “merged reality” experiences where people will be able to view all of the action in a game from any position they want. Krzanich said that you’ll be able to immerse yourself in animated reproductions of games where you’ll be able to, for example, see the view from behind a goalie in a soccer game.

“The whole field is digital,” Krzanich said. “We’ll provide the technology to make it happen. You become the director of your merged reality experience.”

The studio will be called Intel Tech Experience Labs. It’s not a full-fledged TV or movie studio, but it will help others create merged reality experiences based on Intel technology.

“The idea is to be dedicated to push limits of our tech and understand how it can be used in production, to really redefine what is possible with the tech,” Krzanich said.