Industry-leading real-time 3D interactive graphics and virtual studio provider Brainstorm Multimedia today announced the seamless integration of Brainstorm's Aston 7 character generator with the Apple iPad in a live studio environment for Ireland's TV3.According to Brainstorm CEO Ricardo Montesa, "TV3 wanted to enable its sports presenters to control and maneuver virtual players within a graphical environment - live from the studio - for their 2010 Gaelic Games Championships. They also wanted the ability to log and display individual player statistics for real-time graphic playout."
DC2 Media Ltd in the UK was contracted to provide the graphics system and selected Brainstorm's Aston 7 character generator for its fully integrated Data Pools functionality running on Brainstorm's powerful real-time 3D "eStudio" graphics engine. DC2 Media also settled on the new Apple iPad as the studio interface when it was determined that it was possible to create a simple, intuitive user interface that was easy to use by the talent during live commentary.
DC2 Media worked with Piranha Graphics to design what is believed to be the first-ever iPad application designed to control a real-time 3D graphics engine. The application's look and feel mirrored the on-air virtual graphic look, ensuring it was intuitive for the presenters controlling it.
Comprehensive pre-implementation testing also established that Apple's iPad was not only capable of handling Aston 7's live data to display smooth virtual player moves, but could effortlessly depict as many as 30 player moves simultaneously, all in real time.
The Aston 7 Data Pools protocol is renowned for enabling the automatic look up and reception of large volumes of data in real-time. The Data Pools protocol also allows applications created using Brainstorm's free SDK to trigger animations and control page taking. The iPad app is one of what are believed to be numerous new applications that can be developed to run on the platform.
According to DC2 Media Managing Director David Connaughton, "For the duration of the Championships we stationed three data collators in the outside broadcast truck to log player statistics on tablet PCs. Thanks to the Aston Data Pools protocol, the instant a statistic is logged it is available for playout."
Connaughton added, "The Aston 7 along with the iPad app enables us to deliver a very dynamic analytical graphics-based tool for TV3's coverage of the Championships. In fact, TV3 said it added a new and highly compelling element to its coverage due to the ability to graphically illustrate multiple moves and tactics being discussed live by presenters in the studio."
Presenters were almost instantly using the iPad application to highlight, substitute, move players, and display attack and defence formations, all of which were recreated on the live playout system in real-time by the Aston 7 graphics engine.
In order to interchange shots of talent controlling the iPad application with live virtual graphics, the directors also asked DC2 Media to provide a delay that would wait to launch the virtual graphics until the talent's finger left the iPad screen, thereby maximizing the impact of live effects.
Brainstorm's Montesa added, "The Aston 7-iPad combination has generated considerable interest and DC2 Media has already been commissioned to deploy the application for horse-racing at RTE Ireland. We expect further developments along these lines as this important development gains wider exposure."
