Vizrt and NewTek will continue to operate independently

Michael Hallén, CEO of Vizrt, assures NAB that after the acquisition, the sales and distribution channel policy 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 run-up to the sector's big event in Las Vegas.

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

Aware of the doubts, the executive has already opened his speech in a relaxed manner. “You may wonder 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 achieve with this acquisition, but we have some of the most innovative minds in this market. We are going to lock them in a room of ideas and surely something incredible will come out of there,” Hallén acknowledged.

In more practical terms, the CEO of Vizrt assured that neither of the two brands will cease to exist, at least hourly, 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 are Of the hitherto independent brands in the different markets, the executive said that all distribution channels that currently work with the brands will continue to operate with the same portfolio. “We have a valuable channel network that will benefit from bringing a broader portfolio of products to customers,” he said at the same time.

Hallén stressed that “Newtek fits perfectly into Vizrt for its product portfolio, its distribution channel and its innovation.” We are, in his opinion, facing complementary software-based technologies that create an end-to-end workflow for the growing content creation market in which IP technology plays a greater role every day.

As for the in vessel NDI, the network video transport protocol developed by NewTek, but promoted as open source in the market, Vizrt has committed to continue supporting the model. “We see great market potential for the development of NDI, especially in the middle market,” Hallén explained.

New Viz Engine 4

At NAB 2019, Vizrt is showing the potential of Viz Engine 4 rendering engine which now provides advanced tools for global illumination, rendering based on physical laws, reflections and shadows, post-production effects and color correction.

Viz Engine's innovative design includes three render pipelines that combine design with template-based workflow.

The new rendering pipeline Reality Fusion allows for added realism effects, real-time performance, as well as a host of post-processing effects. Viz Engine 4 uses physical rendering and global illumination among many other techniques to achieve realism for virtual studios and augmented reality graphics at levels never seen before

On the other hand, the full scene compatibility allows users to continue with established and industry-proven workflows today while integrating Reality Fusion pipeline features, ensuring a seamless transition to the new rendering pipeline.

This new offer from Vizrt includes a Tight integration with third-party engines, such as Unreal Engine 4, which adds the flexibility of having physically simulated backdrops like trees blowing in the wind, combined with a template-based workflow for foreground graphics.

Michael Hallén has stated that "we are the kings of augmented reality with more than 700 installations 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 provides services to sports clients such as NBC, BBC, Sky, Televisa, Real Madrid, Bein Sports, Fox Sports, and numerous federations around the world, was responsible for the announcement of Vizrt's launch of a new global business unit to reinforce the focus on sports.

The new division will be headed by Stephan W. Stadler, previously chief product officer at Vizrt, as the new president of Global Sports, and will continue to report directly to the CEO.

Stephan W. Stadler commented that "the dedicated global sports team will combine commercial sports and product excellence to even better support our global sports customer base, which includes clients such as Star India, BBC Sports and Discovery. The team already intrinsically understands the needs and requirements of our sports customers and we believe that greater focus and a dedicated team with industry knowledge will be able to accelerate growth significantly."

Regional sports sales will fall under the leadership of regional Sports Heads: 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 Vizrt's solution, Viz Eclipse, driving innovation.