Vizrt enhances election coverage with tools built for broadcast

Original published on Newscast Studio. 

Elections always bring out the latest and greatest in storytelling techniques and this year Vizrt is spotlighting it as part of its 2019 NAB Show booth.

We recently had a chance to speak with Daniel Nergard, president of the Americas region for Vizrt, about what we’ll see on the show floor along with his predictions for the next evolution in election broadcasting.

Will Vizrt be demonstrating how graphics can work for election coverage at NAB?

Vizrt’s all-new “The Big AR Show” – which is the largest augmented reality show in Las Vegas – will look at the use of AR during elections and reveal why every American broadcast network used Viz Engine and Vizrt’s data-driven AR tools during the 2018 midterms.

The show will be live, every half-hour on the Vizrt booth at NAB.

We also have a Connected Newsroom presentation on the Vizrt booth that will also show how journalists in the newsroom and the control room work with election data to produce the latest updates and provide detailed analysis.

Can Vizrt’s election graphics solutions extend beyond traditional broadcast networks?

We’ve got solutions for all sizes of productions, and not just broadcasters, we have tools that are ideal for media companies as well, solutions for all content creators.

Newspapers such as The Washington Post and Expressen is Sweden have been very successful using our tools to bring accurate election coverage to their online audiences.

Our focus at NAB will be to show how the journalist can use our election tools using an efficient newsroom workflow that scales easily for on-air production and online. At NAB, Vizrt will be demonstrating how all broadcasters, large or small, public or commercial, have been using Vizrt’s graphics in order to extend their viewers knowledge of elections, and how data-driven graphics are crucial for all news broadcasters.

What were the major trends in election coverage in 2018, and looking ahead to 2019?

The use of AR was a very clear trend that could be seen in use by all four of the main American TV networks – each using Vizrt. For 2018, in fact, all major 24-hour news channels used Vizrt for the election.

The trend for these 2018 elections was to create accurate and beautiful election graphics that strove to convey the complicated data in the easiest way for viewers.

Looking ahead to this year, the trend will be to simplify the data even further and to tie political analysis to the graphics in order to give greater understanding and identify trends in the data. Broadcasters will continue to use AR to great effect but will explore more sophisticated AR graphics with live data-driven content that the presenter can interact with.

AR is evolving to the point where it is not just a graphic in a set or something on the side of a building, it’s now a set piece that extends a physical set to make a set work harder, more useful and more intelligent as a storytelling device.

What do you see as the biggest problem for news broadcasters covering elections ahead?

The biggest challenge is scalability – the need to create more for more channels and platforms.

Comprehensive election graphics have been used to great effect for broadcast, but networks need to be able to use them for their other platforms, including digital. This is a challenge for not just creating content, but creating content that maintains a high level of quality across all platforms.

What new technology or advancement are you excited by?

The launch of Viz Engine 4 at NAB is the most exciting thing for the broadcast graphics industry this year. This powerful render engine for live media will provide unmatched real-time performance, stunning effects for photorealism, low latency media flows and new compositing features- all ensuring that the quality and production of election graphics are world-class.

Originally published on Newscast Studio.