Vizrt has released a new software package, Viz Sports Online, that incorporates all the creative tools and widgets necessary to get a sports website up and running right out of the box, including some advanced tools for delivering multimedia-rich content to a range of different handheld devices which could make it of interest to broadcasters.
Viz Sports Online is a flexible, modular suite of user-friendly, preconfigured Vizrt tools, providing users with complete creative freedom over the look and feel of web page layouts, image versions and sizes, and overall site structure.
With Viz Sports Online, all video, graphics, text, images, maps, statistics and web publishing tools are available from within a single, user-friendly, drag and drop-based interface. Design-savvy templates let users produce dynamic, branded graphics, maps and web pages that they can fill on the fly with text, images, headers and titles. Viz Sports Online also offers a full video repository with video editing, video playlists, picture-in-picture, and video ad integration capabilities.
The software package also simplifies the process of delivering multimedia-rich content, with support for thousands of different handheld devices. Automatic multimedia conversion enables streaming of video in many native mobile formats, as well as special features and swipe-controlled image galleries that Apple iPhone, iPad and other advanced handheld devices use.
Since websites are interactive by nature, Viz Sports Online-created websites let the audience contribute with their own blogs, comments, and personalized user profile pages, as well as participate in discussion forums with thumbs up or down ratings.
Interactivity is further enhanced by real-time user activity updates; the integration of RSS and Twitter feeds; as well as sophisticated, realtime sports statistics provided by Stats.com. Users can create relationships between this real-time sports data and editorial content, such as pages devoted to teams, players, matches, games and special events, to keep viewers fully informed and engaged.
Custom skins give websites a consistent, branded feel. And an extensive widgets library—packed with story pages, image galleries, a video player, animated carousels, menu overlays, tabbed navigation and statistical listings—make it possible to manage content, web page layouts, and microsites without the need for a technical staff.
Vizrt CEO Martin Burkhalter said: “We’re very excited about the creative possibilities and endeavors this new technology enables. At Vizrt, we’ve been developing the tools and capabilities that are part of Sports Online for many years. As a company, we recognize that the Internet and mobile handheld devices are changing the media landscape, and Sports Online makes it fun, easy and rewarding for sports networks and organizations to create sophisticated websites that effectively communicate with online sports audiences.”
