Industry Insights: Augmented reality in broadcast television

What technical challenges limit AR at this time?

“AR graphics require camera movement to sell the effect to the viewers. Integrating and calibrating camera tracking systems is still a challenge despite some significant advances in the last few years,” noted Lasry.

“Apart from the quality of the graphics and backgrounds, the most important challenge is the integration and continuity of the whole scene,” said Churruca. “Having tracked cameras, remote locations and graphics moving accordingly, perfect integration, perspective matching and full broadcast continuity are paramount to provide the audience with a perfect viewing experience.”

“Broadcasters need to deal with tracking solutions, graphic engines, control interfaces, and making sure that all different solutions are working together,” notes Ferber.

“AR is not effective when not properly planned. To be effective, accurate tracking is essential; care must be given to the virtual elements to ensure that they are properly placed within the studio, and the elements themselves serve their purpose. It is also essential that the elements are designed in a way that can best used; transparent, realistic, and multi-dimensional, etc.,” said Halperin.

“Of course, real-time requirements will affect the rendering or the complexity of the setup to ensure the best output quality,” added Churruca.

“There is not much limiting the use of AR anymore. The tracking systems available are becoming less expensive and easier to use and image-based tracking technology is getting more accurate and reliable, ” said Lang. “The template-based workflows will allow them to easily build the AR graphics for daily productions in a standardized format, while special designs can be built by the design teams.”

“I think it’s more the unknown than the real difficulty in adding the technology to the newscast, also as many station groups automate their newscasts, not all AR systems are compatible with all automation systems,” notes McLaughlin. “Along those same lines each AR system is unique with very few if any standards, this makes the comparison shopping very difficult. It’s much easier to compare video arrays and make a choice on image quality or price, it’s very difficult to compare AR/VR systems head to head.”

“The challenge comes in experimentation for the broadcaster to see what works best for them. To take the time to try to tell stories and get the on-air talent used to working with the graphics,” added Lang.

Advertisement

Participants

– Miguel Churruca of Brainstorm Multimedia
– Gideon Ferber of Ross Video
– Haim Halperin of Avid
– Gerhard Lang of Vizrt
– Ronen Lasry of Full Mental Jacket
– Mack McLaughlin of FX Design Group

Stay tuned for our second roundtable later this week. In it, our panel addresses making AR practical for broadcasters along with augmented reality advantages.

[focus-on]This article is part of our Focus On Augmented Reality. View more from the series here.[/focus-on]