That's what I find exciting, really—showing the video from the people's perspective, from the first-person point of view. Currently, the action cam is on the helmet, so the acro pilots don't have a problem with that. It's pointed slightly upwards with a fisheye lens so that you can really see the entire glider. If people get dizzy, they can look away or turn it on during a hike-and-fly race. But that's what I actually want to deliver. I want to bring in the first-person perspective.
Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Marco Wiemeyer. And I'm Lucian Haas.
Paraglider competitions don't happen in secret. But besides the Red Bull X-Alps, there is almost no event that reaches a truly large audience. Especially not in Germany. Not outside of the paraglider scene. But does it have to be that way and stay that way? Marco Wiemeyer at least wants to change that. The 37-year-old from Cottbus, who has lived and worked in Switzerland for years, launched the internet platform paraglidinglive.com. It's about offering attractive live streaming alongside the live tracking that is standard today at competitions. So, the live broadcast of images from the perspective of the pilots participating in the competition. Of course, also from the air.
And not just with one, but with many cameras. Plus, a director and a host who each select the appropriate streams for the current action and provide commentary for the viewers. The technology for this already exists. And the first live streams are already taking place. The big challenge for Marco now is to find more comrades and competition organizers who also believe in this idea. And who are willing to support it financially. So far, the project is still a very idealistic dream for Marco, which he is financing out of his own pocket. What drives him to do this? Marco Wiemer tells us in this episode 163 of Podz-Glidz.
Since you're listening to the podcast, why not become a supporter of Podz-Glidz? It explains how to do that very easily on the Lu-Glidz page in the Gleitschirm-Blog, specifically on the "Support" page.
Marco, if you have a choice, which do you prefer? Being in the air for six hours or staring at a screen for six hours watching others fly?
Clearly flying myself. And especially for six hours, because I've never been in the air for that long anyway. And that's also my next goal, to finally do a cross-country flight.
But at the end of May, you did exactly that—you spent about six hours staring at the screen. Or I think it was at least six hours. That was the Engelberg Cup, a hike and fly competition. In the Engelberg Valley in Switzerland. And you coordinated, organized, or whatever you want to call it, a livestream. That means people could watch live videos of the progress of this race on various platforms online. Do you know how many viewers you had?
So, all in all, across all the platforms combined, it was just under 500. Oh wow, okay. But not all at once. I mean, at times it was five, then ten, and then people were coming in and out again. Right? We also had a few interesting challenges, so to speak. And that's why there were some lulls in the whole livestream. I can understand why people would drop out again.
Can you see if those were 500 different people, or were they 50 who kept going in and out ten times, or watched it on different platforms or something like that?
To be honest, I didn't look into that that closely. It wasn't really that important to me at the time. But you can always check it again in hindsight. I'll take a rough look at the countries now. You can see a breakdown by country there. It's mostly Switzerland, that's number one. And then you have Germany, USA, India, scattered all over the rest of the stuff. But above all, Switzerland, Germany, yeah.
India was also there. Look at what's currently flying over Switzerland.
Yeah, exactly. So people also end up in the stream quite randomly through the platform. It's not all directly via a link. And people come in—people come from everywhere, theoretically.
Speaking of the platform. You're in the process of building this paraglidinglive.com platform. So, you're adding more and more competitions to it now. I believe you're also still testing new techniques on how to do all of this. Before we talk a bit about the technology behind it—how you can even do livestreaming at all—I'm first interested in your motivation. Why do you believe that the paraglider scene needs livestreaming?
Why they need it? Well, that wasn't my original approach, was it?
Yeah okay, your motivation, if the paragliding scene doesn't need it. Why do you need this project? Let's just say that for now.
So, roughly, if you want to break it down, why this scene might need it would actually be the financial aspect. That means with a larger reach, you also get more access to sponsors. And more attention for individual athletes, so that the individual athletes also benefit from it. The best example right now is the upcoming Red Bull X-Alps, right? That's accompanied by very strong marketing. And that's why it's this highlight every two years where everyone pilgrims there. And I find it's all a bit too little overall. X-Alps is, I think, like number two after the Red Bull X-Alps. But somehow, in between, there are so many great events. And you just don't hear about them, do you? Most people aren't even aware of how many events there actually are.
And they just need a bit of visibility. And then you can do so many other things. It's great, yeah, creating access for the general public, right? So not just for the scene, but really for Grandma and Grandpa, let's say. Or people who usually watch ski jumping, who then might just watch paragliding for once.
But now, paragliding is, let's just say, a comparatively boring sport to watch. Even though I'm personally very fascinated by paragliding. But if you say, okay, there's a race that sometimes lasts for hours. They fly together, they all fly straight ahead, they somehow have a big valley crossing. That lasts for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and then some other stuff. Actually, you only see it if you look at it on a map; you see little dots slowly moving forward. And if you look at a livestream—so from a pilot who maybe has a camera on their helmet, and this stream image is shown live—you just see a section of the view for 10 minutes, looking down a valley, sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left. So it wobbles back and forth a bit.
Why should I get excited about that?
Yeah, I think the best comparison is the Tour de France or cycling. There, people are also out for hours in beautiful landscapes. Exactly, what's similar is also flying. With flying, I think the fascination of flight itself is always added on top. And of course, then there's this bird's-eye view. There are also many people who, for example, play Microsoft Flight Simulator, who have no idea about planes, but they just like cruising through the landscapes. And I think that's also the exciting thing about gliding. This different perspective, the beautiful landscapes, and of course combined with different viewpoints. That means the goal is always to have different pilots, to switch back and forth, and to combine that with the live tracking.
And of course, it's also commented. From the very beginning, I knew that it needs it. It needs commentary. Like you said, otherwise I think it would be a bit boring. You have to basically take people along on the journey and explain where they are right now. And why it's particularly exciting at this moment, which people might not be able to see directly.
But then, I mean, think about the concept. You're up in the air, flying a mountain crossing, and then the commentator says, okay, Marco is flying from Turnpoint 5 to Turnpoint 6. I mean, what do you want to commentate on for ten minutes? That's also a pretty difficult task in the end.
Yeah, that's why I see myself as unsuitable for it too. I've done some of the commentary in a makeshift way already. And yeah, I have to say, I couldn't say that much. But I also had Matthias Vosti, for example, who did it.
Like the Paralympic World Cup, for example. And he could talk about so many things there. And then, of course, you talk about the individual people, the equipment, the teams, what happened before, what happened after, and why the valley crossing is particularly difficult now. What's the weather like? What are the winches like? There's also a livestream from the French paragliding association, I'd say. And they also commented as a duo, just based on the live tracking, and they talked for hours. So there's a lot of content, but you have to know your stuff. And that's why I'm not suitable for it. I'm still more of a beginner in aviation terms.
So you started this project with some kind of vision for what it was going to become. How did you actually come up with the first idea to say, I want to build something like this, and I'm capable of doing it? And let's start with what you wanted to achieve first and what has come of it since then?
I have to admit, I didn't have this big vision from the very beginning. It kind of came together piece by piece. I kept seeing that it was doable, that it could be done. Originally, I really just thought—exactly during the Corona times—I actually wanted to take my family along first. They were in Germany and they were often prevented from going out, let's say. They didn't experience much, and I just kind of flew around a bit, took them with me. And then the first thing that actually piqued my interest was the technology. It was the first livestream, let's say. I had no pressure, but of course, I was already frustrated that it wasn't going the way I had imagined it, not that easy. It was just with a phone and a GoPro. You have the image live, so in theory, that's a nice thing, but in practice, it's rather poor.
And then I tinkered with it a bit to see how it works. I actually grew up being quite tech-savvy, maybe a bit of a nerd, always trying out lots of things. That also appealed to me. I wanted to do it better. How do you do it better? I tested different things, hardware, software. Yeah, and then later on I got to the point where I thought, okay, this is relatively easy now. You could give it to other people now. And I thought, if more people wanted to watch, it would definitely be more interesting with more perspectives.
More people means they're all flying at the same time. And you have five cameras on five sides. You have pilots distributed, for example. That's what you meant by more people. Exactly.
I think with a single pilot, you really have to have a certain fascination to watch it for a long time. But even then, nowadays, it's less of a TV stream and actually more of an interactive thing with the livestream platforms. That means people tend to stay tuned longer, even if it might be a bit long-winded, because they're constantly in exchange with the person streaming. That means they can say something in the chat, just write it out. And the pilot who's flying right then gives answers. And that just makes it much more interesting. In terms of equipment, it was already a thing at the beginning. That is, if you run into problems with this livestreaming, when you try it yourself, the solution is usually more hardware. However, I was very radical about that.
I've always said that more hardware isn't a solution for me. That is, most people who do this and keep improving it end up with a backpack with eight to ten kilos of gear. Just in livestreaming equipment, right? You definitely don't want to have that with you when you're flying.
have. Especially during the Hike-and-Fly races.
Hike-and-Fly, exactly. Hike-and-Fly was a no-go. And Hike-and-Fly is basically what I've always loved doing most. And that's where I come from. That's why it should be as easy and simple as possible. Then I also thought, if there are already several people livestreaming—meaning if there are five or six pilots online—then it's okay if one of them happens to have no signal at the moment. You don't have to compensate for that much. Because you have five other feeds that you still have, that you can always play. Exactly. One is the idea, it should actually always be much more available.
Given your background, since you say you're such a nerd and a technician—are you a computer scientist? Or what's your background that makes you know, "I know my way around, I can basically handle this kind of tech"? Can you program these kinds of sites, or do you know how to make sure the videos get onto various other platforms and are ultimately accessible on YouTube, Facebook, or wherever else?
Where did you get that knowledge? It's just always been there, even back in my school days. I think as a teenager I got my first phone, and a PC too, of course. I did various things and was always tinkering with something. It wasn't very user-friendly back then, so to speak. You always had to study it a bit and try to fix problems. I also made websites back then. But it was all a bit of a hobby, always out of interest and to see how you could do it. And at my core, I have a lot of interests. So it's actually very broad. And I also have a bit of a creative streak in me. However, it doesn't really come across because I can't paint or draw.
I'm not a designer. I don't know how to create a concept. But I always have a lot of ideas. I try to implement them somehow and then get feedback to get them to a point where they actually look decent. Exactly. So, it's really about the technology. I've always had a lot of it in my daily life and always tried to push things to their limits. Even the iPhone 1 when it came out back then. That was a long time ago. That was also the first real smartphone. And suddenly you could do hotspots. You could suddenly control things remotely. There were so many things. Also fun things, where you'd try to throw the phone as far as possible with an app. And then it would show you how far it went. Just playing around. But that was basically always a hobby.
I'm not good at programming, so to put it like that...
...to put it that way. Okay. But you still built the Paragliding Live platform.
Don't you have to be able to do a bit of programming for that?
I'm not here alone. There are other people in there as well. People who can really program very well. All sorts of things. And I'm more of someone who, at most, adjusts the things. That means I can read the code quite well and can then troubleshoot. And adjust things. But writing something out of thin air, I'm the wrong man for that. I have other people in that project, so to speak, who do that.
If I open a livestream from paraglidinglive.com right now. Just describe it for those who haven't seen it yet—what am I actually seeing on the screen? Or what can all happen on this screen? It won't all be happening at the same time, of course.
Exactly. It's also important how I switch scenes. But roughly, the overlay is structured so that you have a small map section showing where the person is right now. The person is called the...
provides the live feed? Exactly, yes. So basically, I mainly see a live feed of someone flying and roughly where they're looking.
Exactly, sorry. That's the main scene for now. That's really the pilot. He provides the image of where he's looking right now. He can also switch cameras. You can also see him himself sometimes. That's left up to the pilot. And then that's embedded in an overlay where a lot of additional information is displayed. That means, for example, the map section. Then the speed. Altitude is of course important. The climb and descent rates. Then, what I personally also think is great, is actually the pulse. I have to say, so far the pulse has always only been my own. That's more of an organizational thing. And you still have to guide the people, to get them to do that too, the individual pilots. But it's technically definitely possible. I demonstrated that, after all. And I think it's exciting to show it again.
For example, when people climb, their heart rate goes up. That increase usually doesn't come across in the video that well.
And then also, for example, if someone is somehow scraping along the ground. In the bushes, I'd say, almost at the landing, but still trying to hold on. I'd say the pulse always goes up there too. But those are more my experiences. I don't know what it's like for the pros. Yeah. What else do you see there? You usually still see small clips from other cameras. That means I try to show it like that to show people that there are still more cameras active.
But as a user, I can switch between them. It's not really interactive; rather, for the main image being shown, there's basically a kind of director who decides which image is the main one at any given moment.
Exactly. It's a direction, and so to some extent, the viewer is guided through the entire stream. Yeah. I originally thought about that too. Yeah, like, what's it like if you can also switch back and forth? I thought maybe for later on. But I'm not sure anymore if that's really such a great thing. That's more if you're coming from this live tracking. You look at a live tracking, click on a person, and maybe see a 3D overlay of where they're flying. And then you might want to have a video feed to go with it. But I think that's also more for people who actually fly themselves and are motivated to analyze the race a bit more closely. But for a viewer who isn't really into all of this, I don't know if the motivation is that high to switch back and forth between images.
So, I'm pretty sure by now that it does need some kind of guided program. I mean, if you have the video of the individual pilots, you can of course also say, okay, we still have the video feed here. You can also access that manually, regardless of the program. That's not really the problem anymore once the video is there in the first place.
Then I saw, I watched a bit while that Engelberger story was running. And I saw that as a viewer, depending on which platform you're on, you can also enter comments. I was on YouTube there, entered a stupid comment, and then realized a minute later that some female AI voice probably read my comment out loud. Do only I hear that? Or do all the viewers actually hear it accordingly?
Everyone actually hears that. It's a relatively central feature. It's also quite complex because all the platforms are bundled. It doesn't matter if you're on YouTube, Twitch, Kik, Instagram, or wherever you're writing; it all gets bundled. And it's displayed and read out loud. The reading out loud actually has two functions. One of them originally helped me a lot when I was traveling alone; I'd just listen to the stream and then have the question read out to me. But it's also nice for the viewer—if they're a passive viewer watching on TV—when the question is simply read out loud so they don't have to lean over to the TV and zoom in to try and read it themselves.
It's just more pleasant, right? And the goal is actually for there to be a reaction to it. I saw your comment in the replay, too. During the stream, "Untergang," like many other comments, was related to the technical difficulties. We were very distracted by other things and unfortunately couldn't get to the comments. And that's why no dialogue developed there. Often, when someone writes something or has a question, a conversation develops, so to speak. And of course, that's the case when many viewers are watching simultaneously. The goal is for the viewer count to grow, and the chat can become very full under certain circumstances. But then it's not a problem. With the current setup, you can simply say that you're also moderating the chat now.
Nothing is being read out anymore; it's manually selected by a person. Okay, that's an interesting question. It's being displayed and read out now. That means it's all technically possible, but it definitely requires a person whose only job is to do that. That's really how it is.
That's what the director, the host, or whoever is controlling that would do. Would it be possible, from your system's perspective, to ask a pilot who is in the air a question? I mean, is there this return channel where my question reaches them in some way, and they can then comment from the air in the livestream—like, saying, "Hey, why aren't you ramping up more right now?" or something like that. And then I can ask them this question. They hear it and could then say in the livestream, "Yeah, you guys might not have seen it, here is, I don't know what, there's a rescue operation from... or you don't see it, that's the airspace, but I'm not allowed to go higher than 2,900 or whatever."
That's definitely a great idea in terms of the approach. And that would also be my wish, that it were possible. However, that's really the pilot component, let's say. I'm always in contact. I ask the people who participate in the competition. And they stream. How can you do it best? I don't have a final solution yet. In the meantime, you could collect feedback, you could gather the questions and then, for example, at the launch site, confront the people with them. Because at the launch site, depending on the weather, depending on the wind, there's a bit of time. You can talk to the people there. But in the air, that's a different matter. You would need a separate communication channel. And the people would have to be open to that.
To receive something like that.
Right now, it's actually like this—that was also the approach, I always knew that when people do a competition, the focus is on the competition. You have to pay attention to a lot of things when flying too, and you don't necessarily want to have a lot of other things running on the side. I'm still waiting for a few suggestions from the participating competition pilots on how they envision it, how it could work.
So the ideal would be if they listen to the stream themselves. Which you do when...
You probably don't want to be constantly distracted by other things while flying. So, just as you're saying yourself, in competition you're focused on something else than wondering what kind of stupid comment or stupid question some person in front of a screen just made.
Exactly. But personally, I've done it this way. I have headphones connected to my phone. I've also built in helmets. And I hear the stream a bit in the background. For myself, I've handled it like this: if I'm currently preparing before the start, or if there's a demanding situation in the air, I just ignore it. That means no matter how much people write, I'm not going to engage with it, right?
And yeah, so far people have accepted that. They can understand it. And then sometimes I say, "Ah, it's happening again here. I'm a bit more relaxed right now. I wasn't really listening to you just now. Maybe you could repeat a question if you had one." That's how I've personally handled it so far.
What you could theoretically do as well is have people fly along who aren't in the competition, but are like flying commentators who also have their own live cameras, who also know, okay, I don't necessarily have to fly out into the void back there because I still have to make progress, but I'll just stay here. Yes. But they can provide the corresponding images and know what it's all about, and with that, they can basically comment live from the air, and maybe, especially when you have longer tasks, like a PWC or something, have people fly along large parts of the route. Maybe wait. The people should come back from the turnpoint back there, where the risk of sitting it out might be relatively large, where you can say, I'm not flying there right now.
I stay here at the safe high point. But I can... and then I have the whole race in view, so from an elevated position, I can provide my commentary.
Yeah, to be honest, I see that more as a compromise or a complementary solution. I mean, these flying reporters already exist on the PWC. They have people who make a short video, post a quick story or share a video, give a quick update, and do videos and photos from the air. And people can definitely livestream that too, and they could potentially even do Q&As. But I think what's exciting for the viewer is still really watching the individual competition pilots themselves. Where are they right now? If they're flying flat somewhere right now or having turbulence, it's exciting to see exactly that. So, personally, of course, I'm a bit biased.
But now, at the Paralympic World Cup in Alcotopien. And everything in Spain, I found it super exciting when Gavin really flew along the slopes for so long, like about 50 meters above the ground. Yeah,
He got really low in one spot and had to try to fight his way out of it, right?
Exactly, yeah. And then, yeah, I was already freaking out about it. And then it was also nice, he flew over this farm field where the dogs were running around, all excited. And he did a bit of circling there. So I found that visually exciting, just seeing more of the landscape. But I also found it exciting to root for him, yeah. For him, I know, it was definitely stressful and not a great thing, of course. But yeah, that's exactly what's missing when actually only a commentator from a distance captures the action a bit. But I see that more as a complementary thing, yeah.
You use various platforms for Paragliding Live. So, you can't just watch it on YouTube like I did; you also have Kik, Twitch, Instagram, Facebook, X, and so on. Why do you take such a multi-platform approach? Doesn't that just make everything more complicated?
At its core, the biggest challenge is actually getting the stream running in the first place. That means really getting the individual video recordings from the people, commenting on them, and overlaying a few things—that's the biggest challenge. Forwarding that to different platforms isn't really the big task anymore. Currently, I'd say it takes maybe 20 minutes at the start of the stream to set everything up. Because every platform has its own specific requirements, so to speak. But compared to all the effort involved around it, that's really minor. And it allows you to reach many more people. I've noticed that too with the people who then write in the chats.
For example, with Berlin Fly and Ticino, one person wrote in—it was a participant's son. He chatted in. But then on YouTube, for instance, a participant's mother wrote in. And you can see that it's partly a generational thing. But sometimes people are also quite loyal to certain platforms. Like Facebook. For me personally, Facebook is basically extinct. But you shouldn't underestimate it; Facebook is actually still very active. But it's like bubbles, it's different people.
Other regions sometimes, it's also a regional factor. And there's still a lot going on there. And it's difficult to get people onto a different platform these days.
Okay, so you're basically just pushing the images into all the different bubbles.
Exactly. I want to bring them to the people, right? Because honestly, I think it's a bit naive to think nowadays that you can just get people onto your own platform that easily. Or if I say, just YouTube, that everyone has to go to YouTube. There are a lot of reservations there too—Google or Alphabet, corporations, data, and so on. I leave that up to the people. And I think so far you've done very, very well. You're addressing very different people there, but also really regionally. That's another big difference. Whether it's the USA, or Japan, Korea, India. It's very different which platforms are currently dominant there. And even there, I mean, if one platform is dominant, maybe covers 60 percent of the people, what about the other 40 percent?
Do you just leave them alone there? Don't you want to reach out to them? And from my perspective, technically, it's not that much extra work. Just put it out there and meet people where they are. Okay. The images
are already there. I just have to move them.
Exactly, yeah. It's already like that with apps. You have like a thousand apps by now. And I think the... the hesitation to register somewhere again and then register there and then register again... I think people are, on average, a bit tired of that and are a bit more reserved. And I'm pretty sure legally that the people from the scene would definitely do it. They'd say, "Oh, there's a livestream. Finally, we can watch it live." But as for the general public, like I said, those who have nothing to do with flying or don't know anything about it, I think it's hard to get them. Exactly. I'm not a marketing expert either.
Now you just said that distributing this is actually relatively simple. It just needs a bit of preparation before the actual stream. The other way would be complicated. If I were to fly for you now—for the livestream. If I say in the livestream that I'm taking something with me so that what I see can appear in the livestream. What do I have to carry as a pilot, as tech, to make the livestream work? Try to summarize it briefly, just the basic building blocks. What do I need to have in the cockpit or in the back?
Yeah, so the absolute minimum would actually just be a phone. However, I absolutely do not recommend that. I'd rather not say... then someone else should do it. That is to say, my, let's say, minimum requirement would actually be a phone and a router.
And then there's actually an action cam. But it also turned out to be somewhat optional. It depends on how people want to mount it and where they want to mount it. What also turned out to be a huge issue is the different basic setups, different personal preferences. Also safety aspects, like a camera on the helmet, for example. And then there were the submarines, which I perceived more negatively. Not as a product, but more in terms of the mounting. At the World Cup, for example, three people were actually supposed to stream. Well, you have to say two, that was really very short notice. They then said, "Yeah, let's do it." But they also had problems somehow finding a way to mount the camera.
That is a really big issue. And there are a lot of people working on it right now, brainstorming different things to go through. There are many pros and cons to it. And especially with these Coms, I wasn't aware of that. Aerodynamics is really a major focus now. You don't want to have so many things sticking out. Some people do it, but the majority want to stay aerodynamic while moving.
And yeah, heat is also always an issue. That means, if I put entire pieces of hardware into the submarine, into the...
...housing, it gets too hot. What's your...
...that, if you don't want to highlight the product so specifically? What are these life jackets called? These new, completely closed ones?
I think they're called Submarines. I have no idea, the inflated ones or whatever.
The extra -outer cavities -Gurtsäuge. The Formula
-1 -Gurtsäuge. Just call them Submarines, that's fine. Yeah, okay. And if you pack all the gear in there now, it gets hot. And the devices generate heat. And at some point, it's too hot. And then it's no longer good. Either it's stuttering or there's no video feed anymore. That means I also underestimated that. I haven't had anything to do with these KOMS -long-distance flyers until now. I haven't been out there myself yet. And I only realized what it actually is during the stream. And now I really have more of an association with Formula -1. It's just racing. It's about speed. It's simply about being 2-3 km/h faster than the other guy. Just flying good thermals isn't enough there.
That's why I've actually developed a bit of a fascination for this kind of flying. Only now, while watching and learning about the details, have I really started to see it.
Let's stay on the topic of technology for a moment. At least one smartphone and actually a router. Why? I mean, every smartphone can go online on its own. Why do you need an extra device then?
The biggest problem is reception. That's the be-all and end-all. And that's why people who start out with this always have big problems. A lot of frustration. So generally, if someone goes outdoors, goes hiking in the mountains and wants to stream or do some other stuff, there's a scene like that, or it's called IRL streamers. That means in real life. And they're usually out and about somewhere. So not stationary at a PC. Streaming from home really isn't an issue today. Naturally, pretty much everyone can do that. It's very simple. You don't have big problems with that. But as soon as you go out, move around, and always have network fluctuations, and also different network providers, there are very many little problems that you then, as I mentioned at the beginning, try to compensate for with hardware.
And exactly, it wouldn't work at all without anything. But instead of having a thousand things, I've now reduced it to, let's say, the phone and the router. The router also has its own SIM card in it and provides an extra signal. And that gets bundled together with the signal from the phone. Many people might then ask, well, why don't you just put two or three SIM cards into one phone? That exists, you can do that. However, it's not the same. If you have two or three SIM cards in one phone, the phone will always select one of those three SIM cards. It will always only take one data connection. And it will never bundle them. That means it can help if only one network provider is available in one region and a different one in another region.
That means the phone switches between them. But if there's always some provider available, but the reception is bad, then it doesn't help that much. Because, as I said, only one SIM card is always active for data. And for that, you need at least—this is my experience—two SIM cards. That's the minimum for me. In some regions, for example in Alcatraz in Spain, it's shown that you easily need three to four SIM cards. That means we had the most signal there. You could see that as a positive. But the transmission rates were really, really bad consistently. That also means a lot of 3G as well. And that's already a success. Now, with the current setup, it only needs 500 kilobits per second.
To get a usable video. It doesn't look great, but it's usable. You can still see heaven and earth.
Blue expanse above,
green flatsche below.
Yes, a bit more, already. So it is a challenge, and it doesn't go much deeper than that. You could tinker with it for as long as you want to get something out of 50 or 100 kilobits. A video. I don't think we need to pursue that any further. 500 kilobits is already a real success.
And the goal is really to work on the data rate. And for that, you need more SIM cards, which also means more devices. Exactly. And the router also has an additional function. It creates a local network. That means, for example, the action cam goes through this router to the phone. And the phone processes the data, making it more efficient through video encoding. Also another protocol. And then sends it over the router. Yeah, it's actually parallel. The phone and the router basically send the signal to the servers together.
So there's a lot of technical stuff running behind the scenes. And in the end, I still have to carry quite a bit as a pilot. At least my phone, maybe the action cam, and then the router. And I have to find a place to put all that. Exactly.
So, roughly let's say 500 grams. Let's put it that way. I always say you can maybe save a bit on the power bank, or at least you don't have to carry an extra one. But the router is very efficient. It has its own battery inside, and it runs for over 10 hours. That means you can also connect your own equipment to it, and then they save power again. Because actually, the mobile connection uses the most power. The display also uses a lot. Exactly. That means of course, it's a disadvantage. That's very clear. Especially with Hikenfly. With Comp, that's the nice thing. But they don't care. They usually have ballast with them anyway. 10, 15, 20 kilos. Weight wasn't really an issue there.
Rather, it's really just the mounting options. But Hikenfly is, of course, super critical. And it always comes down to finding some kind of compromise. Currently, it's on a voluntary basis. That means the people who support it are now carrying those extra few grams. But they naturally have a disadvantage compared to others who don't carry them. And there are different solutions for that. In the long run, the most obvious solution is actually mandatory equipment. Now, some might already be saying, oh, how can that be? Ah, I don't feel like doing that. But larger competitors already do this. For example, with the Ex-Arps, it's mandatory. At least, that's what I've heard. I hope that's the case. Everyone has to bring a GoPro.
Everyone just has to have it with them. Whether they use it or not. I think the desire is already there for them to provide a bit of film and material. But everyone simply has to bring it along. And if everyone brings it, then it's no longer a disadvantage.
And yes, I see it more as a long-term thing. I think it already had a lot of added value. And especially for the events, those are competitions. And competitions, there's also a financial aspect, right? That means very few pilots nowadays can make a living from it. That means they have to pay for the competition. Also for the training. They have to invest a lot of time and money into it. And not everyone can afford that. Not everyone wants to afford it. Or they might not be able to train enough, right? These are those kinds of trade-offs. It's been discussed repeatedly that pilots from developing and emerging countries have disadvantages because they might not get to fly as much because they just don't have the finances, right? That means you need free time and you need money for it.
And I think that should change. And you can only achieve that through a greater reach, so that it really appeals to a lot of people. And then you can set up all different kinds of concepts. And then every athlete can also promote it more for themselves. And the people who don't want to do it, that's okay. And I think there will always be competitions that don't have a livestream or that are more local, more of a dignified event. So I've basically already answered a few criticisms or aspects that I've heard. Or if you commercialize all of competitive sports so heavily, I hear that relatively often. But I see you have no concerns there. There will always be different events.
And there are so many, every weekend, not just in Switzerland. Switzerland alone already has so many events. But internationally, there are so many things too. And there will always be some that do it more for themselves, having small, cozy groups. I have no doubt about that. And also the X-Ups, from my perspective, is already a commercial event. Commercial means, because there are larger sums of money in circulation, so to speak. And then most people suddenly have some kind of problem with that. It's become so established. It's such a big highlight every two years. Many people want to go there. It's this milestone. It's such a success. But yeah, you have to say, in this form, it's actually only possible through more funding.
The organizer probably shouldn't be too happy to hear that, but there's really a lot of marketing surrounding it. A lot. Yes, and that's why pilots go too. They get prize money and equipment at times. And a lot is going on. Much more. And I think there's a lot more that can be done with that. How do you see it?
It's always the question of how much money is actually there when you look at the X-Ups yourself. Only the top pilots probably end up benefiting financially in the end through subsequent self-marketing and what they do with it. Even the prize money being distributed doesn't come close to covering what the pilots have in costs with their whole team of five people or whatever, and two cars and everything else they take with them. They actually still invest a lot into the competition itself. And I don't think there's much to be gained in paragliding. From everything you've just told me, I had an idea where I thought that's perhaps where your system or approach might work best.
That is a competition format, and these are accuracy competitions—meaning landing competitions—where you always have relatively short flights from the pilots, where you have a target point where you can set up a camera that looks at the target point, so you can always switch back and forth. You can see exactly where the foot finally touches down. You have the pilot's perspective of the approach—so they might have the GoPro on top of their helmet and they look down to see where the landing competition is. You have this target point and you see exactly how they make their final approach accordingly. You can commentate on that quite well. You can also have a ground camera that shows the parallel during the final approach and stuff like that. And a lot happens within a relatively short time. So, the pilots hover during such competitions; every minute or every two minutes, a new pilot glides in and makes a touchdown.
And I think that would be a format where that works relatively well. And it's also a format that, at least as far as I know, isn't that popular in Europe, but in Asian countries, it's totally popular. And there, you really have pilots who make real money from it. Because it's something where they have car manufacturers as sponsors or something like that. And they really live as professionals off doing only those kinds of landing competitions. But that's just as a side note, just a small detour.
I think you've made a good point there. I think that's also interesting and a bit, how can I put it nicely, more fleeting or... more entertaining. Entertaining, exactly, thanks. Yes, and with Akko, it's a similar thing. Akko competition events are also mostly short flights, lots of action, land again, done. Scoring and on to the next. You can also follow that well from the ground. You also have now...
Akko competitions are already... set up. Yes, they also appear in that. And then your livestreams also have... Do the pilots actually have a GoPro on their heads that broadcasts live? So when they do their tumbles or whatever, you get motion sickness just watching it, something like that?
Definitely. So that's also my goal. I'm not coming from that direction; I just want to livestream events somehow, or I just want to livestream whatever has the most money, or whatever is perhaps the most entertaining. It's not really... where I come from. So paragliding is my passion. And I just want to capture the whole paragliding sport in its breadth and show as many different events as possible, and what brings in more money and what brings in less. So for me, it's about maybe covering the costs next year. And there are a lot of costs that come together there.
And commercially, that's also a matter of definition; for me, it's only commercial once decisions are made based on some sponsors. That means I want to stay independent. I want to live out my ideas, incorporate many features, and as long as I don't let myself be influenced and can cover the costs, that should be fine. It's possible that one category might bring in a bit more money than another, but I don't really care about that. I find the variety of the individual disciplines really exciting. And I've discovered even more there. I've also seen security a few times on YouTube. I thought, wow, I hadn't really noticed that here in Switzerland. They also have these platforms that automatically record down to the centimeter, I think.
I'd love to test that out too. Yeah, so that's not actually the goal, choosing it like that, right? And with Acro, it's important that this first-person perspective gets in there, actually. That's what I find exciting. Really showing the people's videos from the first-person perspective. And that's actually central for Acro for me too. I mean, Acro has been streamed before, but only with the ground camera, where you see people doing their thing up there.
But I think it's nice to also bring in that first-person perspective. Currently, the action cam is on the helmet. The acro pilots don't have a problem with that. And it's aimed a bit upwards with a fisheye lens, so you can really see the entire glider. And yeah, if people get dizzy, they can look away or turn it on during a hike-and-fly race. Yeah, we'll see. But that's what I actually want to deliver. I want to bring in the first-person perspective. And that's also actually so exciting in other sports. You can do everything there. And I always tell people, hey, if you want to do that, please, I'll give you a rough idea of what you can do to make it look good.
From a technical standpoint. And then they can stream wakeboarding or trail running, whatever. I've been asked quite often if I don't want to do it for this and that as well. I said no. First of all, sports are already huge for so many things. And second, it's about my passion again. If I didn't have the passion—if I were just streaming wakeboarding now—that would really just be a job for me, wouldn't it? I have no connection to wakeboarding. I can't relate to it. The technical component might appeal to me a bit, but it would probably be very similar to the setup for paragliding.
A livestream costs money, or at least the equipment you need for it costs money. Exactly. How do you do that so far? So you give the pilots a phone, an action cam, a router, and say, please go fly with these. You're providing that for them. Did you pre-finance all of that? So you're taking a full risk because you say you enjoy doing it?
Yeah, so maybe less of a risk right now, but I have a full-time job. I earn money from that. And I've been putting that into this for a very long time now. That means I always buy the gear bit by bit, with whatever money is available, so to speak. The risk is maybe more long-term, right? I mean, of course it would be nice if I—this sounds stupid right now—but for my retirement, if I eventually resume private pension planning and maybe do a few other things. I also have a young daughter, and I don't necessarily want to save on her. So, of course, right now it's already a bit of a...
How should I put it... it hurts, I don't know exactly how to say it, but financially it might hurt a bit right now. But I've said this: this year I want to scale it, I want to make it bigger, I want to do it in a way that's also appealing. So, to satisfy my perfectionist side a bit, to make sure the stuff is really solid. But from next year, I'm sure—yeah, that's 100 percent—the costs have to be covered. I can't keep going like this and just kick out all the money. So paragliding live can't just be a...
it stays a super expensive hobby for you, as it were. No. How do you think you can eventually make money from this? Is there advertising shown in the livestream, or do you think you can get some organizers to say, "Look, for your livestream performance, you bring this. We'll pay you, say, I don't know, 2,000 euros or something per organizer, per event," and then you organize the livestream and take care of the rest, and at the end of the day, somehow you still have something left over? So, do you already have ideas on how something like this—what's the nice word for it—can be monetized?
I've definitely given it some thought because I know it can't continue like this. And it's getting more expensive, too. That means the more pilots, the more expensive it gets, and the more different events, the more expensive it gets. My current approach is to equip different disciplines with their own hardware. For example, for the Acro World Tour, they'll be provided with the hardware and travel with it. That means the hardware is set aside—like a hardware pool. And also for the individual countries—whether it's the USA or Norway, these are different country groups—they also get a fixed hardware pool. That means if you scale that in every country and want to see more pilots live, I simply can't finance that.
And I've obviously given this some thought, and the most obvious approach is actually crowdfunding. That means crowdfunding will be starting; it's still being set up. But I want to do it a bit differently. I want to do it on my own website, not go through another platform. But you have to publish it yourself and advertise the project anyway. That platform doesn't offer much. People aren't just going to suddenly show up and look for a project somewhere to put money into. That's why it's on the own website. And then I want to break that down into different aspects. That means the people who think the project is awesome and say, "Okay, I want to support this and I want more content to be created here and there,"
then they can say, okay, for the USA I still want Pilot 2345. Or for Italy, I still want this competition. Or I want to have the professional commentators. Because now, the people who comment, for example, the ones who really know their stuff, they partly live off of it. They won't do it voluntarily for long. Some of them are already doing it on a bit of a voluntary basis. But yeah, in the medium term, you also have to give them something, or at least the expenses, so that you can reserve these people for it. And that's how I want to structure it into many different aspects. Server infrastructure is also a topic, as is the IT. There are also many people in the background who have already invested a lot of working time,
...that it's compensated. Or maybe it means I'll take them out for a coffee or lunch. That's about the level it's at right now. Or Silvan, who has currently helped out the most with the whole project—I paid for his overnight stay. We didn't actually use it, though. That was a different matter.
Yeah, but it means that if it's only on a voluntary basis, it's difficult for the project to become solid and for the content to become more interesting to watch. And that has to be covered somewhere, at least. And then people can choose for themselves where they want to put their money. Maybe some people want more marketing. There are also people who say, "Oh, I've never heard of that before."
I don't want to do more than that. Yes, you could do more, but that's a financial aspect again. And people might say, okay, it just needs a bit more reach. You could also say, I'll give you 10 euros so that this goes into advertising.
Yes, it's a financial aspect, but also a time aspect. Speaking of time, how much time do you invest in this project? You said you have a full-time job. Do you spend every weekend just sitting at the computer programming and assembling hardware, or testing it so you can send it off to the Acro World Cup, saying, "Here you have the right setups for phone, camera, and router, and so on"?
Yeah. So currently, it just takes up all my free time. That means in the evening after work, on weekends of course, at every moment—even when I'm out or with my family—I'm constantly live streaming. Whether it's with the pedal boat on Lake Zurich and so on. Not because it's exciting, but simply because I want to test something technical again. I have to weigh that a bit with the people around me. How much can I put on them? Because I'm obviously a bit distracted too. Yeah, I have to distribute it a bit and split up the tasks. It works now. I know more people now, so I can pass along some of the tasks again and again.
But also regarding the financial aspect, that's already a topic too,
Crowdfunding is actually one thing, but for next year, we're also including advertising. That means, I've shown you partly that, for example, the pilots themselves can show that they are sponsored by this or that manufacturer or company, and that will then be displayed in the lower third, in their profile. And also regarding events, I've always said that the events can also say they want to somehow insert ads in between. In an eight-hour livestream, there's always time for that. There
maybe advertising is even a welcome change of pace in between.
Exactly, I personally would also think it's good if we could be presented with new innovations. So I see it very relaxed and that's definitely a good thing. And I told the organizers who have their own advertising partners that they can display them and the money should go to the organizers and not to me.
Advertising for the platform is then sort of combined with the organizers' advertising. But I'd always make sure it stays in the background, so it doesn't flash and cover everything up, or have ads pop up during the most exciting moments. That's not my goal. The goal is for the project to run, for more variety to come in, and for the costs to be covered.
You said earlier that paragliding is your passion. But with everything you're doing right now—you have a job, you have a family, you have this platform that you're constantly pushing forward in all your free time—how much time do you actually get to go flying yourself?
Yeah, a bit less frequently lately. There's a bit of a balancing act involved. And yeah, I would have loved to be there at the Engelberg Cup too.
and would have joined you, flown with you.
Yeah, and right now, that's already a bit of a compromise. On one hand, there's this livestreaming. I'm really passionate about it. I have a lot of demands. There's still a lot of work to do. I want to move it forward. And in between, I also want to go flying sometimes. Yeah, and then I try to do that to take some time for it every now and then. Recently, I was just at Zugerberg. It's right around the corner here. I enjoyed it. I was offline, without any equipment. Just without any gear. Just going flying for once. It was great. But it's rare that you
go flying without taking anything with you.
So, I usually take the opportunity to test things like that again. That's how it is. But that's usually okay. But every now and then, taking a flight completely without any gear is also very nice. But I don't know, maybe I appreciate it even more then. I found it really liberating to fly without anything recently. I might not have appreciated it as much otherwise. But I have goals. And I think my aviation goals have to take a bit of a backseat for now. And I think in the medium term, I might be able to fly a bit more here and there. Once a few things, once a few more things, run on their own.
Yeah. If not flying can sometimes cause moments of frustration because you'd rather be out there, but you're sitting here in front of the computer and have to do this—at the same time, it's the project you want to move forward. What is it emotionally, what would you say, from all these livestreams you've already done and been a part of? Is there something where you'd say, "That was a real emotional highlight for me"? Where you'd say, "Exactly how I imagined it."
Yeah, exactly. In fact, it's mostly been a lot of frustration so far. I'm constantly changing things, completely tossing things aside, and doing something completely different again. For technical reasons. There are good reasons when I really scrap things. But yeah, there were moments. There were these little highlights. On one hand, it was the Grindelwald Cup. There were four live pilots there. It was also frustrating because for one of them, it suddenly disappeared again. But now, for example, during the start, Matthias just gave the live feed of how he was preparing for his start. And in that moment, I see, ah, there's Taku, a Japanese guy who was also equipped with the live equipment.
At the start. He starts running and takes off. And at that exact moment, I switched from the perspective of him basically pulling up the glider to his first-person perspective, showing how he lost his footing or took off from the ground. I thought, ah, exactly like that. That's beautiful.
This direction, having these video feeds and being able to combine them like that. Yeah, also like in the World Cup. That moment where someone scrapes along the ground and tries to hold on, I also found that to be an exciting moment. I would have liked to see the heart rate there, too. But as I said, that's not set up for other pilots yet.
Marco, I think that the people who have listened this far now have at least a bit of an impression of what Paragliding Live is all about, and above all, an impression of how much work goes into building something like this. So, how much heart and soul, and ultimately how much money of yours is currently invested in somehow realizing such an idea, a vision, and a dream. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it all continues like this, that you'll eventually be able to say, "Ah, those weren't just lost years where I wasn't flying but was always sitting at the computer," and then eventually say, "Hey, it's working now, the idea took off, the scene has embraced it, the organizers want it too," and eventually, you'll see it working at many different events.
I'm curious to see if it gets that far, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Maybe you'll really be the pioneer of the paragliding livestream one day, where people will know that Marco started it back then, and in ten years it's running with AI, commentary, and whatever else might happen. Thanks.
Yeah, exactly, thanks a lot. I'm really happy and brave, and that's exactly why I keep going despite all the individual frustrations. But I believe in it, and it's going to be a great thing. Super. Good, thanks for the chat, Lucia.
That was episode 163 of Podz-Glidz. If you'd like to watch a livestream yourself, all upcoming broadcast dates are listed on the website paraglidinglive.com. You can also sign up for a newsletter there to stay informed about developments at paragliding live. If you enjoyed this episode, please recommend Podz-Glidz. Tell your flying friends about it or leave a comment on Fluglite, Soundcloud, Spotify, iTunes, or whereverver you listen to the podcast. And if you want to do something nice for me personally, then become a supporter of Podz-Glidz and Fluglite. As a freelance journalist, I put a lot of time, work, and also costs into these projects.
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