Antena 3 revolutionizes its 'channel branding' with the help of Vizrt

The Spanish broadcaster, with eight channels of national coverage, automates all graphics processes within its Continuity and Promotions areas with Viz Multichannel, revolutionizing the way of making promotions and graphics. The installation has been carried out in a record time of just two months.

Antena 3, with eight television channels with national coverage and a 42% advertising market share, has redesigned its corporate image with a new channel branding system of Vizrt que ha revolucionado la forma de hacer promociones y grafismos en España.

Todo empezó cuando la cadena se propuso estrenar una nueva imagen que incluyera el rediseño de todos los elementos visuales promocionales que aparecen durante la emisión televisiva. “Teníamos que lanzar una creatividad corporativa en emisión muy innovadora para la cual necesitábamos resolver algunas limitaciones técnicas de la mano de un nuevo sistema de channel branding que además de ofrecernos una mejora en la creatividad nos permitiera también una mejora en los flujos de trabajo”, recuerda José María Casaos, director técnico de Antena 3.

Los requisitos fundamentales de Antena 3 pasaban por contar con un sistema que se integrara perfectamente con su herramienta de automatización Harris ADC-100 y que tuviera un repositorio común centralizado que permitiera compartir y gestionar los gráficos desde los diferentes departamentos de la cadena.

Después de estudiar las distintas opciones del mercado, Antena 3 se decidió por las soluciones de Vizrt. “Las diferentes áreas de la cadena coincidimos en que era la mejor oferta del mercado ya que cumplía con todos los requisitos técnicos de la manera más eficiente y económica”, explica Casaos.

La solución de Antena 3 incluye siete estaciones de channel branding Viz Multichannel para insertar publicidad en múltiples canales de forma completamente automatizada; once motores de renderizado Viz Engine HD; un repositorio de gráficos centralizado Viz Graphic Hub redundante; un componente de programación para creaciones gráficas basadas en plantillas en tiempo real; y un software Viz Artist para diseño y animación 3D en tiempo real.

Instalación en tiempo récord

La instalación ha sido realizada en el tiempo récord de dos meses por la oficina española de Vizrt, la empresa de ingeniería broadcast y multimedia Unitecnic y el departamento de Ingeniería y Sistemas de Antena 3.

Following the recent merger between Antena 3 and La Sexta, Vizrt's channel branding system has also been fully integrated into the four La Sexta channels (LaSexta, Xplora, LaSexta3 and LaSexta HD) which have moved their continuities to the Antena 3 broadcast center in Madrid.

One of the main innovations of the system is that it allows complete control of the channel branding solution by the Marketing department. “The interesting thing about Antena 3 is that, with this system, all the control and all the generation of the content is held by Marketing, and only then does it go to Master Control,” says Pablo Herrero, regional director of Vizrt for Spain, France and Portugal. “In other words, we are not talking about a simple solution that generates signs on the screen, but rather it is a tool that allows the Marketing area to communicate with the audience and decide when, where and how promotions and graphics are inserted,” he adds.

José María Casaos reinforces this concept: "Now, the Marketing, Promotions, Corporate Image and even Commercial or Multimedia departments can schedule thousands of promotions, graphics and creatives with total simplicity and from their own workstations, something that was impossible to do before, which has opened up a new world of promotion and creativity possibilities."

In this sense, the integration of the Vizrt programming plug-in in the chain's Traffic department plays a fundamental role, and has been one of the great novelties of the system. “When the schedules are being created in the Traffic department, the contents that are going to be broadcast can be viewed in real time using the plug-in,” explains David Vivas, technical director of Unitecnic in Madrid.

Another of the system's strong points is the centralized Viz Graphic Hub repository that allows the graphic content of all channels to be in a common place and can be managed and controlled from the different areas of the group. “It is a content management system created specifically for graphics that gives you the ability to see all the graphics you have in your system and automate the processes of issuing and debugging those graphics,” says David Vivas.

José María Casaos remembers that in the past each of the group's chains had its own graphics repository, which required more staff to upload the different graphics, while slowing down the workflow. "Now, all channels draw from the same synchronized common repository of graphic content, with which the different areas involved, such as Design, Marketing or Broadcasting, can work with the graphics from their own workstations without having to travel to continuity. This allows for very significant resource savings and a notable improvement in the efficiency of the processes," says the technical director of Antena 3.

Integration with continuity

The integration of Viz Multichannel with chain automation is another key element of the Vizrt solution. The system allows a parallel schedule of graphic events that runs in sync with the Harris broadcast schedule, thus automating the entire process of inserting logos and graphics. This exchange of playlists between the automation and the graphics system means that any change in the broadcast schedule also implies a change in the graphic layer.

“The integration of Viz Multichannel with Harris makes it a practically automatic system from creation to broadcast, allowing us to have much greater control over the entire graphic layer of the broadcast and offering us the possibility of carrying out actions that were unthinkable before, such as changing a graphic image in real time on all channels with a single click,” says René Abril, project engineer at Unitecnic.

David Vivas also highlights that the entire system runs on standard IT platforms: “It is a very open platform without proprietary hardware that binds the end user, which is one of the big differences that Vizrt makes compared to other manufacturers.”

The truth is that the entire Vizrt system has allowed Antena 3 to significantly increase the creativity of the house's branding. “The creative capabilities of Vizrt's tools have made us the most innovative Spanish channel from a graphic point of view, always complying with regulations and at the same time changing the face of the graphic image of our channels,” says José María Casaos.

In fact, with Antena 3's new channel branding solution, the number of graphic insertions has grown from 15 to more than 200 per day on each channel, with the same team of content editors and graphic designers as in the previous system.

Engineering, development and innovation

The technical director of Antena 3 also highlights the engineering and systems work that the entire project has demanded: "Throughout the installation process there has been very innovative development and integration work in continuity that has also meant an innovation in Vizrt's own solutions, and here the Engineering and Systems department of Antena 3, I3 Televisión and Unitecnic have had a lot to do with it."

In this sense, David Vivas points out that "many specific requirements of Antena 3 have been implemented in the system to cover the needs of the chain, which has meant that it was a very demanding project both at a technical and start-up level."

Finally, José María Casaos highlights the work carried out by the Spanish office of Vizrt: "They have done a great job and we have always been in tune to solve each of the operational challenges that we were encountering as the project progressed. Their technology is obviously very good, but in the end we are the people who make the machines work, and in the case of Vizrt their after-sales service has helped us whenever we have needed it."