At the 2024 NAB Show in Las Vegas (April 14-17), ENCO will showcase an AI-driven virtual anchor delivering live news from a realistic 3D virtual news set. This innovative presentation will […]
Efficiency Is IBC’s 2023 Mantra
Post-pandemic normalcy returned to Amsterdam as broadcasters and vendors convened, but a palpable sense of economy and efficiency blanketed the International Broadcasting Convention.
Gains in tech and drops in prices are pushing more broadcasters to adopt video walls in their studios, but stations are learning that designing a digital set also means adopting a different mindset. Pictured: This XR Studio for ServusTV in Salzburg, Austria, is driven by Ross Video’s Voyager and Lucid control system to simplify workflow. Voyager is built on the Epic Unreal gaming engine for hyper realistic rendering.
Broadley TV Studios, one of London’s longest established TV and film production facilities, has selected Brainstorm’s InfinitySet virtual studio solutions to power its recently launched virtual production operations. Brainstorm says […]
CBS News harnessed the power of Unreal Engine with Vizrt to create a variety of effects for its 2022 election night coverage. With the goal of creating something fresh for its coverage, CBS News opted to focus on new ways to showcase election data while connecting it to the broadcast’s unique Times Square location.
Real-time graphics technology provider Zero Density has added Sergio Amuchastegui as regional sales manager for Latin America and the Caribbean. He will oversee Zero Density’s continued growth in the region as virtual […]
Exclusives
Video walls are getting “bigger and bigger and cheaper and cheaper,” prompting wider adoption among broadcasters who are discovering a broad raft of storytelling and set design opportunities in their adoption. Above, FX Design Group delivered the set for KHON Honolulu, which includes a 3.9 pixel pitch video wall background that stretches nearly 33 feet long and just over 8 feet high.
Zero Density has introduced a new online learning platform for creators of real-time broadcast graphics and virtual sets, the Zero Density Academy. Featuring more than 50 in-depth video lessons, Zero Density […]
Inside Newsday’s Live Production Facility
The Long Island newspaper has remade itself as a multimedia news producer with a two-studio, multimillion-dollar production operation and a team of MMJs ramping up extensive video coverage. (Newsday photo)
Chyron today announced the release of Prime VSAR 1.7, calling it “a significant step forward” in the company’s mission to help broadcasters maximize and monetize the content they can generate […]
Augmented reality, immersive mixed reality and virtual sets continue to see increased adoption, moving beyond special events like election night and the Olympics. In this roundtable, leaders from the motion graphics production solutions industry along with key design firms talk about augmented reality’s future, workflows and remote production implications.
Vizrt, the home of software-defined visual storytelling solutions, supplied advanced virtual set graphics to BBC Sport that helped convert a simple studio into its “Pres 2” set and a home […]
Cutting-edge news technologists from The Weather Channel, CNN, Brainstorm and Planar are leading a vanguard of broadcasters into including augmented and virtual reality in their presentations. They told a TVNewsCheck webinar last week that advances in video game technology are making that possible.
NBCLX, the NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations streaming news service aimed at Gen Z, will be offering election night coverage on its over-the-top, linear, digital, mobile and cable platforms. Coverage starts at 8 p.m. ET with storytellers embedded in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Washington.
Broadcasters won’t be hampered by remote working conditions for election night 2020, and they have a bevy of new graphics and augmented reality tools to help them tell the story. Above, Broadcasters can make complex data easy for viewers to grasp through augmented reality objects generated by Brainstorm graphics using real-time data from different sources. A Punt, a regional channel in Spain, covered municipal elections, and this interactive map shows the winning party in each town, with detailed results for the seats won in each town are shown on the chart of the left side. The bars on the bottom show a rundown of all the cities, in alphabetical order, with the results in real time.
Despite pushing newsrooms temporarily into mostly remote production, set design vendors say COVID-19 won’t have a lasting effect on where sets were heading before the pandemic. They say viewers are likely to see more LED panels and walls, virtual sets and augmented and virtual reality usage in news studios. Above, for the TF1 broadcast news studio in France, Planar delivered a 750-square-foot curved video wall.
Vizrt, a global provider of software-defined visual storytelling tools for media content creators, offered the world what it called the “first glimpse of science fiction-turned-real in what could become the […]
Developments in TV news graphics have seen a host of improvements from better real-time flexibility to more streamlined workflows and even monetization prospects.
Millions of citizens turned to TV3 E19: Special Elections broadcast on May 26 to learn the results from the 2019 European Parliamentary and municipal elections — and stayed tuned in […]
Black News Channel, a provider of 24/7 cable news programming created “by people of color for people of color,” chose Devlin Design Group to design a newsroom featuring a “scenic […]
ChyronHego Unveils Virtual Set, Touts Sports Wins
The Fresh system is designed to achieve more photorealistic images than previous systems and is fully compliant with ChyronHego’s template-based Camio asset management system.
The integration of products is designed to give news producers new tools including game-quality on-air graphics as well as new photorealistic and hyper-realistic elements for on-air virtual sets.
The list of gear and technologies expected to command broadcasters’ attention and wallets next year includes the transition from SDI to IP infrastructure using clouds; transmitters and other RF gear to handle station migration to new channels; ATSC 3.0; plus a lot of activity involving cameras, bonded cellar, multichannel workflow and virtual sets.
Vendors say improved rendering and tracking systems will drive U.S. sales. In addition, many boast “trackless” technology, that reduces the cost and complexity of setting up and maintaining a virtual set. Above, a ChyronHego virtual set at WTLV Jacksonville, Fla.
KQED Debuts High-Tech Virtual Set
Five Technologies Reshaping TV News
Whether it’s virtual or hybrid sets, Ka-band satellite contribution or tools to make story-centric workflows a reality, the shape of TV news production, presentation and even publishing — not just to air, but to multiple platforms — is changing. Here’s a look at five important technologies that are helping to transform television news. Above, a virtual set in use at Raycom’s WBTV Charlotte, N.C.
With Careful Use, Virtual Sets A Strong Tool
Virtual sets or augmented reality represents a totally new way of producing news, and whether — or how — to tap the technology can be market-dependent. While viewers in some markets may be able to handle bold moves like virtual sets, others may be better suited for a more conservative approach.
What issues are likely to keep engineers, managers and other tech types awake at night in 2016? TVNewsCheck’s Phil Kurz offers his predictions of next year’s trends that range from ATSC 3.0 to a serious rethink of how to define the business of television.
Gray Television began a serious evaluation of a hybrid of hard and virtual sets, augmented reality and immersive graphics about 18 months ago. The station group wanted to find new, flexible ways to customize local content in a way that engages viewers. Now it’s preparing to introduce the technology at some of its stations, emphasizing the need to use virtual to “support the content, augment what is going on with that content — not get in the way,” according to Jason Effinger, the group’s tech SVP.
Raycom’s North Carolina CBS affiliate debuts new news set from FX Design Group using both a hard set and a virtual set.
Virtual Sets Gain Traction in Station Studios
A hybrid approach combining a traditional hard set with an oversized green screen area is gaining acceptance at stations. It allows them to integrate virtual elements into their news presentations and gain experience working with virtual technology without risking the entire newscast on a technology long viewed by stations with skepticism.
Election Graphics: Less Costly, More Powerful
Lower prices for technologies once thought out of the reach of the average station are giving news departments more options for their graphics. Among the more affordable innovations are virtual sets and immersive graphics as well as the ability to integrate social media comments into on-air election coverage. This is the final installment of a three-part special report on 2014 election coverage. To read the other stories, click here.
Morris Stations Moving Into The Virtual Future
Group owner Morris Multimedia is outfitting all its stations with virtual sets, citing the economy and flixibility they offer. CEO Dean Hinson: “Each of our stations … put out more than one signal and those second channels each have their own branding. The decision to go virtual is an economic one, and it’s one based on space. We’ve watched the prices come down on the equipment to do this and are ready to move at a rapid pace.”
Green Screen Not Just For Weather Anymore
While few U.S. TV stations are opting for full-fledged virtual sets for their news operations, hybrid sets that combine real and virtual elements are rapidly finding adoption due to their versatility and cost-effectiveness.
