Vizrt and Newtek will continue to operate independently

Michael Hallén, CEO of Vizrt, says in NAB that after the acquisition, the policy of sales and distribution channels will remain unchanged.

As the most anticipated event in this NAB 2019, the press conference of Vizrt has served to clarify the details of the acquisition of Newtek, announced in the prelude to the great appointment of the sector in Las Vegas.

With two companies so different merging in an attempt to understand the great changes that could occur, a room full of journalists received the clarifications of the CEO, Michael Hallén.

Aware of doubts, the executive has already opened his speech in a relaxed way. "They will ask why we wanted to acquire Newtek". Despite the friendly speech, the explanations were quite superficial, as expected, and focused on the innovation capabilities of the two companies." It is still too early to say exactly what we are going to get with this acquisition, but we have some of the most innovative minds of this market. We are going to lock them in an ideas room and surely something incredible will come out of there, ”Hallén acknowledged.

In more practical terms, the Vizrt CEO said Neither of the two brands will cease to exist, at least per hour, and that the entire business model should remain the same. "They are very strong brands that work with very different markets, there is no reason for us to touch that," he explained.

Asked about the position in which the distributors remain Of the until now independent brands in the different markets, the Executive said that all the distribution channels that currently work with the brands will be maintained by acting with the same portfolio. "We have a valuable channel network that will benefit from carrying a wider portfolio of products to customers," he said at the same time.

Hallén stressed that "Newtek fits perfectly in Vizrt For its product portfolio, its distribution channel and its innovation. ”We are, in his opinion, before complementary software technologies that create a workflow from beginning to end for the growing market creation market in which IP technology plays a May role every day.

As for the in vessel NDI, the network video transport protocol developed by Newtek, but promoted as an open source in the market, Vizrt has committed to continue supporting the model. "We see great market potential for the development of the NDI, especially in the intermediate market," Hallan explained.

New Viz Engine 4

In NAB 2019, Vizrt is showing the Viz Engine 4 rendering motor potential which now provides advanced tools for global lighting, rendering based on physical laws, reflections and shadows, postproduction effects and color correction.

Viz Engine innovative design includes Three render pipelines that combine design with workflow based on templates.

The new rendering channel of Reality Fusion It allows added effects of realism, real-time performance, as well as a large amount of post-processing effects. Viz Engine 4 uses physical rendering and global lighting among many other techniques to achieve realism for virtual and graphic studies of augmented reality at levels never seen before

On the other hand, the Total compatibility of the scenes It allows users to continue with the workflows established and tested in the industry today while the characteristics of the reality channel Fusion are integrated, ensuring a transition without problems to the new rendering channel.

This new Vizrt offer includes a close integration with third -party engines, such as Unreal Engine 4, which adds the flexibility of having backgrounds with physical simulations such as trees blowing in the wind, combined with a workflow based on templates for graphics in the foreground.

Michael Hallén said that "we are the kings in augmented reality with more than 700 facilities in AR/VR studios. Sales between 2016 and 2018 in AR have increased by an incredible 98%."

Global Sports

Stephan Würmlin Stadler, President of Global Sports, which gives services to sports clients such as NBC, BBC, Sky, Televisa, Real Madrid, Bein Sports, Fox Sports, and numerous federations worldwide has been in charge of giving rise to the announcement of the Vizrt launch of a new global business unit to reinforce the focus on sport.

The new division will be headed by Stephan W. Stadler, formerly director of Vizrt products, as the new president of Global Sports, and will continue to report directly to the CEO.

Stadler has commented that “the dedicated world sports team will combine commercial sports and products excellence to even better support our World Customer Base in Sport, which includes clients such as Star India, BBC Sports and Discovery. The team already intrinsically understands the needs and requirements of our sports clients and we believe that a greater approach and a team dedicated with knowledge of the industry will be able to accelerate growth significantly. ”

Regional sports sales will fall under the leadership of regional sports chiefs: for Amecs, Kevin Bovet; Emea, Thomas Nelson; and Apac, Ross Munro.

The growing virtual advertising business will also be under the responsibility of the Global Sports team, with the Vizrt solution, Viz Eclipse, promoting innovation.