Orad Merges Virtual With Reality In Beijing

by Carolyn Braff
Orad is
providing a variety of products and services to CCTV for this summer’s coverage
of the Olympic Games. Orad will help CCTV create
two full virtual studios on the Olympic site, along with 3D graphics, virtual
outdoor billboards and a host of visual augmentation to the hard sets that will
anchor truly unique coverage of the Games.

“Orad’s
first virtual studio will be a traditional-type Chinese broadcast, which their
viewers are used to seeing,” explains Shaun Dail, vice president of sales and
marketing for Orad. “The second channel will be a much more modern set design.
It takes things as far as the Chinese go to the edge, targeting a younger, more
dynamic audience.”
Both
facilities will air live for 13 or more hours daily, utilizing some live and
some on-tape video clips, and each virtual studio will have its own virtual
monitor wall.
“The
virtual monitor walls will map and play video on those virtual objects,” Dail
syas. “We’re eliminating the huge expenses involved with building actual video
walls.”
CCTV will
utilize Orad’s on-air graphics, channel branding and 3D play controller to
combine their virtual and hard environments. The company’s outdoor billboard
system will also be utilized to place virtual objects throughout Beijing.
The system, used by Turner Sports during the NBA All-Star Game, will project video virtually onto CCTV buildings for a unique graphical look on
outdoor shots that is limited only by 270 degrees of camera movement and the
imagination of the company’s designers.
“The
outdoor billboard system is designed to place graphics not only within a
studio, but within a city,” Dail explains. “We have a sensorized camera track
data, and then we overlay the graphic on top of the camera feed. The key is
real-time rendering and accurate tracking.”
Indoors,
Orad will virtually augment the hard sets with visual objects that help advance
the content on the set and make a point.
“We use it
in a topical way as opposed to a fixture way,” Dail says. “We’ll be mapping
live video and clips to virtual objects throughout the IBC center.”