Ross Video

Jan. 26, 2022 - Ross Video's Virtual Solutions team recently held an online Tech Talk session on January 25th focused on XR Virtual LED studio solutions. In this session, the team discussed how Voyager and Lucid Studio, Ross Video's Unreal-based graphics platform and control system, allow users to create stunning, complex environments that are perfect for XR Virtual LED Studio applications.

The Tech Talk was hosted by Manesh Patel, Ross Video's Manager of Product Management & Business Development for Virtual Graphics, and Hall Hutchison, Senior Product Specialist for Virtual Graphics. They were also joined by Chris Mollomo, Business Development Manager for Virtual Product Solutions, as he interviewed guests from Epic Games and Red Bull Media for a deeper dive into the current and future applications of XR Virtual LED Studio.

If you missed it, you can click here to watch the full session on-demand.

Session Highlights

To kick off the Tech Talk, Manesh Patel started by giving an overview of the differences between augmented reality, virtual sets, XR Virtual LED Studio, and XR+. He indicated that the focus of the session would specifically be on the latter two, and he moved into an overview of how those technologies work. He then introduced Ross Video's Voyager rendering engine and explained how it integrates with the rest of the Ross ecosystem of products and solutions.

Next, Patel passed things over to Chris Mollomo, who was joined by Bernt Johannessen and Sevan Dalkian from Epic Games, which develops the Unreal engine that Voyager uses to render graphics. The three discussed Epic's nDisplay technology, which allows users to run multiple Voyager engines with a single project spread across multiple displays. This opens many new creative possibilities, especially in the XR Virtual LED Studio world. Among other things, Johannessen and Dalkian outlined the technology behind nDisplay and some of the key challenges and improvements necessary for nDisplay to become more widely accepted and used by the broadcast community. They also discussed potential future applications for nDisplay and virtual LEDs in other industries.

Following that discussion, Mollomo threw things back to Patel and Hall Hutchison, and the two introduced the Lucid Studio control platform, which has three main functions. The first function, calibration, allows Lucid to be used to define tracking protocols, mounting systems, setup CCD centering and offsets, and very importantly, define lenses and tweak lens curves. The second function is pre-production, which is where the user prepares all the 3D objects that will become part of the show. These objects can be placed, scaled, positioned, and animated.

The other aspect of pre-production is where the user creates and manages events. The third function that Lucid provides is probably the most important: on-air control. This is when operators need to have all the controls at their fingertips, and Lucid ensures that even complex operations can be achieved with one button click. The two then demonstrated the level of integration with third-party control interfaces but emphasized that Lucid can also be the central hub of the production in and of itself, thanks to its deep integration with the Ross ecosystem.

To round out the session, Mollomo returned to discuss a real-world deployment of XR Virtual LED Studio technology with Philipp Stoegner from RedBull Media. RedBull was seeking a solution that would allow them to integrate Augmented Reality and XR Virtual LED Studio into their portfolio and selected Ross Voyager and Lucid Studio. Stoegner discussed the rationale behind the selection by explaining what the team was looking for when evaluating products, listed some of the key challenges they encountered during the process, and revealed the lessons they learned when solving these challenges. He ended things off by offering some valuable advice to those watching who were considering investing in extended reality.

Learn More

With a proven end-to-end solution, an engine that is future-proof and powerful, and a workflow that makes it easy to deploy XR Virtual LED Studio applications, Ross Video has everything you need to help wow your audience while keeping your operations efficient and straightforward.