Cat & Mouse Ltd has become the UK’s first major broadcast solution provider to use the Dubai-based Ventuz realtime graphics software, which it’s deploying on game shows and election coverage.
Although only receiving the first units in February, Ventuz has already been integrated with Cat & Mouse’s game show and election control systems and put to immediate use on two major projects. Coverage of the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections for BBC Belfast used two Ventuz Broadcast systems. Another three Ventuz systems have been in use in the London Studios recording a new Endemol game show for the UK’s ITV network. The drama of the new Endemol show, ‘For the Rest of your Life’ (from the creator of ‘Deal or No Deal’) plays out in front of a giant LED wall driven entirely by Ventuz. Other Ventuz systems generate all the on-air overlay graphics and graphics and animation for plasma screens in the studio.
Carl Blundell, MD of Cat & Mouse, said: “Ventuz has given us a massive leap forward in terms of rendering power but we have lost none of the flexibility to make last minute changes to designs and functionality that our clients have come to expect from us. We have been extremely impressed with Ventuz’s ability to encapsulate graphical concepts and logic within the scene itself. The result has been truly reusable elements and simpler software controlling the system.
“In April and May, Ventuz will be in use for a network game show pilot in New York and for yet more election programmes in Wales covering elections to the Welsh Assembly for the BBC in Cardiff,” added Blundell. “We look forward to building on the considerable Ventuz experience gained during all these projects. We can now deliver post production quality graphics in realtime in studio with full control over every aspect of a scene – and can only be excited about where this ability is going to take us as a company.”
