Dolce Sport Romania goes live with Ross
Virtual Formula 1 set: design by Maia Martin
Romanian terrestrial sports channel Dolce Sport broadcasts international sporting events breaking news to an audience of 1.4 million. Following the move to a new purpose-built studio building and a brand refresh to celebrate the channel’s fourth birthday, Dolce Sport has now partnered with Ross Video to help give the channel’s output a fresh new look. Ross Video has supplied a turnkey virtual studio solution including robotics, with the XPression graphics engine driving all virtual set, augmented reality, channel branding and ticker elements. The systems integration work was carried out by StudioTech, a Ross partner in Poland.
“We wanted to refresh the channel’s look and feel around the 4th birthday but we also wanted to build in additional flexibility for the future”, said Vlad Enachescu, Dolce Sport general manager. “ We were very impressed with the Ross solution from a technical perspective but we also really appreciated the company’s approach; it was clear they wanted to fully understand our future plans and develop a partnership with us. They were also happy to arrange visits to customer sites and let us to talk openly with their existing clients, which was refreshing.”
The flagship news show on Dolce Sport draws on all elements of the Ross virtual solution. “The system has enabled us to virtually extend our physical sets and augment the sets with animated virtual items”, said Enachescu. “We can do incredible things with only small amounts of physical space and our audiences seem to be very impressed with the results.
“Making the move to a virtual solution was obviously a big step — repeatability and reliability were two key concerns for us – but we’ve been delighted with the process and with the choice of Ross as a partner.”