RT Software integrates AR into regattas taking advantage of the I/O capabilities of AJA Corvid cards

The cards AJA Corvid are used to manage the I/O of the graphics flow of RT Software, whose AR capabilities have recently been used for some important global catamaran regattas.

In the catamaran racing, held in open water, the vessels sail at a speed of up to 50 knots (92 kilometers per hour) while fighting against the elements of the nature, which implies notable difficulties in broadcasting the races to fans. The British RT Software has specialized in the development of tools that help professionals realize ambitious live event broadcasts for this type of context. The company has developed its own graphics engine Swift Engine, which allows networks such as Sky Sports, Sky News, TNT Sports (United Kingdom), Eurosport (France), TRT (Turkey), Bell Media (Canada), SABC (South Africa) and TVNZ (New Zealand) to broadcast high-quality graphics in highly demanding broadcasts.

To achieve the greatest reliability in the deployment of these workflows, RT Software has relied on IT solutions for more than 20 years. AJA. Ian Young, marketing director of the company, underlines the growing importance of cards Corvid from the company: "The majority of broadcasters continue to use SDI, and our AJA Corvid cards are important in ensuring our customers can manage those workflows. However, we are seeing a slow shift towards IP, both for uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 and the lower bandwidth alternative of NDI."

The combination of software solutions RT and card AJA's Corvid It was recently deployed in a popular catamaran competition, commonly held in some of the “glamorous” locations around the world, such as San Francisco or Dubai. On this occasion, the signals captured by the helicopters The London facilities were sent in real time through a distribution network high bandwidth. From there, the signals were distributed to several PC-based graphics stations with Swift Engine from RT Software, cards AJA Corvid 88 for I/O video and a GPU NVIDIA for processing. Once the video arrives, the gallery operators graphics overlay creating augmented reality effects. The signal is then sent back to the competition host broadcaster.

"It sounds simple, but there is a lot of video going in and out simultaneously, which requires quite a bit of hardware and processing power. Once we deliver our systems to customers, we strive to make them self-sufficient with them, but we still provide them with all the support they need. It's incredible to see how they use our technology and AJA integrated equipment in live productions," concludes Young.

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