UK broadcasters deliver live US election results backed by Vizrt graphics

UK broadcasters deliver live US election results backed by Vizrt graphics
As reflected in this year’s US Presidential coverage and election broadcasts throughout the world, Vizrt’s real-time 3D graphics solutions proved the graphics software of choice in many time critical and high profile, live productions.
ITN, Sky News, ABC, CBS, CNN and Fox News Channel all turned to Vizrt’s Viz|Engine to create compelling graphics to illustrate the most closely-watched Presidential race in decades.
In the preparation for the US election, Sky News upgraded their hardware platform which gave them a considerably enhanced performance and reliability.
Sky News Manager of News Graphics, Kristen Bjaastad said: “Vizrt gave our US election a dynamic visual impact that we could never have achieved with our more traditional graphics systems. We had built scenes that contained complex geometry, AVI movies and live data input. Live graphics of this complexity would have been impossible on anything else. An added benefit was the ability to create our own user interface that allowed our designer/operators to instantly update and override live data.”
ITN, who recently won the Royal Television Society award for Technological Innovation for ITV’s 'Theatre of News' using Vizrt’s Virtual Studio were also using Vizrt software extensively during the US election coverage.
Computer Graphics team leader, Ian White said: “We use Viz Virtual Studio software every day for our news programmes so of course we used it for our US Election coverage, both on our main ITV1 news bulletins and our ITV News Channel. Vizrt real-time software really comes into its own when used to create live election graphics. We were running Vizrt software on both SGI and PC hardware and it performed faultlessly.”
Vizrt has developed a broad range of products making the software ideal for broadcasters looking for an overall redesign, as well as for broadcasters looking to refresh and update their existing software.
All Vizrt software is built on the same core renderer, Viz|Engine, and emphasis has always been put on enabling a highly efficient workflow for all users. The software runs on standard PC’s which makes the total equipment investment cost effective.
Visit www.vizrt.com for further information.
(SP)