Samsung smartphones to provide a unique lens on the opening ceremony

• Traditional cameras will be used to provide wide shots. The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra devices mounted on each of the 85 boats will provide an up-close view of the athletes as they make their way down the Seine.
• Footage will be sent over a private 5G network, with antennas placed along various bridges on the route — then relayed to the Olympic Broadcasting Service, which distributes it to all of the rights-holding networks showing the event.
• Samsung, along with French mobile carrier Orange and other partners, have been working for the last year to ensure the technology will work.

Zoom in: There were a number of challenges in bringing the vision to life, according to several Samsung engineers who spoke with Axios.

• Ordinarily, cell phones are designed to avoid constantly pinging the network when there's no signal, to avoid draining the battery. For Friday's festivities, Samsung wants any dropped signal to be reestablished as soon as possible — one of several changes that had to be made to the underlying software on the devices.

What's next: A similar setup is also being used as part of sailing, taking place near the French city of Marseille.

• Using the cameras in competition brought fresh challenges, including the rapid movements of the boat, which necessitate a different approach to collecting the footage.
• For sailing, Samsung will have a number of relay boats in the water receiving the signal from the sailing competitors — with antennas being adjusted to help capture the signal from the rapidly moving boats.

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