Ross Video

Ottawa, Canada, April 12, 2022 – twofour54, the Abu Dhabi-based media, entertainment, and gaming hub, has announced that it is expanding its world-class production facilities through pioneering Virtual Solutions. Launched in partnership with the Canadian media firm Ross Video, the new offering includes Virtual Studios, Virtual Production services, and Extended Reality facilities. Featuring the latest 3D graphics and augmented reality (AR) technologies, it is the first facility of its kind in the Middle East.

twofour54 provides a complete service to their clients, and their decision to partner with Ross reflects their market and services strategy. Ross Video provides production technology as part of the partnership, and Rocket Surgery, the creative services arm of Ross, provides graphic and virtual asset design as well as production support.

Since 2017, the virtual solutions market has been revolutionized by the Unreal Engine, which provides high-quality photorealistic visuals. Ross Video's Voyager graphics platform is based on Unreal, and twofour54's three Voyager engines enable them to offer stunning virtual studio and augmented reality solutions. To achieve consistent, reliable, and accurate results, twofour54 selected three Furio pan/tilt heads to provide virtual tracking data for Voyager.

The high-quality photorealistic output provided by the Voyager Unreal engine means the creative design is key to ensuring that clients' high production expectations are met. twofour54 has partnered with Ross Video's Rocket Surgery, an award-winning creative service agency, to provide end-to-end services from concept to on-air visuals.

Speaking about the partnership, Katrina Anderson, Director of Commercial Services, twofour54, said, "With a full suite of world-class creative media companies based in Abu Dhabi, the emirate has firmly established itself as a true capital for all forms of content creation. A core driver of this success is the vast range of services and facilities provided by twofour54, all of which look to increase the ease of production and help these companies find new and innovative ways to create content and engage their audience. By providing flexible, technology-driven solutions that can create production cost savings as high as 80%, this is what Virtual Studios is set to accomplish, so we are proud to be the first to bring this offering to the region through the end-to-end partnership with Ross Video and Rocket Surgery."

Anderson added, "Following the launch of twofour54's new home at Yas Creative Hub, we continue to provide the very best facilities and services to the creative industries ecosystem in Abu Dhabi. Being a core driver of the emirate's economic development, we will continue to advance the media sector over the coming months and years."

Jim Doyle, Director of Rocket Surgery Creative Services, is pleased about the partnership. "We are excited to offer our award-winning Rocket Surgery Creative & Professional Services to a market leader like twofour54. Since 2020, we've been focused on international expansion, and this partnership will do a lot to help increase our footprint. The combination of high-quality creative services with state-of-the-art technology ensures twofour54's new virtual productions will be the first in the region."

Recognising how the global pandemic affected the industry with travel restrictions, twofour54 also chose to adopt Interstellar, Ross Video's cloud-enabled remote contribution solution. With Interstellar, twofour54 can provide an alternative remote production service to their clients, giving flexible on-premise or remote contributions.

Suhail Ahmed, CEO of One Diversified Middle East, the system integrator for the project, commented, "The global pandemic required broadcasters to adapt their existing services and continue their business during this unique period. twoFour54's decision to combine two of the latest technologies, the Unreal engine and remote cloud contribution, shows their vision and leadership in the market. It's been an exciting and innovative project for Diversified with many more to come in the region I am sure."