Sky News boosts ‘Business Bullentins’ with new Vizrt graphics system
Sky News has expanded its use of Vizrt’s Viz Content Pilot to create real-time, data-driven graphics for its “Business Bulletins,” presented at regular intervals throughout the 24-hour news day.
While Sky News has been using Viz Content Pilot template-based graphics and video management system and the Viz Artist design workstation to create full-frame graphics and 3D animations for some time, in May 2012 the network began using Content Pilot and Artist to embellish its Business Bulletins with full-screen graphics, side panels (for HD viewers), lower third supers and scrolling tickers that contain financial data updated in real-time.
“The design focus at Sky News is to provide our viewers with a wealth of timely information in an attractive, structured and understandable format,” says Brent Jones, head of 3D/VFX for Sky News in Isleworth, Middlesex, UK.
Viz Content Pilot automatically requests specific data sets and then puts that data into designated fields within the templates. The templates can even update while they’re live on air.
“Content Pilot is a straight-forward addition to our broadcast infrastructure,” Jones says. “Its flexibility allows us to create a fully bespoke template system based on the requirements of our business team. The team can now respond to breaking news and illustrate financial stories as they happen—confident we’re always showing viewers the most up-to-date information.”
At Sky News, Viz Content Pilot is part of an integrated graphics workflow that was first installed in 2006 including: Viz Artist, Viz Weather for live weather presentations, and Viz World to create interactive, 3D animated maps for broadcast and static 2D maps for its online and iPad news services. Viz Content Pilot was chosen because of its ability to integrate with the other Vizrt systems, including the Viz Engine realtime HD/SD rendering engines, and the ability to provide a fully customized producer interface.
An in-house design team at Sky News (which delivers news to roughly 103 million homes in 115 countries worldwide) creates all the graphics designs, develops control interfaces, and integrates the graphics systems.
“Increased investment in Viz Content Pilot and newsroom integration has enabled us to provide our entire business news team with user-friendly interfaces,” says Jones. “From the comfort of their own desks, our producers and journalists can quickly and easily create, modify, and then save their graphics directly into the rundown.