Flexibility is key as Vizrt moves to ‘friction-free’ subscription model

Sports production professionals and content creators looking for more flexible ways to spin tools up and down, and pay for those services on an opex rather than a capex basis, are the target for a new software-as-a-service model being introduced by Vizrt.

Called Flexible Access, the new way of offering products is comprised of five suites of services and tools with pricing beginning at $1795 per month.

“The broadcast industry has not been the quickest to adopt this trend and I think that it is about time that we helped the industry to get on the bandwagon for the default way of delivering things in the future,” said Michael Hallén, chief executive and president for the Vizrt Group.

“We want to help our customer base take the first step and the reason we can lead as, from the start, everything is based on software. Whether on-prem, in the cloud, or both that software base can lead into more models.”

With Flexible Access, a recurring billing model, five new Vizrt Solution Suites provide what is being described as a “new and powerfully simplified way for customers to adapt their content production software tools and scale up and down to meet rapidly changing production needs”.

It will provide Vizrt customers with access to an ecosystem of software-defined visual storytelling tools to help realise business outcomes while avoiding the need for upfront, capital-intensive investments.

Flexible Access plans will be offered in the following Vizrt Solution Suites:

• Vizrt Newsroom (browser-based tools for journalists, with support for newsroom control systems and offering graphic templates)
• Vizrt Extended Reality XR (virtual reality sets and AR graphics as well as 3D sports analysis)
• Vizrt Production Control (graphics, automation, and live software-based production tools)
• Vizrt Media Workflow (media asset management and related workflows)
• Vizrt Channel Branding (multi-channel playout and branding of content in realtime)

“It’s about being friction-free,” explained Daniel Nergaard, Vizrt Global, president. “It has elasticity to scale up, down and across, adapting to customer needs.”

Helping with that scalability will be three levels of packages: essential, premium and ultimate. Nergaard says the goal is a true partnership with clients where Vizrt and the clients work as partners to solve challenges today and in the future.

“It’s a true partnership in the long run and that is important,” he explained. “If someone invests in the Vizrt ecosystem we want them to be confident that we are content-centric, software-driven and IP centric.”

Dr Andrew Cross, Vizrt Group, president of R&D, said that decreased advertising revenue in the broadcast and media advertising market will drive changes to content creation and distribution. Flexible Access is designed to make it easier for content creators and distributors to adapt to a new world where they need to serve content to a wide variety of outlets like streaming, OTT, or social media.

“We don’t want to give tools that the customer doesn’t need and make them pick and choose and make compromises,” he explained. “We want them to be able to scale the technology up if they can’t build a multi-million-dollar facility.”

Dr Cross added that the Vizrt Engine is still a core component and a critical ingredient of the suite as Vizrt takes a big step into the future.

“The past 12 months have proven that the future of the industry will be software running on computers connected by networks.

“We have believed that since the beginning and it has never been clearer that that is the future,” he said.

Although packages start at $1795 per month, pricing will be bespoke, based on user requirements, the company said.