
GhostFrame Tech Proves Powerful for Regional Feeds, Shoots Without Reblocking, and More Single LED wall can be used to create multiple simultaneous outputs By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, May 16, 2023 - 9:19 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
In recent years, the capabilities of virtual studios, green-screen studios, and LED walls have expanded exponentially, thanks to increasingly powerful graphics engines, better graphics tools, and improved tracking. Such developments are also spurring production personnel to look for new ways to derive as much as possible from those elements, and that is one reason a relatively new production toolkit from GhostFrame is beginning to resonate with U.S. broadcasters, Fox Sports among them.
It's a toolkit that enables you to hide video content in an LED wall, which is invisible to the naked eye but visible through a camera, says Peter Angell, CEO, AGS AG, a GhostFrame partner. Each frame is sliced into a number of subframes. Those subframes include the frames that are supposed to be visible on each of the feeds as well as other frames that are used to visually delete the frames not relevant to each output.
We do that by showing the inverse image, he continues. The simplest way to explain that is with a green screen. We want you to see the green-screen frame on camera, but then we insert a frame that is magenta, the opposite of green, and they are played back so quickly your eye doesn't see either green or magenta. Instead, you see gray.
GhostFrame allows each of four feeds to have a separate background behind a presenter or talent.
The trick is in orchestrating the subframes in such a way that the overall light cycle of the frame appears to be one-60th of a second, eliminating flicker or motion disruption.
The end result is a system that allows a single LED wall to be used to create multiple simultaneous outputs. For example, a single presenter can stand in front of an LED wall announcing sports scores, and a single camera and the single LED wall can output feeds that have a different look or branding, making it much easier to embrace a future that is increasingly going to require personalized content. Even the studio audience could have a different experience.
They could see something completely different from what those watching the broadcast or stream see, Angell notes. A sports studio show could be regionalized or have a different feed for the home and visiting teams.
GhostFrame can make it easier to create regional feeds or to produce content with less need for reblocking.
GhostFrame's secret sauce is not hardware but firmware sent to the LED wall (currently, it is compatible with LED walls only from Roe Visual LED Display Solutions) and LED-wall-control systems from Megapixel. The firmware is licensed, either on a yearly basis or for a shorter period.
We do provide initial support as it can be quite hard to set up, adds Angell.
At the core, he adds, the system is all about the mathematics of camera frame rates and the refresh rate of the LED wall. The LED wall on show at NAB 2023, for example, refreshes around 14,000 times a second while the camera records at 240 fps.
If we are using a camera with global shutter, says Angell, we can sync the camera to the wall, run it at exactly the same rate, and then carve out the individual frames. If we are running at 240 fps, we can get really clean definition for all the frames because all four of the outputs will be 60 fps.
Other applications can help reduce the time required for resetting a scene or allow the LED wall or floor to display blocking instructions and even scripts to those in the studio while viewers at home see graphics or video elements (think footsteps visible only to talent so they can know where to walk). Camera tracking patterns can also be hidden, allowing the system to be used in a fully enclosed volumetric studio without the need for physical markers.
We can put the marker invisibly onto the wall, Angell explains. Wherever you point the camera, there are markers and physical points that are integrated with TrackMan. When you add it all up, you can do four things at the same time because the LED wall can have four realities.
The most interesting aspect of the demo at NAB 2023 involved shooting a daytime and nighttime scene at the same time. Three lighting panels around the small set were set up to light a daylight scene; three others lit a nighttime version. With the light panels controlled via the same controller as the LED panel, the subframes for the day scene were synchronized with the daylight panels, the subframes for the night scene with the nighttime panels. The result was one output that looked as if the subject was in daylight and one where the subject seemed to be outside at dusk.
This is crucial, says Angell, because you can light all your realities simultaneously and don't need to reblock or reshoot or reset the lighting. That's a real production benefit because you can do three or four things at once without changing anything.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
14/05/2026
Sweetwater and Airstream have announced a custom-built Dolby Atmos mobile recording studio inside an Airstream trailer, set to tour music festivals, schools, tr...
14/05/2026
The American Association of Professional Baseball (AAPB) has announced a new par...
14/05/2026
ESPN has announced plans to transform Santa Monica Beach into a broadcast hub du...
14/05/2026
Amagi has announced a significant update to Amagi CLOUDPORT, its cloud-based broadcast playout platform. The update includes 250-plus features shipped in FY25-2...
14/05/2026
Clear-Com will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth N7005, June 17-19, Las Vegas Convention Center), introducing a new product that builds on Arcadia Central Station...
14/05/2026
Ikegami will exhibit at BroadcastAsia 2026 (Stand 5D3-1, Singapore Expo, May 20-22), introducing two new viewfinders alongside its existing camera, control, and...
14/05/2026
Grass Valley has announced that dB Broadcast has delivered new IP-based outside ...
14/05/2026
NAGRAVISION, a Kudelski Group company, has announced a partnership with the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) to launch Play Snooker,...
14/05/2026
Belden Inc. has announced a definitive agreement to acquire RUCKUS Networks from Vistance Networks for approximately $1.85 billion. The transaction has been app...
14/05/2026
NVIDIA has released the Content Localization Blueprint, a modular reference arch...
14/05/2026
Disney has announced that Disney will be the exclusive U.S. streaming home of the Banana Bowl, the Banana Ball league season championship, streaming live this ...
14/05/2026
Arkona technologies and technology partner manifold will demonstrate their production solutions on the Magna Systems and Engineering stand (Booth 5D1-1) at Broa...
14/05/2026
Haivision will host a webinar on Thursday, May 21 at 10 a.m. ET / 4 p.m. CET cov...
14/05/2026
The CW Network and ESPN have announced a sublicense broadcast agreement for The CW to televise ACC football and men's and women's college basketball gam...
14/05/2026
The agreement marks Scripps Sports' first NBA local rights deal...
14/05/2026
A new report from education-technology company Wiingy testing post-ChatGPT predictions against three years of real-world data has identified broadcasting as one...
14/05/2026
Global Citizen and FIFA have announced that Madonna, Shakira, and BTS will headl...
14/05/2026
LOS ANGELES, CA, May 14, 2026 - The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the cohort selected for the 2026 Episodic Lab program, taking place at Dunaway ...
14/05/2026
At Spotify, we're focused on making every listening experience feel intentio...
14/05/2026
Spotify recently welcomed songwriters, artists, executives, and music students t...
14/05/2026
New articulations, ostinatos, Motion Scoring Articulation Sets & more
Sonuscore's flagship cinematic string library has just been treated to a significa...
14/05/2026
World-class studio opens on T rkiye's Aegean coast
P r Recording & Residence have announced their official opening, introducing a new world-class reside...
14/05/2026
Now supports channel layouts up to 9.1.6
Nugen Audio have just released an update for their AI-powered dialogue intelligibility and compliance tool. Set to ...
14/05/2026
New recordings & one-key chord tool
UVI have just announced the release of Orchestral Suite 2, a ground-up redesign of their all-in-one symphonic orchestra ...
14/05/2026
Two new arrivals & expanded factory content
Rob Papen's all-encompassing plug-in and virtual instrument collection has just been treated to another upda...
14/05/2026
Embed QR codes into DAW sessions
FSK Audio's latest plug-in doesn't process audio, but serves as an organisational tool that allows QR codes to be e...
14/05/2026
SBS Board appoints Jane Palfreyman Managing Director
13 May, 2026
Media releases
The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) Board of Directors is pleased to an...
14/05/2026
Transforming bold ideas into market-ready productions: Digital Originals returns
14 May, 2026
Media releases
SBS, NITV and Screen Australia have announced ...
14/05/2026
Australia Uncovered Returns to SBS with Bold New Season Featuring John Safran on...
14/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz transforms spectrum complexity into situational awareness and ef...
14/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz and Quantum Systems join forces to redefine EW and C-UAS-enabled...
14/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz showcases STANAG aligned ARDRONIS Counter UAS capability at NATO...
14/05/2026
Code of Silence has won the BAFTA for Best Drama Series at Sunday night's ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall.
The series, starring Rose Ayling-Ellis and w...
14/05/2026
Soldiers equipped with Falcon IV radios will soon gain a sense-and-protect capa...
14/05/2026
Artists concept of the L3Harris Next Gen RTG in flight configuration, designed to provide 250 watts of reliable power for decades-long missions in deep space....
14/05/2026
Vivid Broadcast was embracing remote production long before it became the industry norm. Now, with Calrec's True Control 2.0-enabled Argo M and Type R conso...
14/05/2026
Car ad spend rises sharply in March as more auto buyers turn to electric, hybrid...
14/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
14/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
14/05/2026
CueScript's CueiT 4.0 Wins Future's Best of Show Award, Presented at 2026 NAB Show by TV Tech
CueScript, a leading international developer of professio...
14/05/2026
Expert-Led Education Sessions and Development of Online Training Program Accelerate IPMX Adoption and Deployment
The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) to...
14/05/2026
Klvr is launching in the United States with a professional-grade rechargeable battery solution that cuts costs and improves performance across live entertainmen...
14/05/2026
Shooting into the depths of Bedlam with URSA Cine 17K 65
Brie Clayton May 14, 2026
0 Comments
Indie feature film paired digital 65mm capture with a Bl...
14/05/2026
WeMakeColor expands with Baselight, becoming hybrid color facility
Caroline Shawley May 14, 2026
0 Comments
Boutique Mexican-based studio integrates B...
14/05/2026
Berklee's Summer in the City Returns with Free Concerts Throughout Boston Ar...
14/05/2026
Chelsey Green Named to Billboard's 2026 Women in Music List The Berklee professor and chair of the Recording Academy Board of Trustees joins other high-pr...