The advantages of remote production in a virtual environment

Gideon Ferber y David Estruch (Ross Video) exponen en la 4K Summit las ventajas que supone la producción remota en un entorno virtual con realidad virtual, aumentada y mixta.

Gideon Ferber, director Marketing product manager & Business Development Ross Virtual en Ross Video y David Estruch, Solutions Architect Iberia & Italy en Ross han planteado en la 4K Summit 2020 las ventajas que supone la producción remota en un entorno virtual con realidad virtual y aumentada y mixta.

Entre las últimas soluciones que destacan en el portfolio de Ross es Voyager, actualmente en su versión 4.0, su solución de renderizado de gráficos para aplicaciones de estudio virtual y realidad aumentada.

Voyager se basa en el popular motor Unreal de Epic Games y proporciona a los creadores de contenidos una gran creatividad y realismo a la hora de producir gráficos para televisión. Esta propuesta se ha diseñado sobre la última versión de Unreal V4.25 (que ofrece por primera vez chromakeying interno dentro del motor) y presenta una serie de valiosas mejoras.

Among others, it now includes support for multiple composition layers, 3D models (meshes) and garbage mattes, and also offers a new way to integrate talent into the virtual environment. From a workflow perspective, V4.0 supports HTML 5-based MOS workflows for newsroom environments, allowing journalists to work on their stories from any browser, anywhere.

Voyager now includes HDR as well as the new Voyager Designer License that allows designers to create on any platform or workstation and then move their projects directly into the Voyager engine for playback. It also offers creators the ability to create an off-axis projection (a virtual window or portal) on a physical LED wall.

Control virtual solutions

Gideon Ferber and David Estruch presented at the 4K HDR Summit, Lucid, a new solution that will change the way virtual solutions are configured and controlled.

The Lucid platform replaces the previous Ross UX solution as the primary configuration and control interface for all Ross virtual studio and augmented reality applications.

This proposal is the first Ross product to incorporate the new visual language “Aura”, which will be a key aspect of many future Ross solutions. Highly dynamic and offering impressive new levels of flexibility, this new interface allows operators to design their own custom designs, as well as save and recall designs based on personal preferences or at the production stage.

Ferber has assured that "this is a great step forward for Ross. We are receiving direct feedback from the market ensuring that the increase in sophistication of our virtual solutions does not translate into an increase in complexity for operators."

CCTV Spring Gala

At the 4K HDR Summit, Ross managers have shared the experience of Spring Festival Gala produced by CCTV in Beijing. The extensive coverage in HDR 12G UHD included a number of animated graphics and augmented reality sequences made possible by Ross Video, who partnered with CCTV for the production of this program for the second year in a row.

As with last year's broadcast, CCTV chose Ross Video's Voyager graphics rendering solution to provide stunning, photo-realistic results, as well as the Furio camera motion system, Mira playback server, Ultrix AV routing processing platform and Gator Toolbox signal processing solution.

Unlike last year, CCTV decided to work with Ross' XPression real-time graphics platform to ensure seamless integration and a more efficient workflow.

Remote production

David Estruch has focused his intervention on the possibilities that remote production opens up with the help of Ross with his technology Ross Production Cloud y Remote Production (REMI).

Históricamente, el término producción a distancia se ha utilizado para describir un modelo en el que se despliega una unidad móvil en un lugar específico para entregar la producción completa de extremo a extremo de una emisión. En este caso, sin embargo, el término producción a distancia se utiliza para describir una producción fuera del entorno de estudio tradicional.

Ahora, gracias a la tecnología REMI, una sala de control de producción dentro de un estudio centralizado puede dar servicio a múltiples eventos.

Con la pandemia mundial de COVID-19 y la aplicación de protocolos de distanciamiento físico, muchos profesionales de la producción se vieron obligados a adoptar modelos de producción descentralizada a distancia. Como resultado, el equipo de Ross respondió rápidamente a este cambio acelerado en la producción remota y apoyó a muchos de sus clientes con Ross Production Cloud. It enables rapid deployment of a distributed production solution and allows users to work anywhere while maintaining a consistent workflow. Ross Production Cloud's distributed model not only addresses a production scenario where operators and engineers need to access equipment remotely, but also allows on-air talent to join production from home.

Finally, Estruch has given as an example of a 4K workflow, a configuration composed of Acid cameras AC-H2000-UCHR, mixers Carbonite Ultra con conversión HDR/SDR y WCG, soporte para HLG y PQ, y retardo ajustable en entradas (de a 13 frames para cualquier entrada, y otros elementos que pueden facilitar el trabajo como Gator ToolBox, un conversor todo en uno UHD arriba/abajo/cruzada, conversión HDR y de estándares y sincronización de tramas para flujos de trabajo UHD sobre 12G-SDI.