A DIGITAL revolution is set to accompany the return of the SEA Games to Singapore this June after a 22-year hiatus.
The SEA Games 2015 website went live once the closing ceremony of the 2013 edition in Myanmar ended, and a dedicated team of over 500 people have been engaged in developing and fine-tuning the digital experience since.
For the first time in Games history, sports fans will be able to catch the action at the biennial multi-sport event via a mobile phone/tablet app, with 17 sports, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies, streamed live.
For the athletics, badminton, basketball, football, netball, table tennis, swimming and water polo events, users of the Games TV mobile app will be able to tap on a multi-camera function to watch replays from various angles.
"People always say watching it live is the best but we wanted to enhance even that experience.
"Previously, spectators could only view a goal from where they were standing; now, they can see it from different angles using the app," said Harbans J. Singh, deputy director of digital, Singapore SEA Games Organising Committee (Singsoc).
Up to 16 cameras will be used for this comprehensive viewer experience, and test runs with S-League matches have yielded successful results. While the short clips will generally be less than 1MB in size, Singsoc will also be working on providing WiFi at the Jalan Besar and National stadiums for spectators.
Live streaming will also be available on the SEA Games 2015 YouTube channel.
In addition to more than 600 hours of live sports, post-event highlights and daily golden moments can be accessed on the channel as well.
"We have to be where the people are so our strategy was to make the action available to everyone, wherever they are and in whichever form they prefer to consume information," said Thomas Lim, head of Information Operations Centre, Singsoc.
The SEA Games 2015 Social Wall does just that, as over 100 specially trained content producers will be uploading bite-sized content, photos and videos from all 31 venues.
The public can also contribute to this Social Wall with the hashtag #seagames2015, as the website is equipped with hashtag listening to pull in user-generated content from various social media platforms.
"After the 2013 SEA Games, we aimed to be the most digitalised SEA Games ever. But we're not going digital for digital's sake; we want to transcend geographical boundaries to connect the whole nation and region," said Lim.
