Vizrt enhances XR Venue with unified I/O

Vizrt has announced a new release of its XR Venue real-time virtual enhancement solution for sports. With this release, XR Venue enters the I/O platform, Vizrt’s backbone for future sports developments. Together with XR Playbook, launched earlier this year, sports solutions now take full advantage of Vizrt’s latest developments for live virtual graphics.  

“Using the world’s most advanced real-time virtual graphics, broadcasters are able to deliver an extra layer of excitement and more detail with data-driven graphics that are visually second to none,” said Daniel Url, head of product management, Vizrt Group. “And with the unified I/O sports platform, using XR Venue or XR Playbook easily adjusts to changing production requirements.”

The unified I/O is said to offer more flexibility and scalability to produce either upstream at the venue or in a downstream workflow at the studio and a flexible choice of playout – fill & key or a composited video signal for specific production workflows. The output can be added directly on top of the programme feed to the mixer as a separate source, which benefits workflows and output quality of productions. In addition, hardware for XR Venue is now consistent with regular Viz Engine hardware, such as the newly certified Dell R7920 for compact setups.

As many major sports events are produced in high-end formats such as UHD or HDR, XR Venue embraces these technological advancements in their native formats and supported workflows. This empowers producers to create visually engaging representations of data-driven graphics and additional content for any sports coverage in the same quality. The IP-based video formats open the door to virtualised and remote production workflows for XR Venue, allowing flexibility and mitigating physical limitations like hardware dependencies or budget restrictions.