RTP upgrades its virtual studios with Vantec

The virtual studios of the Portuguese Public Radio and Television in Lisbon and Porto have been upgraded with more modern HDVG with the creation tools offered by 4Designer and the control tool based on the latest generation of Maestro de Orad (Avid).

Portuguese public television RTP has been using it intensively a virtual studio that Vantec joined in 2007. Located in the new RTP headquarters in Expo Park, Studio 4 was initially born as a training set. However, over time it has become an all-terrain software factory.

For the virtual set, RTP relied on Vactec and the Orad technology (today in Avid) due to the great experience that the integrator already had in this field with successes to its credit such as the virtual studio of the 24 Hours of SIC.

RTP was employing for programs such as religious services (with more than 30 hours per week by legal provision) a studio rented outside its facilities or in other cases, such as the production of the space RTP Memória (continuity) were forced to reserve a studio for their production.

Now, the virtual stage has made it possible to optimize resources and from it Endless programs are produced how Great Interview (RTP-1 and RTP International), RTP Memória, several slots for RTP Africa and numerous discussion programs with up to five speakers for the all-news RTP-3.

The RTP staff barely needs half an hour to change some physical element of the set and load the virtual scenarios that will "appear" on the cyclorama of this studio of just 80 m².

Now, to face these new challenges and the intensive use of facilities, Vantec has renewed the studio including new HDVGs, implementing Maestro 7 and 4Designer together with an Orad Xync tracking system.

Thanks to a training program given by Vantec itself, RTP staff develops all the sets (with more than 80 projects a year), 3D blenders and visualizers so that the filmmakers can have a more reliable perception of what will be aired beforehand.

In addition, this studio is used as a prototype to test models, objects and elements of sets. Once tested, it is decided whether they are finally physically executed (achieving millimetric precision in the measurements, colors, dimensions and arrangement of the different elements with the minimum margin of error) or simply the project remains as a virtual scenography.

Virtual studio in Porto

On the other hand, it should be noted that in 2009, Vantec carried out the project of the virtual studio of RTP in Porto in RTP from where numerous news spaces for RTP 1 are produced, such as the 13-hour news of national broadcast.

This virtual set is identical to the physical set that exists in Lisbon and from which the leading prime-time evening news is broadcast. In this Studio B, numerous productions of political, sports or cultural debates are also carried out with a production that is barely without pause. In addition, RTP2's national news is broadcast from Porto's virtual at 10 p.m. and several programs for RTP3's 24 hours. Many of these programs are also broadcast on RTP International.

In the case of both the Lisbon and Porto sets, Vantec has upgraded both to more modern HDVG with the authoring tools offered by 4Designer and the control tool based on the latest generation of Maestro.