Ravindra Velhal has been involved with Intel’s technology policy and standards for nearly two decades and has seen technologies define new experiences for both storytellers and audiences. Here are a few projects with which he has been closely associated with that allow for new immersive multi-sensory experiences

Started as an industry consortium of 60+ Tech, Studio and Service companies [2008-2020],  UltraViolet-Your Movies in the Cloud gave birth to digital movie collection to promote Buy Once Play Anywhere concept . One direct benefit of Ultraviolet™ is Convergence, giving consumer the convenience and choice of accessing media across variety of registered UltraViolet devices including PCs, laptops, Smartphone, gaming video consoles and other connected CE video devices. This brought unique distribution opportunity to monetize and gain wider acceptance for the Hollywood Movies and TVShows “Digital Download and streaming” content in many territories. More than 20,000 Hollywood (Movies+TV Shows) titles were part of UltraViolet catalogue at one point. In addition to already growing mobile penetration, services like UltraViolet permeated and propelled need for better broadband connectivity, Electronic Sell-through (EST) infrastructure, DRM harmonization and Common Media Format for enabling new ways of digital media consumption and monetization over the Internet. Ravi made significant contributions to Ultraviolet technical architecture and managed Ultraviolet from 2008-2020 as a management committee member.

LE MUSK

“A romantic story that revolves around aroma.” LeMusk is a upcoming full length sensory   Cinema Experience by two time Oscar and Grammy winner A R Rahman. Prelude to LeMusk and Scent of a Song from LeMusk launched at Cannes in 2018 and 2019 respectively on Positron motion chairs with scent emitters, giving viewers glimpse into the future of immersive Cinema like never been experienced before.

SPIDER-MAN

Intel Teams with Sony Pictures Virtual Reality to Create ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ Virtual Reality Experience

Ravi collaborated with Sony Pictures Virtual Reality to create a virtual reality experience (VRE) that complemented Columbia Pictures’ “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” the most highly anticipated movie of the summer 2017. The VRE offers users the chance to suit up as Spider-Man for the first time, hone their webshooting skills, and sling high above New York City in pursuit of the Vulture. Reduce discomfort associated with VR using pinhole view – including players seeing a mirror version of themselves as Spider-Man – is complicated to create such cinematic realism. When people walked away from this knowing what it’s like to be Spider-Man, the mission was complete. This experience received an AIS (Advanced Imaging Society) Lumiere award and was nominated for an Emmy.

SAVE EVERY BREATH

Christopher Nolan’s epic action thriller, Dunkirk, opens to hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops surrounded by enemy forces. Trapped on the beach with their backs to the sea, they face an impossible situation as the enemy closes in. But this intense theatrical experience doesn’t end when the final credits roll. Movie goers can experience the harrowing miracle evacuation of troops by land, sea and air – all from the safety of their living room – thanks to the magic of virtual reality (VR). “The Dunkirk VR Experience will likely transform all of our expectations about what immersive entertainment   means in the years to come.

RIO CARNIVAL 2018

Worldwide famous as a largest festival on the planet to celebrate spirit of humanity, Rio Carnival is a soul of Brazil. Several Samba schools participate each year to parade their magnum opus float at Rio’s Sambadrome. This is one of the first ever VR experience from Brazil, created in collaboration with GloboTV, one of the top global broadcaster. This experience allows you to experience Carnival parade better than camarotes (VIP viewing Cabins at the Carnival).

To The Moon and Back in VR

Damien Chazelle’s First Man is an unusual 1960s piece. It is apolitical. The hero, Neil Armstrong is a stoic civilian astronaut whose emotional life is the sum of Hollywood’s best pout (that of its lead actor Ryan Gosling). A daunting, yet alluring Moon landing experience by Universal Pictures, Ryot, Intel and CreateVR. The VR experience takes you right inside the Apollo 11 spacecraft, experience take off. Outside the window, you can see blanket of glittering stars and asteroids. After hovering over the hard craters, you’ll be finally landed on the moon“giant leap for mankind”. One of the finest examples of how virtual reality can be optimized for creative cinema storytelling to whole new level. “New technology has defined new expressions for storytellers, and brought new immersive multi-sensory experiences for audiences, life never before”, This was nominated for The Outstanding Original Interactive Program – Emmy’s Awards in 2019.

Grease Volumetric Cinema Experience

Based on iconic 1978 blockbuster from paramount Pictures, this is the first volumetric Hollywood Cinema experience created at Intel Studios, the world’s largest volumetric studio imagined using Intel technologies. This experience, created in collaboration with Paramount Pictures and the original Grease film director Randal Kleiser, immerses the audience in interactive song and dance to explore the possibilities of volumetric storytelling. This Volumetric Cinema experience, billed as the future of virtual cinema production, introduces you to the limitless potential of storytelling. For this three-minute iconic song, more than 5 trillion pixels were captured and processed, giving birth to “Data Powered Volumetric Cinema” and the limitless future of Immersive Cinema and virtual production-based entertainment industry.

“From pixels to voxels, the potential of volumetric capture is endless as we are moving to seeing the world through the mind-bending capabilities of new media formats that are quickly becoming a gold standard in immersive media entertainment.”

Spider-Man Far From Home Virtual Reality, first ever multiplayer over 5G at Mobile World Congress 2018

Developed by Sony Pictures, CreateVR in association with Intel and Nokia, the point of the demonstration is to illustrate 5G’s ultra-low latency, or a real-time responsiveness that current 4G networks can’t replicate and to showcase how the next-generation wireless technology will change your life. A demonstration between Intel and Nokia booth at Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona of how a VR game could work with a multiplayer component running over a 5G network. As you swing through the city at Intel booth, you are racing another person in a second Oculus Rift setup 3,800 feet away at the Nokia booth.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/spider-man-far-from-home-swings-tomwc-2019–courtesy-of-5g-and-oculusvr/

SPIDER-MAN Far From Home

Based on the film, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Virtual Reality is a fastswinging, thrill ride through the eyes of everyone’s favorite neighbourhood Spider-Man. In breathtaking Virtual reality, now gamers can tackle one of the coolest power fantasies around: swinging around New York at scale as Spider-Man. In Spider-Man: Far From Home Virtual Reality you get to do just that and this taste of superhero life fuels a desire for more and then find and tackle New York’s latest attacker in this thrilling, swinging adventure.

During this experience, Tony Stark’s jet was digitally acquired using volumetric set acquisition in collaboration with Intel and Sony Innovation Studios, to allow you to step into the movie.

REPANGIA

Created in collaboration with Museum Of Tomorrow, Rio de Janerio in 2019, Repangia is a techno-shamanic social experience in virtual reality to preserve thousand year old  ancestorial practice of Amazonian tribes connecting humanity and preserving nature. Recognized as a first ever volumetric experience created in Brazil. This is a result of VR bootcamp hosted in Brazil and leveraging world class production techniques at low cost. Super happy to see how “Tech meets Tradition” to preserve lost ancestorial practices and rituals from remote regions of Amazonian tribes.

INTEL’S 8K HDR INTERNET OLYMPIC GAMES TOKYO 2020 LIVESTREAMS

Last summer, as athletes broke world records at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, another “one for the books” was quietly taking place. For 19 days, live coverage of many Olympic events was broadcast over the public Internet at 8K at 60 frames per second (Fps) with HDR (High Dynamic Range) to Brazil and Japan generating and processing more than 4.7 PetaBytes of data. U.S. viewing was limited to private, invitation-only Intel sites in Portland, Santa Clara, and Hollywood audiences in Los Angeles. It was believed to be the first live, broadcast quality transmission on an open IP network cloud, coming just months after a pioneering 8K/60FPSFps live stream (without HDR), also led by Intel, in December 2020.

Between those two landmark events, Intel and its partners conducted more than a dozen successful demonstrations of its prototype for Over The Top (OTT), standards-based delivery of live broadcast quality, 8K (7680×4320), 60Fps, HDR content on existing 4K infrastructure. Pioneering this efforts Ravi Velhal, global content technology strategist and 8K lead at Intel, is working full speed ahead to create a new category and market that will bring live, end-to-end 8K Internet streaming to billions across the globe. “We’re preparing the world for democratization of 8K using the open internet”. Iabm (International Association of Broadcast and Media) recognized this as a “Project Of The Year” for 2021 and Ravi’s contribution placed him as a “Technology Leader Of The Year” finalist.