TECHNOLOGY

ON-SCREEN GRAPHICS

PICTURE THIS!
Adrian Pennington examines the very latest developments in the ever-changing world of On-Screen Graphics.
The live production demands on graphics systems for sports and news coverage is as much about ease of use as it is about how fast graphics can be designed, updated, and pushed to air, moreso as broadcasters look to automate as much as possible to cut costs, while simultaneously requiring more complex graphical analysis and realtime feeds. Broadcast customers want to see more realtime information and interactive analysis on-screen, says Pixel Power joint MD James Gilbert. There is increasing demand for the dynamic generation of graphical information such as statistics and graphical presentations which are required to look more sophisticated and incorporate multiple data sources from SMS, score updates or the results of voting, he explains. File-based distribution of data is also demanded to devices other than the TV - to IPTV and mobile. The deskilling of the operator base is a conicting force and drives technology to take care of more: Customers want technology to do more things but with a workforce that is not necessarily competent to drive it. As vendors, we have to try and address that, he adds. The big issue according to Gilbert is the lack of training, which is particularly acute in the Middle East. The skilled operator base is not as large as in Europe, plus theres the language barrier. Its common for broadcasters in the region to spend lot on kit, but then its not

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used to full advantage because sta havent had sucient training. What we have done is establish a local oce in Dubai and employ Arabic speakers for training and support. That process has been instrumental in helping ADMC get the best out of our [Clarity] system. That said Pixel Powers new product, ChannelMaster which premieres at IBC, plays well with the deskilling of the operator base. It is an integrated playout solution incorporating graphics which is a lot simpler to manage,

control and drive than multiple boxes. Chyron president and CEO Michael Wellesley-Wesley also nds customers wanting to create more graphics and at a faster pace without compromising their looks. And, in most cases, to do this with a smaller sta. He cites the companys BlueNet (launched at NAB and being implemented at the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange to provide live graphical displays of nancial information) for its ease of use which speeds design right through to

playout. Chyron also markets HyperX with Lyric PRO software, a live-to-air graphics solutions for news and sports. In addition, our Channel Box makes realtime branding and promo generation simple and fast, says Wesley. Broadcasters spend many hours in a suite editing promos or creating a squeezeback over the credits to squeeze an extra commercial or promo for the station. Channel Box can do this in realtime. Realtime is the name of the game at Spanish developer Brainstorm Multimedia which has taken advantage of considerable GPU improvements in graphic processors to drive live 3D broadcast graphics. Its technology was prominent at the 2011 Wimbledon Tennis Championships where Information & Display Systems created a HD 3D graphics package with Brainstorms agship engine eStudio for IBM, the ocial scorer. [GPU improvements] have enabled us to develop sophisticated shaders [graphics algorithms] that expand the ability to generate 3D materials like reections; refractions; bump, displacement and parallax mapping or detailed animal fur, reports CEO Ricardo Montesa. These are capabilities that only a few years ago were all but inconceivable. NVIDIA now provides GPU-connected SDI boards that can capture four HD-SDI inputs in realtime and can be expanded to up to 16 HDSDI inputs. This opens the application of 3D graphics to other elds that require the simultaneous input of multiple HD-SDI channels. The grunt power of hardware and software applications seems to be the pre-requisite for mission critical live production, although externally hosted computing is gaining traction as networks speeds and reliability increase. There are many areas of collaborative work that can take advantage of cloud-hosted functionality, but because our primary focus is on 3D graphics for realtime broadcast, we dont yet think that we can gain much advantage from the cloud, says Montesa. Realtime graphics means just that, a rigorous adherence to realtime. Not a single frame can be missed, and the latency of an internet connection can make it impossible to maintain real time. Gilbert concurs, saying that while the shared central resource may reduce cost, and make it easier to outsource there are a dangers for

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Lyric 8 Pro at work.

high-prole live sports in particular. You are eectively losing control of content once it is outside of a facility and that brings in questions of security as well as instant access to material, he adds. Sport is such a valuable commodity that broadcasters cant really afford not exercise total control over it. For non-realtime graphics the cloud might provide a render farm that is large and fast enough and Brainstorm is exploring the possibility of using it in that way. The undoubted pioneer in cloud production, let alone graphics cloud production, is Chyron, which has been developing its online e AXIS range since 2008. At IBC2011, it is relaunching AXIS as AXIS World Graphics. In its conception AXIS was more suited to North American broadcasters, but we realise that customers in other parts of the world could use this technology more easily if their languages were used in the user interface and AXIS maps, explains Wesley. So, 2011 is the year in which the world really will see the power of cloud computing through Chyrons AXIS World Graphics.

Broadcasters spend many hours in a suite editing promos and creating a squeezeback over the credits. Channel Box can do all of this in realtime.
Michael Wellesley-Wesley, Chyron

Cloud-hosted functionality aords a greener graphics creation model that reduces in-house equipment costs and maintenance, he asserts. Across multiple stations, it also provides a place to host and create graphics that can be shared by any station in a group. Ordering graphics in the cloud makes it very simple for anyone, anywhere, to order a graphic and track it until it hits air. Chryon says it has integrated its order-inthe-cloud functionality with BlueNet, which enables less handling of the graphic from the time it is ordered until it is on the air. While the possibility of an internet outage might seem a disadvantage, the reality is m that in todays internet-dependent broadcast t world, the inability to download a graphic w would be a small issue, claims Wesley. In four w years of Chyron customers using AXIS, we y have rarely heard of any complete outages. The other major area exercising broadcast engineering minds is stereo 3D, a format in which the placement of graphics presents a literal headache. Typically this is worked out pre-event by stereographer and director.

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One of the most important things to avoid is fast-moving graphics near the edges of the screen, says Nir Goshen, director of user experience at Vizrt. When the eye looks at fast action it performs very rapid seek-and follow movement. If the stereo graphic is running by the edges of the screen, the eye notices the screens bezel which is not situated at the same perceived depth as the graphics. This causes es a dissonance that should be avoided. Designers must resist the temptation to make the graphics stand out too much, or the background image will be lost. Another consideration is the positioning of the graphics in relation to the action. In a basketball game, the score would look great over a wide shot, but a courtside shot up at the net would make that graphic appear on-screen in a dierent way. The viewers eye would communicate to the mind that something is wrong. If the graphics are too far forward, they simply look silly, says Gilbert. If they are too close to the action, there is a possibility they may appear behind that action. Broadcasters are talking about creating a 3D safe-area and that will be important. Vizrt oers a utility to set the eye disparity and convergence. It is an on-screen interface that allows the operator to manipulate these values in a what you see is what you get fashion, says Goshen. This information can be

There is increasing demand for the dynamic generation of graphical information such as statistics and graphical presentations which are required to look more sophisticated and incorporate multiple data sources from SMS, score updates or the results of voting.
James Gilbert, Pixel Power

saved into the graphic scene, if need be. Pixel Power also provides adjustment of convergence in realtime through its BrandMaster system. That was a pretty essential requirement by ESPN for its World Cup coverage last year, Gilbert observes. The live footage beamed from South Africa did not allow control over the 3D parameters, so the graphics that were added by ESPN had to be positioned on the y to make them look right. That manual control we oered enabled the broadcaster to obtain the optimal look. He expects this positioning will be handled automatically in the course of time. Theres a lot of work going on with metadata that will describe the 3D space the action occupies. That will help with an automated process. Faster processors and GPUs, as well as increasing main memory and texture memory space, are the primary drivers behind improvements in real time 3D graphics but according to Montesa there will always be hardware limitations: 3D performance is easily broken if the duplication of objects is pushed right to the limits of the hardware, he argues. Even staying within the hardwares limitations, it is not always easy to ensure realtime performance because of the non-real time nature of most systems. This is an area of continued experimentation and innovation, some of advances of which will be on show at IBC.

CASE STUDY: MEYDANS LED

With the assistance of DC2 Media, Brainstorm provides realtime race and information graphics for the largest LED screen in the world, measuring 110m X 12m (high), at Dubais Meydan Racecourse. The racing season in the United Arab Emirates runs from November till March and includes the Dubai World Cup, the richest race in the world with a U$10 million prize. Using Brainstorms Aston 3D Character Generator, a complete set of graphics was built for use on race days to provide up-to-date information for each race and additional graphics as required. The graphics were created in 1920 x 1080i HD and all race data was updated live into the 3D scene from an external racing database application.

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