KOTV Enhances Weather Segments With FOR-A FVW-700 Telestrator

FOR-A Corporation of America today announced, Griffin Communications’ CBS affiliate KOTV Tulsa, Okla., has a new weapon in its tech arsenal for weather segments: a FVW-700 telestrator. No matter the forecast, the intuitive FVW-700 live annotation tool has proven to be useful since it was installed in late March.

“When a meteorologist does a ‘First Forecast,’ ‘Final Forecast,’ or ‘Severe WX’ presentation from our WX Pod position, he or she will use the telestrator to help reinforce or further illustrate what they are communicating,” said John Quesnel, director of production for KOTV and co-owned CW affiliate KQCW. “The meteorologists can also call up a live video feed from any of our seven skycams, 10 weather trackers, or 15 live units to help point out or illustrate a key weather item.”

Rain or shine, the FVW-700 helps provide clarification for KOTV viewers. “During non-severe weather, it could be used to point out weather phenomena or highlight certain weather data,” Quesnel said. “During severe weather, this could be storm path, timing, speed, direction, etc.”

Although the FVW-700 has been used only for weather segments so far, Quesnel said the station plans to use it to accentuate storytelling for news stories as well as for high school or college football coverage. KOTV uses a touchscreen, but the FVW-700 also supports annotation for up to two wireless tablets via Wi-Fi for additional production flexibility.

KOTV produces 50 hours of live news per week, including 12 hours for KQCW. 

Designed to provide creative on-screen annotation options for sports coverage, weather reports, medical instruction, and more, the FVW-700 is offered in two models to fit specific needs, including 4K and all-in-one models. Users can draw freehand, as well as straight lines and graphic shapes, with various types of lines, thickness, edge width, and colors.

Numbers, still images, highlights, and animations can also be placed over video. Advanced tools include automatic freehand formation, which uses a noise reduction algorithm to allow sharp angles as well as shaped smooth objects, and edge joining, which uses an edge-rendering algorithm that recognizes edges of lines drawn as outlines of a larger shape and joins them.