HOW DOES VIRTUAL STUDIO WORK?

RECKEEN LITE is a ready-to-use solution. A customer receives a complete workstation, together with pre-installed software and additional input / output cards mounted. System is offered in a couple of variants. The most basic one has a card with one HDMI input and one HDMI output.

Right after you turn on your computer, RECKEEN LITE software greets you. A startup screen gives you full control of the system, including configuration and possibility to turn the workstation off. From this screen you can go straight to a broadcasting module or a virtual studio editor.

RECKEEN LITE system is based on the PC platform, which is additionally supported by proprietary hardware and software solutions. With this combination, the system has multiple functionalities, while still being available at a relatively low price. Application of a fully original chroma key algorithm, realized through GPU using shaders technique, has a significant influence on product’s high quality. It enables obtaining a top-notch keying, that is placing the living characters in a virtual studio.

• PRODUCTION LITE– which controls broadcast of a program that uses virtual studio and media (movies, graphics).

• STILL Editor – enables you to create graphics and boards with captions for later use during broadcasting of the program,
• VSM Lite Editor – used for creating and modifying virtual studio stage design.

The basic principle of virtual studio is to place a figure (e.g. a presenter) on a background of virtual scenery. Virtual, that is non-existent in the real world. Usually, such sceneries are generated by a computer as computer graphics. As a result, instead of using expensive and often inaccessible stage designs, you can use the images generated by the computer. Virtual stage designs have no restrictions when it comes to appearance and content. You can create the ones which construction, in fact, would have been impossible or very expensive. These types of techniques are often used by major studios in creating movies.

• green (green screen) or blue (blue screen) background with appropriate lighting system that will ensure even illumination of the scene,
• camcorder or SLR camera with HDMI output or SDI for RECKEEN 3D or RECKEEN LITE
• RECKEEN 3D or RECKEEN LITE system.

Video signal from your camcorder should be plugged into a workstation, so that the signal representing a figure on a green background is visible on Production Live program preview. Keying has to be enabled for this signal and its parameters set.

Green (or blue) color is then removed, and the figure is ready to be placed on a background of any virtual scenery generated by RECKEEN LITE system. The simplest stage design is just a photo or a movie, such as a panoramic view of a city or a desert. With figure adjustment feature, you can adjust scale (size) and position of the figure to make it fit into the selected stage design.

Together with RECKEEN LITE system a set of over 30 professionally prepared studio decorations (Virtual Set) is delivered. Their themes range from news, through talk shows, education, children’s programs, even to fairy-tale scenes. Ready-made Virtual Sets can be modified to some extent – by inserting your own graphics (that become part of the stage design) and displaying your own movies, images, or presentations on virtual screens. Each Virtual Set is delivered in a few angle shots you can switch between. This allows you to change the takes of the studio quickly, giving an impression that each of the shots came from a different camera set in this studio. Additionally, you can use a virtual camera feature enabling you to make close-ups or moving panoramas inside the studio during the broadcast.

The live program created through our system may be made available to the public in several ways.

• The main output of a broadcast signal is a video output of RECKEEN system card located at the rear of the workstation. Depending on a version of the system, it may either be a HDMI or SDI terminal. Parameters of a signal sent to a terminal depend on the settings entered at RECKEEN program startup. Such created signal can be plugged into station’s broadcasting track, connected to other studio devices (e.g. Mixer) and, of course, displayed on a TV screen.
• The entire aired program can simultaneously be saved as a file on a disk. RECKEEN LITE system enables recording the created program as a file on the internal hard drive.
• One of the key functions of our system – streaming , allows you to share the broadcasted signal in the form of an Internet data stream. With this feature, a live program immediately reaches all the viewers, even in distant places all over the world.