In Broadcast - November 2012 - 70

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

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WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 14 - NOV/DEC 2012

InSTUDIO

Watching The Weather – Whipping Up A Storm
Broadcasters’ approach towards weather productions, says Adrian Pennington, is changing on several fronts…
Twenty years ago weather presentations were made via a standard chromakey and a map but as weather events like the tsunami make global headlines, the demand for both high-end graphics, and high accuracy, have come to the fore. “The weather is becoming a central news theme which means forecasters have to relate quickly to evolving weather news stories and present these in an exciting, educational and graphically appealing manner,” says Graeme Garson, Sector Manager Broadcast, MeteoGroup Deutschland. For Miguel Churruca, Marketing Director at Brainstorm – whose eStudio engine powers weather visualisations – the cutting edge is Augmented Reality showing data in-conjunction with the presenter for enhanced interactivity. “Broadcasters are experimenting with new maps and different data visualisation (radar, cloud maps, satellite) but the goals are to entertain the audience and provide extensive data.” This manifests itself in requests to integrate high-resolution graphics on video walls and virtual studios or output to second screen apps. “The most common requests include second screen enhancements to the weather show as well as for the presenter to have interactive control,” reports Gideon Ferber, Orad’s 3DWeather Product Manager. “GPI triggers are no longer enough. Presenters want greater control, from the progression of the
Adrian Pennington

Viz Weather Hurricane Sandy animation

Graeme Garson, MeteoGroup Deutschland

“…Forecasters have to relate quickly to
evolving weather news stories

”

show, through the use of interactive scenes, all the way to having full preview and control of the graphics from their iPad.” Many weather graphics solutions are proprietary and exist within the closed environment of the weather department but there is movement to more integrated approaches in which weather is hooked into the newsroom and broadcast graphics workﬂow via the MOS protocol. Ferber cites the example of a broadcaster integrating Orad’s 3DWeather, into an existing, automated news workﬂow resulting in a weather production which included ‘fly-overs’ according to dynamically changing paths worldwide. “The duration of the ‘ﬂy-overs’ was calculated according to the free time slots in the production’s schedule, and did not require a dedicated operator, weather journalist, or meteorologist,” he explains. “In a newsroom environment, branded graphic scenes can be created by the broadcaster’s graphic department. These scenes are used to create templates that are populated with weather data by a journalist directly from their workstation enabling the journalist and meteorologists to concentrate on the show and designers to concentrate solely on design.” On the design side, Orad offers new material shaders to pump up the photorealism of the production. It also integrates with Microsoft’s Bing maps and Nasa’s Blue Marble map archive. “Online map providers offer high-resolution maps down to street level view with a higher

refresh rate than ‘old-fashioned’ map providers,” says Ferber.

Global Synopsis
Vizrt innovation has hooked-up with commercial satellite operator DigitalGlobe. Customers are sent notiﬁcations from Vizrt when satellite images of a breaking news event (a typhoon or wild ﬁre for example but it could also be relevant to civil unrest or terrorist attacks) have been captured from the three DigitalGlobe satellite. Using Viz World 12.0’s map editing tools, graphic artists can manipulate the satellite imagery to create animated maps. They can also string together images that the satellites captured before, during, and after an event to show how the situation progressed over time. There is likely to be increased reliance on social weather reports as a primary source of local weather stories. For example, viewers will upload or stream images/videos directly from the scene of the event to the studio. The source for weather data is not limited to meteorological agencies. Data and information may come

from reporters in the street or at home sending updates of weather conditions in their towns or cities. This data must also be available in the newsroom. This includes text, video, audio and images. In much the same way as producers in the newsroom require a single interface to manage the complexity of incoming sources and output distribution platforms, so broadcast weather systems are becoming more sophisticated. “There is still a need for unifying the workﬂow of the acquisition and visualisation of weather data in such a way that serves the different media,” says Pablo Goldszeft, Vizrt’s Head of R&D. “We should expect the meteorologist to create the data and use tools to create graphics for TV, the web, the apps and the newspaper using one single workflow.” On the other hand, any reporter can access the data (from Vizrt’s weather system, Viz Weather) from their desktop using the newsroom system. Using ActiveX, the reporter browses the information in DataHub and creates a graphics related to their note. All the graphics created in this way are sent to a playlist in the control room to be played out. In the studio, the anchor may interact with a large interactive screen. That screen is fed from the same DataHub and shows rich graphical representations of the same weather data. “In the past we used to see just the day by day reports of temperatures, wind, and precipitation,” says Goldszeft. “Today weather reports include information updating the viewer how the weather will affect their commute, outdoor activities and so much more. The weather anchor must have the tools to tell the viewers what’s expected.” ■

Orad – east coast animation

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