Racing Queensland goes to air with RT Software’s Tactic Live
Racing Queensland has gone on air with RT Software’s Tactic Live for its Trot Rods harness racing. It is now able to show a range of virtual graphics which are rendered live over racing broadcasts to enhance the action for the audience.
The project was put together by PSP, which worked with Racing Queensland to deliver the solution. Tony Barletta, company director, explained: “Racing Queensland is a business that is constantly evolving and innovating. They have brought this new Trot Rods concept to the racing market and it’s been a huge success. Once the concept was proven to be commercially viable, Racing Queensland wanted to improve the levels of presentation to enhance the action for the audience. They were looking to add live timing, sponsorship graphics and distance markers, which all have to be keyed over live video in a range of lighting conditions, which can be challenging. One feature that has gone down really well is the previous best time marker. It’s a live line marker showing the previous best time that moves with the action as the riders approach the finish line. It makes it really clear how far off the pace the current racers are.
“We looked at all the big names in broadcast graphics, but there were a couple of stand-out reasons to go for RT Software. They had all their own software technology in house, whereas some other vendors depended on external providers. We really needed to keep things simple, so this was a big advantage for us. Plus, they took a real partnership approach for the proof of concept phase and offered attractive financing.”
Barletta continued: “Our additional challenge was that the project was started when the Covid pandemic was preventing travel, but RT Software were great and carried on delivering the proof of concept for us completely remotely. This allowed our customer to see how it would work and have confidence in what they were investing in. It was quickly signed off and then the full working system was also installed remotely.
“We’re really pleased with the robustness of the system and how quickly we can set it up. We move the system between different venues, so we rely on it working first time. Recalibrating only takes a few minutes and then we’re good to go.”
David Brick, senior racing manager at Racing Queensland, said: “Innovation has been at the forefront of our broadcast coverage in recent years. This includes the introduction of driver cam; drone vision; telemetry; and race caller to driver interviews. With the TAB Trot Rods continuing to turn heads, we wanted to explore new ways to bring our product to television audiences including new on-screen graphics. In particular, the line-to-beat was well received and we look forward to continuing to enhance our broadcast product.”
Mike Fredriksen, commercial director at RT Software, added: “This was a great project to work on, despite the complications of Covid. We put a lot of emphasis on the personal relationship we build with customers and it’s great to hear that Tony at PSP and David at Racing Queensland are seeing such positive results from this collaboration.”