BBC Studioworks produces UK General Election coverage with Viz Virtual Studio and Viz Engine

BBC Studioworks to produce the UK General Election virtual set and interactive graphics using Viz Virtual Studio and Viz Engine.

Originally published by Televisual.

In 1950 the first ever televised UK General Elections took place and a compelling broadcast genre was born that has been central to the political landscape ever since. Political broadcasting on the BBC is a national democratic tradition, covering a wide spectrum of momentous events.

Ground breaking at the time, it was a leap of faith into the unknown, with uncertainty about results and technology departments working together, the robustness of technology to survive all-night broadcasts, and above all, how would British audiences react to the new medium.

Fast forward to today, and the technology used to bring political broadcasts to life has come a long way, all geared around supporting immersive and engaging content to inform and inspire the electorate.

On 5 May 2016, Britain goes to the polls for the local elections, and BBC Studioworks (formerly BBC Studios and Post Production) has been selected to provide BBC News' national broadcast hub.

BBC Studioworks has unrivalled experience of election broadcasting, recently demonstrated in its live coverage of the 2015 General Election and 2014 Local and European Elections for BBC News.

But keeping the country informed of the latest results from over 350 democratic positions is no mean feat for the technical teams behind these unique live transmissions. It requires the careful choreography of multiple specialist teams, including lighting, sound, cameras, set design and engineering.

Immersive viewing for the nationAiring on the evening of polling day, the broadcasts will clock up an impressive 12 hours of political content, featuring over 80 outside broadcast feeds. Live results from every local constituency across the country will be streaming into the BBC Elstree Election hub and is ingested onto EVS servers.

Backed by a technical crew of 60, including technical project manager and election veteran Danny Popkin, Elstree Studio D has been segmented into different areas to accommodate each individual presenter's coverage remit.

Andrew Breaks, BBC Studioworks' Resource Manager for the 2016 local elections coverage, explained: With 12 hours of live programming, we've implemented a tried and tested workflow from previous election shows. It includes a variety of state-of-the-art technologies to give viewers a completely immersive viewing experience.

Following on from the success of the UK general election coverage last year, the transmissions will again see the use of innovative virtual reality technology provided by Vizrt. Breaks said: The VR system enables presenter Jeremy Vine to provide BBC viewers with his inimitable, up-to-the-minute political analysis. Yet on screen it will appear that he's completely and virtually immersed in graphics - visually engaging voters with captivating live content.

Providing the latest developments from around the country, presenter Emily Maitlis will again be using interactive touch screen. The 4.8 metre wide by 2 metre high screen uses a 2.5mm dot pitch LED screen with Vizrt graphics rendering engine and a radar touch.

The BBC Election results team is based in the studio, and a large outside broadcast switching operation completes the set-up in a dedicated hub adjacent to Studio D.

Capturing up-to-the minute resultsCamera Supervisor and technocrane operator, Dave Box, has worked on the last three UK General Election BBC transmissions as well as the 2014 local and European elections. This time around, BBC News wanted to reduce the number of camera used for the General Election, but still maintain a flexible system to allow as many different views to be captured on different scenes as possible. Box explains the intricate camera set-up that BBC Studioworks has implemented to capture every aspect of this immersive viewing experience.

The camera equipment used for the tracking system is assembled around 10 days before transmission to allow for calibration, with the remaining cameras added a few days later. This leaves around four days of rehearsal leading up to transmission.

All the VR Camera tracking systems are using Mo-Sys StarTrackers, two on Vinten Quattro pedestals and the 30ft technocrane will be fitted with a SpaceTracker tracking system to allow for sweeping shots between each specific area of the studio, including the ability to seamlessly move from the real' world of the studio to the computer-generated world of the virtual reality area.

Previously, mechanical sensors have been used, but this has meant that the crane base cannot easily be moved. By tracking the camera head the operator is free to choose where the base is placed without any additional calibration required. A mechanical tracked head is also provide by Mo-sys.

The camera position information is fed to a Vix RT system of 5 gfx engines which provide background and key to enable Jeremy Vine to move realistically around a green screen environment and become immersed in up-to-date graphics. Two projectors provide information in the green screen area for Jeremy Vine so he can directly see the graphics as well as on monitors.

Keying is provided by two Ultimatte 11s and Two Crystal Vision Safires, as well as multiple ViVid delays from CrystalVision to ensure all the pictures are correctly in synchronization with the audio.

Lighting up the electionLighting Director, David Gibson has extensive knowledge of lighting political broadcasts having worked on the General Elections in 1979, 1997 and 2015. The brief on the 2016 local elections was to ensure the long-running main coverage was appropriately lit, giving it a modern feel, but within the BBC News broadcast style. Lighting changes add huge variation and excitement to a broadcast like

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