A Sky Sports User Interface displayed on a wall-mounted TV.
Awards

Comcast Wins Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award for Sports Viewing Innovation

Philadelphia, PA

Comcast today announced it has received a Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award for building and delivering innovative sports viewing experiences for millions of customers across Xfinity, Sky and Peacock.

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences recognized Comcast for using artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide viewers an easy way to catch up on key moments from live sporting events.

These innovations are made possible by Comcast’s VideoAITM technology. A core component of Comcast’s global technology platform, VideoAI analyzes video streams in real-time and detects key moments using various audio, visual and textual cues. For sports, these include points/goals, penalties, and other major moments. As the live event unfolds, indexed highlights are compiled as they happen into an interactive experience, giving viewers an easy way to play through all the biggest moments, whether they plan to join live or just want a quick summary of the most important highlights after the event has concluded.

“VideoAI is a transformative technology, giving us the ability to rethink how we deliver innovative entertainment experiences to our global customers,” said Fraser Stirling, Global Chief Product Officer, Comcast.

This incredible honor by the Academy is a tremendous acknowledgement of the work happening across Comcast to drive this innovation forward and ultimately deliver better experiences for our customers.
Fraser Stirling
Global Chief Product Officer, Comcast

As an adaptive and agile technology, VideoAI enables the teams at Xfinity, Sky and Peacock to customize the solution to meet the unique needs of their customers and the sports they serve. The technology currently powers:

  • Sky Sports Recap: Offered on numerous live sports including Premier League matches, cricket games, golf tournaments and F1 races, Sky Sports Recap is an interactive experience that viewers can launch during a live event to quickly recap or catch up on the biggest moments that have transpired so far – even if they haven’t watched it from the beginning.
A TV displays the Sky Sports Recap hub.
  • Peacock Key Plays: Available on Premier League matches, Peacock Key Plays puts highlights as they happen on an interactive timeline that can be accessed at any point during a live match, giving customers the ability to watch just one key moment or all of them as a playlist.  
A screen displaying a program timeline that highlights key moments in a soccer game.
  • Xfinity Sports Highlights: Available on DVR recordings of select events like the FIFA World Cup, Xfinity Sports Highlights tags key plays in the recording’s playback bar, giving customers a quick way to recap all the biggest moments. Xfinity recently made Sports Highlights available for the FIFA World Cup and plans to extend the feature to more sports this year.
A screen displaying soccer game highlights and players' faces.

Additionally, Comcast Technology Solutions is now offering the technology to customers as part of its product suite, producing actionable metadata to drive a continuously expanding number of use cases, from content discovery to contextual advertising.