I have seen various attempts at turning live sports into some form of 3D rendered animation. This is usually an attempt to coax younger viewers into watching sport they may previously not have been interested in. The most recent one I've seen is the Simpsons NFL game from about a month ago.

But what is interesting about the Australian Open approach is that they are using it to get around rights issues, allowing them to broadcast full matches live globally via Youtube, with commentary and audio from the courts.

This is despite the large pot of money they have made from selling broadcast rights to TV channels across the globe.

If I was one of those channels, I am not too sure I would be very happy about this, especially as it is proving to be quite popular.

The technology is not perfect, it can be a little glitchy with the backgrounds and the players. But at times, especially with all the angles, it is easy to forget they are not real.

There has to be a limit here though. If the technology keeps improving and can render ever more realistic players, at what point do they break their broadcast contracts? Do they ever? Photorealistic rendering does not seem out of the realm of possibility even now, so does that mean they are deliberately keeping it cartoony to not dip into that even greyer area?

If you cannot find what to watch on streaming services, but you have a bunch of your own media, like Youtube downloads or DVD rips, then you may be interested in creating your own local IPTV channels.

I have been experimenting lately with ErsatzTV, a Github project which you self host and can connect to your Emby, Jellyfin and Plex servers to retrieve media, or can simply read it off the local file system.

You can create schedules of programming with more options than I can honestly currently understand, then create playouts of these schedules onto channels. Each channel can have a name and even a watermark in the corner. If you are really adventurous, you can even populate the spots between your programming so everything correctly starts on the half hour or hour. I've seen some impressive examples of recreating mid-80's and 90's television with period appropriate bumpers and breaks.

Once you are done, it can publish M3U and XMLTV feeds for you. These should be usable in a lot of different IPTV software apps, but I am using Plex with the DVR support. Each of my "fake" channels appears in Plex and I can "tune" into them and see what is currently playing.

I am still learning what is possible, but tuning into my music video channel is a good way to have something on in the background while working.

I found this when browsing through Disney+ a couple of nights ago.

It is impossible to deny that John Williams, as my brother put it, "wrote a few bangers". So of course the music here is fantastic. That he's still sharp at 92 (demonstrated by the documentary about him which is also on Disney+) equally so.

But it is the orchestra that shines most. Not just the individual players, but as a collective example of what is possible when a whole stage of people work together in perfect harmony.

The violinists, the brass section, the cellos, the percussion - each group produces a sound that is so much more than what a singular player could do.

But combine those groups and it is nothing short of magical. I was mesmerised just watching them all move together in concert.