In an architecture which is likely to be emulated by broadcasters worldwide, Gray Television Group in the USA has implemented a centralised graphics resource for its 36 widespread stations. The technology supporting this comes from Vizrt. The advantage of this model is that it allows new outputs to be added quickly. “When we are relaunching our stations, we do not have the luxury of a six or nine month launch period,” said Jim Ocon, Gray VP of technology. “We are looking to get it down to twelve weeks or less. So having a powerful but simplified graphics package we can rely upon is key.” Rather than each station designing, creating and rendering graphics, this solution uses a central hub where all graphics templates are designed, to be populated at each station. The centralised hardware includes Viz Artist design software and the content management and playout tools. “A basic Vizrt system includes an Engine, which is the graphics renderer, and a Trio, which is the operator console/interface,” explained Ocon. “You use a combination of Engines and Trios to run your graphics. It is very modular, so if there is ever a technical problem and you lose your main engine, you can literally patch in one of your engines from another part of your system to do your graphics. “Vizrt gives our stations tremendous flexibility. We can focus our best talents in the network at creating the template packages.”
