imediaReach Transforms the “Live” Fan Experience
With the University of Central Florida Business Incubation Program providing infrastructure, marketing and administrative support, imediaReach is able to focus on coordinating live demos and bringing its product to market.
Starting from the tailgating and other pre-event festivities, to the thrill of the actual game and the drive home with all the memorable plays fresh in the mind, the experience of attending a live sports event can be exhilarating.
But it can have moments of frustration as well. If you are sitting away from where the action is taking place or you look the wrong way at the wrong time, you could miss something big along with missing out on all expert commentary and stats that typically accompany a live broadcast … until now, thanks to a client of the University of Central Florida Business Incubation Program.
Winter Springs-based imediaReach® has developed LiveEventTV™, a technology/product that allows attendees at sporting events or concerts to have more live TV action than the fan watching at home.
Support Where It’s Needed
As a small company, however, imediaReach faced the challenge of getting its infrastructure and operations in place so it could concentrate on launching the product. That’s where the UCFBIP came in.
“Thanks to the program, we didn’t have to worry about the logistics or other resource-intensive items related to setting up the physical space and conducting all the administrative, marketing and business development on our own,” said Gary Bonner, co-founder of imediaReach. “It has allowed our team members to concentrate on what they do best—developing the technology and launching the product.”
Live Demos Underway
Today, the company is in the live-demo phase. Attendees at several sports events during the past year have taken part in successful LiveEventTV™ demonstrations.
For the live demos, fans downloaded a special app to their smart mobile device, plugged in a small antenna and received multi-channel live streaming HDTV of the event they were attending, in addition to the play-by-play radio broadcast, local news channel and stats. And if this wasn’t impressive enough, all these channels were available without eating into fans’ data plans.
“Thanks to our LiveEventTV technology, every seat in any venue becomes the best seat in the house,” said Bonner. “Today’s sports fans want to see and know everything that is happening on the field, and until now, had to choose between attending the live event or watching the broadcast at home. Now they can have it all.”
New Approach to Existing Broadcast Technology
The company uses UHF rather than cellular or WiFi to steam live multi-channel HDTV to the end-user’s smart mobile device. As such, LiveEventTV can handle a stadium full of users without any negative impact to network capacity and broadcast performance.
The technology essentially provides venues the opportunity to deliver closed circuit live broadcasts to every smart mobile device-equipped fan. Bonner explained that LiveEventTV has been tested at several collegiate sports and professional golf events, with several more live demos anticipated this year.
“With LiveEventTV, fans can have it all right in the palm of their hands. All the sights, sounds and fun of the live event combined with all the extra video, audio and data streaming live to their smart device,” said Bonner. “Thanks to the UCF Business Incubation Program, we’re going to be able to get this product to venues and fans faster than if we had to do this all on our own.
For a company such as imediaReach, the value of the UCFBIP program translates to speed, explained Rafael Caamano, site manager of UCFBIP’s Winter Springs location.
“In a highly competitive market, the speed at which you can productize your technology can’t be overstated. At the end of the day, we’re accelerating imediaReach’s speed to market, which translates to increased opportunities for the company’s success.”
