Softseed: The future of Immersive Reality in entertainment

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Image credit: DFL

Softseed is a rapidly growing global Software as a service (SaaS) company with a diverse team of top developers – and their goal is to create Virtual Reality (VR) and Immersive Reality (IR) technology for consumers to broadcast events.

The company was established as recently as 2013 by three founders in Berlin who had an academic and media background.

They now have three locations that the company work out of: Berlin (Head Office), Bangkok (Product Development) and Palma de Mallorca (Sales & Distribution).

The Berlin-based start-up have three products (PLAIGROUND®, LOKI® and RE-PLAY®) based off this ever popular technology that allows people around the globe to enjoy their favourite content not as a spectator but to be right in the middle of it.

The company mentions the fact that Immersive Reality is the future of the entertainment industry because of its data processing speed and its sustainability compared to other similar technologies.

Products:

PLAIGROUND®

PLAIGROUND® is a cutting-edge, proprietary software solution designed to deliver live Immersive Reality experiences to the mass market. This patented solution is based on a novel 3DIR codec which execs said was an adaptation of the MV-HEVC codec, a Multiview extension of HEVC, developed by Fraunhofer ISS and for which Softseed is a test partner.

The technology sets the standard in innovation and performance, offering unmatched colour depth, frame rate, motion clarity, noise reduction, and resolution.

With extremely low latency, PLAIGROUND® ensures consistent 10K 3D stereoscopic quality at over 90Hz and a minimum of 30fps at a bitrate of 100mbit and 10-bit colour depth. This advanced technology is ideal for ultra-fast sports and music events that demand flawless live streaming as part of an individualised Immersive Reality experience.

LOKI®

LOKI® is the world’s first cloud-based Virtual-IR-Receiver, using AI-powered computing to process, encrypt, and adapt IR data for personalised playback on any device.

LOKI® can convert 2D video into native 3D in real-time, creating smooth, immersive 360° 3D video in 8K resolution—even from lower-quality input. Additionally, it seamlessly combines two 180° 3D video streams into a single 360° 3D image at 8K or 10K resolution.

RE-PLAY®

RE-PLAY® is an advanced software solution designed to monetise live event replays for a wider audience.

Exclusively on the Apple Vision Pro, RE-PLAY® delivers stunning 11K 3D stereoscopic quality, up to 90fps, with a 500MB/s bitrate and 10-bit colour depth. All of this includes a 360° camera and multiple angles that allows viewers to watch however they would like.

This system works with top tier audio and video devices ensuring a smooth, immersive experience that is perfect for sporting and musical events.

Involvement in 2024 German Supercup

Softseed featured in the 2024 German Supercup between Leverkusen and Stuttgart. Germany’s annual curtain-raiser in Leverkusen was the German Football League’s (DFL’s) latest chance to show off its innovative side.

The 30,000-seat BayArena was the scene for the DFL to deliver the world’s first 10K resolution VR live stream of a football match in partnership with Berlin-based tech start-up Softseed.

Fans were able to watch a 360-degree, 10K resolution stream of the SuperCup, with the stream providing a view for users that was as if they were standing in the stadium. Multiple perspectives were offered in the live trial and the Apple Vision Pro was used as the product to showcase this technology.

The 10K live stream had a latency of under 35 seconds, a remarkably short timeframe given one terabyte of data per minute is being processed. It provided a look-in to the potential future of how fans watch a streamed game.

Conclusion

Softseed Technologies have created groundbreaking technology which, even in its infancy, is proving to be a potential game-changer in how sports and music events are viewed using Immersive and Virtual reality.

It is a unique product that is proving successful and the technology is almost certainly going to be licenced by large sporting or music organisations in the near future.

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The Spreadsheet Is Dead: Majestri’s Fix for How Clubs Actually Assess Players

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If you’ve ever sat through a club’s end-of-season review, you’ll know the drill. A coach pulls out a folder of notes, someone half-remembers what a player was like back in Round 3 and a parent quietly wonders what they actually got for their rego fees beyond a team photo. Football club platform Majestri says it has a fix for that, and it’s built directly into its Player Assessment module.

Why clubs bother assessing players in the first place

According to Majestri, clubs run player assessments for one of three reasons – usually more than one at once. Some are chasing genuine development, using the data to lift the level across their high-performance squads. Others are after a fairer way to pick teams, putting every player on the same measurable scale so selection is based on evidence rather than a coach’s gut feel about who “looks the part.” And for clubs operating under a Football Australia or state federation licence, assessments at set intervals often aren’t optional – they’re a compliance requirement, with the paperwork to prove it when asked.

Whatever the motivation, Majestri’s pitch is the same: don’t let that assessment data die in a spreadsheet on someone’s laptop.

Build your own assessment, your way

There’s no one-size-fits-all template here. The Assessment Designer lets technical directors set their own criteria, sort them into whatever categories their coaching staff already use – think core skills, possession, defending, attacking – and decide what each point on the rating scale actually means. Crucially, every criterion also gets a comment field, because a bare number rarely tells the full story of a player’s development.

The Assessment Module Builder for an NPL Juniors assessment
The Assessment Module Builder, showing an NPL Juniors assessment with a 1-10 rating scale banded from under performing through to excelling and role-specific criteria grouped into core skills, possession, defending and attacking. Source: Majestri.

Build it once and it’s reusable every time that assessment cycle comes around, so every player and every coach – is working off the same yardstick.

Something for the parents to actually take home

One of the more relatable pain points Majestri is targeting: most families never see much tangible return from a season of fees beyond a team photo. Player Assessment addresses that with report cards – colour-coded against the same scale coaches used, grouped by category with averages calculated automatically, and delivered as a PDF or an interactive web page a parent can read without needing a coaching badge themselves.

A player report card for an under-15 player
A report card for an under-15 player, colour-coded from under performing to excelling, with a score for every criterion and a group average across core skills, possession, defending and attacking. Source: Majestri.

 

Turning the numbers into something useful

The real value, though, sits in what Majestri calls the Player Analysis Lab. This is where clubs can plot a player against their team-mates or an entire age group across two categories at once, spotting clusters and outliers at a glance. Every score gets read against the group average – so a “7” actually means something in context – and clubs can report at the broad category level or drill into individual fields underneath. The results can be filtered down and exported for selection meetings or grading purposes.

The Player Analysis Lab comparing players in an under-15 and under-16 squad
The Player Analysis Lab comparing seven players across under-15 and under-16 squads, with a scatter plot, a sortable table of scores against the player average, and controls for choosing which categories and fields to report on. Source: Majestri.

The admin side nobody enjoys, made easier

Beyond the flashy analytics, there’s a practical layer built for the volunteers actually running the process:

  • Sweep monitoring – a quick view of which assessments are done and which are still outstanding, organised into defined assessment periods so progress can be tracked against peers.
  • Individual development plans – every player gets a personalised plan, and clubs can group common improvement areas to run cross-team training sessions that lift the whole club rather than just one squad.
  • Access control – coaches and technical staff can only see assessments for the teams they’re responsible for, and completed assessments are only visible to people linked to that player’s registration.
“Hard numbers to draw on when you review coaching staff and curriculum – and something tangible for the players and parents who pay the fees.” – Majestri

 

The bigger picture

Majestri frames all of this as sitting on top of the club’s own data – assessment results live on each player’s profile inside the platform rather than in a spreadsheet that walks out the door when a technical director moves on. For committees, it also means hard numbers to lean on when reviewing coaching staff or curriculum, rather than relying on anecdote.

It’s a fairly clear read on where club administration software is heading: less about digitising paperwork for its own sake, and more about making the data clubs already collect actually work for player development, team selection and compliance  without adding to the workload of the volunteers who run the show.

For more information on Majestri’s Player Assessment module, visit majestri.com.au/player-assessment.

AI-powered camera system makes Supercup debut in live football production

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Image Credit: 2670469575

AI-powered camera technology has moved another step closer to mainstream sports broadcasting. This comes after it was deployed for the international tactical feed of the Franz Beckenbauer Supercup between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich.

The system, supplied by Broadcast Solutions, combined Studio Automated’s AI camera automation platform with an Egripment HotHead 3 remote head during the fixture at Signal Iduna Park on 22 August. The Bundesliga and host broadcaster Sportcast have regularly used the season-opening match as a testing ground for new technologies.

Rather than simply tracking the ball or individual players, Studio Automated’s technology analyses the wider match scene and uses broadcast production principles to determine framing and camera movements.

The system was used to operate a camera positioned on the stadium’s main camera gantry. As a result, the footage was available as part of the international tactical production.

The deployment is significant because it demonstrates how AI camera operation can move from trade-show demonstrations into live professional broadcast environments. The companies first showcased the integrated technology at SportsInnovation earlier this year.

The system operates on standard on-premises hardware and does not require cloud connectivity or a calibration process. Its low-latency operation also allows the remote head to respond in a way designed to replicate the movement of a conventional manually operated camera.

Importantly, the technology does not replace the wider production team. The automated camera operates as another source within a multi-camera environment. In this setup, the production team retains control over which images make it to air. This positions AI as a tool for expanding production capabilities rather than removing the role of existing broadcast teams.

For broadcasters and production companies, the potential extends beyond major Bundesliga fixtures. Automated camera positions could help reduce the operational requirements associated with remote and lower-cost productions. At the same time, they can maintain a higher standard of coverage.

Broadcast Solutions will continue showcasing the technology with Studio Automated and Egripment at IBC 2026 in Amsterdam. At this event, the companies will demonstrate integrated workflows for sports production.

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