Vizrt Unveils Virtual SloMo, Latest in 3D Sports Analysis

Vizrt Ltd. unveiled, for the first time at IBC, a solution to synthesize high-speed sports footage from standard-rate TV cameras. The image-based solution is running within Libero Highlight, Vizrt’s best-of-breed 3D sports analysis system. The Virtual SloMo effect can be applied to any available television camera feed and, hence, offers completely new flexibility to create high-speed, high-quality footage for sports replay and analysis, not only from your OB van, but also from your studio environment.

5 new sports: Tennis, Cricket, and more…
This year, LiberoVision expands their sports portfolio significantly by doubling the numbers of sports available to produce the well-known 3D analysis clips and camera flights. Beside the former sports football/soccer, American football, basketball, ice hockey, baseball, rugby and handball, Libero Highlight can now be used additionally for tennis, cricket, volleyball, beach volleyball, field hockey, Australian and Canadian football.

File-based workflow
The upcoming Libero Highlight version will ease the studio integration, as both ingest and output can now be performed via baseband video (SDI) or file transfer. Libero Highlight operators can choose video files from a media asset management system (MAM) like Viz Media Engine, directly load them into Libero Highlight and create stunning highlight clips including unique 3D effects. This allows for an easy integration of Libero Highlight into any tapeless studio environment.

Grass Valley K2 integration
At the same time, the integration of Libero Highlight with Grass Valley’s K2 Summit media server and K2 Dyno replay system was demoed for the first time at IBC. The full integration of the two systems allows generating the 3D analysis clips both in remote and studio productions, even if only a multi-lateral feed is available from an event.

Enhanced Virtual Run and other new effects
Besides new sports and more versatile production integration, the new Libero Highlight contains a number of new annotation effects: The Virtual Run, a unique eye-catching effect that allows letting key players run along their upcoming path in a 3D freeze frame, has been a big hit at this summer’s major sports events and aroused great feedback among the viewers. The new Libero Highlight will feature interesting extensions with a strobe effect and a moveable run option. The latter is especially beneficial for what-if analysis to compare actual and ideal running paths. Other new functions include a player grow and player dissolve effect. The zone focus brings a dynamically changeable focus to sports analysis mimicking altering the depth-of-field during a replay, thus focusing the viewers’ attention to a specific group of players. The 3D wall effect places a textured wall at any location on the playing field allowing for highlighting screens in basketball, for example.