BURY ST. EDMUNDS, England—Autoscript and Autocue will showcase their newly launched PTZ prompter system during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Center.

Designed to provide seamless, professional prompting in dynamic multicamera environments, the PTZ prompter system is shared by both brands. The Autoscript PTZ Prompter and the Autocue PTZ Prompter feature a purpose-built, rigid enclosure that houses the PTZ camera. The solution offers streamlined installation, efficient cable routing, PTZ camera protection and a superior on-air experience.

“Prompting with PTZ cameras has always involved compromise until now,” said Anel Abiken, product manager of prompting. “By collaborating across both brands and closely with our customers, we’ve developed an innovative solution that offers a stable, flexible solution for any studio setup. It simplifies installation, protects the camera and improves workflow across the board.”

Engineered for broadcast use, the PTZ prompters support a wide range of PTZ cameras, including the Sony FR7. When used with the Sony FR7, the camera can calibrate with the prompter glass mounted, eliminating the need to remove the glass to make adjustments.

Features include:

• In-hood calibration fully compatible with PTZ cameras, including the Sony FR7.
• Internal camera cradle for inverted PTZ mounting.
• Continuous adjustment of the camera position.
• Plus-or-minus 15-degree panning and plus-or-minus 5-degree tilting inside the hood with wide-angle lens.
• VESA mounting on top and rear for flexible rigging.
• Robust composite structure with internal cable routing.

The Autoscript PTZ Prompter comes in a premium EVO-IP configuration with carbon fiber finish and side flags, while the Autocue PTZ Prompter features a matte black design and Pioneer monitor options.

The PTZ prompters can be ordered beginning in September 2025 in the Autocue Pioneer and Autoscript EVO-IP configurations.

See Autocue and Autoscript at IBC2025 Stand 13.A05.

More information is available on the Autocue and Autoscript websites.

LONDON—Autoscript today released WinPlus-IP v1.12, the latest upgrade for its prompting software with new support for the ability to take prompt output from a PC as local video or an NDI stream and Arabic languages with its Voice speech recognition system as well as use of a single license on different installations.

“Voice delivers real-time control of a prompted script simply by speaking the words,” said Ibrahim Akkad, Autoscript regional sales manager for the Middle East. “Arabic is the official language of 22 countries in the Middle East, where the broadcast industry is significantly growing. This important update brings the power of Voice speech recognition to Arabic speakers, freeing presenters, and production staff from dependence on foot or hand controls.”

The latest release offers new optional local and NDI prompter licenses, which allow the prompt output to be taken directly from a PC as a local video output or as an NDI stream and thereby removing the needed for an Xbox-IP or IP prompter in all cases. NDI integration with the company’s IP prompting workflow enables fully IP productions to produce prompt output video for third-party equipment, such as TriCasters and multiviewers, the company said.

WinPlus-IP v1.12 also introduces dongle license support, allowing licenses to be linked to a dongle rather than a PC. This gives users the ability to transfer their license between different WP-IP installations, it said.

“Dongle licensing… [is] particularly useful for rental houses with operators out on a variety of jobs each week, giving them the freedom to move operators independently from the prompting PCs. Dongles can also be used for manual disaster recovery,” said Autoscript product manager Philip Dalgoutte, who added the approach overall is more flexible for  WinPlus-IP users.

Existing WinPlus-IP owners who upgrade to v1.12 can migrate from the current machine ID licensing to USB dongle licensing. WinPlus-IP customers can upgrade for free for up to one year from date of purchase. The company is supplying the latest software release as standard with all new installations, it said.

A free demo version is available online. More information is available on the company’s website.

LONDON—Autoscript has unveiled Autoscript Voice, a prompter control technology that gives presenters real-time control of their prompted scripts by speaking the words written there, removing dependence on foot or hand controls.

Designed to be used with the company’s WinPlus-IP fully IP-enabled prompting software, Voice offers a solution customized to the user. It monitors production audio and automatically advances the script as words are spoken, said Autoscript.

Relying on real-time speech recognition, proprietary algorithms and advanced pattern matching, Voice scrolls the script in perfect sync with the presenter, the company said.

Voice pauses for adlibs and resumes scrolling when the presenter is back on script. The system automatically handles various script and show formats. Multiple presenters can use Voice. It can be used simultaneously with other Autoscript scroll control devices, Autoscript said.

“Everyone is talking about Voice,” said Philip Dalgoutte, product manager at Autoscript. “The networks that have been using Autoscript Voice in their daily live operations [and] have been astounded by the quality of the workflow.” 

“For presenters, it’s almost unbelievable that such precise prompting control is possible by simply talking. It’s effortless, with no controllers for them to operate [so] they can focus on presenting, and everything just works.” 

A large U.S. TV network has used Voice for more than three years, which included an extended beta test during which live newscasts were shadowed. The testing and consultation with the network were important drivers in successfully developing Voice for live news broadcasts and entertainment productions. Following the test period, the network integrated Voice into its workflow, it said.

The new Autoscript Voice teleprompting control system can be used to control output to EPIC-IP and EVO-IP prompt monitors and Xbox-IP Scroll Engines. It is available for demonstration from Autoscript representatives now.

More information is available on the company’s website.

LONDON—The teleprompter has long been a mainstay of live television, replacing the earlier and unkindly named “idiot board,” but still ensuring that on-air presenters get their lines right. Its necessary usefulness moved beyond TV into live events such as political conferences, corporate presentations and product launches.

Their ubiquity and effectiveness now extend into the realm of independent and individual internet broadcasters, to the extent that there are regularly videos on YouTube selecting the best teleprompters for YouTube.

SMALL AND PORTABLE

By its very nature, this end of the market is serviced primarily by systems in the $80–$1,400 price bracket but over the past year the higher-end manufacturers have been looking more closely at how their technology can be used both at and from home, for traditional broadcasters rather than YouTubers.

“We have seen an increase in the need to use smaller, more portable displays for prompter text, especially when home working,” said Robin Brown, product manager of Autoscript (part of the Vitec group with Autocue). “These screens are mostly tablet-sized and the ability to connect an iPad into the system as a prompter, without any added latency from streaming video, has been significant for many of our customers.”

Brown explains that “network coverage and simplicity of configuration” have made this way of working easily adoptable and simple to apply. The mass uptake of remote workflows was necessitated by the pandemic of the past year but has been enabled by the continuing evolution of connectivity technologies. “The speed of change in IP development and deployment—plus the global pandemic—has dramatically changed what users expect of prompting and what it can deliver,” said Brown. “Remote operations have become commonplace for users to request this mode of working, which is making for a buoyant market.”

Covid-19 has affected every person and every business, forcing media enterprises to find more ways to connect to small devices at remote locations, according to Chris O’Brien, president of Telescript International. The understanding and popularity of teleprompting has increased considerably, O’Brien says, with greater demand for these units not just in the home but new and established studios as well.

“The need for ‘smarter’ IP-based solutions is extremely important, which is why Telescript is partnering with a global technology company to add their IP into our monitors,” he said, adding that the details of this partnership will be announced this month.

FEWER PHYSICAL BOUNDARIES

A practical downside to the shift towards more compact devices is emerging technology meeting the limitations of human faculties.

“Everyone wants smaller but the problem is that the talents’ eyes are not getting any better,” said Michael Accardi, president of CueScript. “Small consumer-based products fall short on readability, connectivity and dependability. Now more than ever, people are depending on prompters to get the message out the first time and we have been designing systems that meet the customers’ needs. There is no room for error.”

In general, Accardi observes, the prompting market is scrambling to cope with the new normal. The reaction to Covid-19—with more home and remote working—has brought about new styles of broadcast operations, which extend to teleprompters.

“Today, operators and talent can be anywhere—they do not have to be together,” he says. “All physical boundaries have been lifted and it is common for an operator in their home to be prompting for multiple talent in multiple locations.”

Prompter vendors have been seeing very specific requests from end-users to meet these changing requirements, according to JT Meidl, president of Mirror Image Teleprompters, noting that one particular customer requested an iPad be mounted on the front of the company’s new LC-12 E camera teleprompter.

“The iPad acts as a talent monitor and receives a live network feed, allowing for perfect eye contact,” Meidl said. “The system was installed in the customer’s mobile studio van and has been used since the start of the pandemic by a major network.”

Studio equipment developers have also been looking at how to incorporate prompters into more compact and integrated systems. Robotic camera control specialist Telemetrics developed the Telepod with this in mind.

According to company Vice President Michael Cuomo, Telepod interfaces with “most teleprompting systems and automatically keeps the prompter facing the talent at all times and varying heights.”

Cuomo adds that the Telepod is a response to the trend for fewer personnel in TV studios. It includes the RoboEye 4K pan/tilt camera system, Televator Mini elevating pedestal, floor dolly and RCCP-2A robotic control panel featuring reFrame AI software. “Hands -free prompting will soon be used for all newscasts, going the way of the three camera setup of robotic camera that is now operated by one person in the control room,” he said.

INTEGRATION WITH THIRD PARTIES

Overall integration is the ongoing trend in broadcasting with Telescript’s Chris O’Brien adding that customers are increasingly looking for integrated IP prompting systems that work with the main newsroom technologies from the likes of ENPS, Avid iNews and Octopus while at the same time supporting SDI facilities.

“With many studios, colleges and TV professionals turning to IP solutions, teleprompting displays that natively connect to IP environments make adding prompting to a network easy,” he said. “The future is smarter, smaller, sleeker, with the emphasis on smarter systems that can interconnect through IP networks.”

Autoscript, a pioneer of IP workflows for telepromting, says its “Intelligent Prompting” system, which is fully-IP enabled, will similarly change how people use teleprompters.

“Our primary focus is building responsive technologies that enable broadcasters to work more flexibly and manage resources more efficiently,” Brown said. “Ensuring presenters always remain confidently on script is our goal because that’s the ultimate test of any prompting system.”

Accardi agrees that IP-based prompting “is not the future, it is today,” adding that the demand for flexibility, speed and dependability is driving development. He also does not see the new workflows developed for remote production will go away.

“This adoption of remote prompting will only expand, changing the way we do sports, location shoots, satellite studios and more,” he said. “Customers now understand how to leverage their existing systems and in turn we will see prompters in more places than ever before.”

LONDON—Autoscript is rolling out an upgrade to its first-generation wireless teleprompting control with the new WC-IP. WC-IP is designed to empower on-air talent in a live news broadcast to scroll a prompting script themselves from anywhere in the studio.

WC-IP can be held in the palm of the talent’s hand, with a forward/reverse joystick that enables intuitive scrolling of the text. There are also three story navigation buttons and two programmable function buttons that give talent more control options. All buttons are managed with Autoscript’s WinPlus-IP teleprompting software and can be enabled, disabled or assigned as required.

The WC-IP can be configured and paired with Autoscript’s WB-IP base station within WinPlus-IP, which provides connection status and monitoring for the control’s integrated long-life battery. The control features an LED status display for the battery, which can be recharged using a standard USB-C cable. Each WC-IP connects with a single WB-IP base station and will maintain connection over a distance of up to 100 meters/300 feet.

Autoscript will offer the WC-IP as an individual product or packaged with the WB-IP base station (required for operation).

For more information, visit www.autoscript.tv.  

MONTREAL—Grass Valley’s certification program, the Grass Valley Technology Alliance, has added five new member companies to its ranks: EcoDigital, Haivision, Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) and Vitec Group’s Vinten and Autoscript.

The GV Technology Alliance launched in April 2019 and has the goal of delivering benefits to customers, such as improved purchasing confidence and access to a wide range of systems that are interoperable with GV platforms and workflow components, according to the company.

The EcoDigital product that is now compatible with GV technology is the DIVA content storage management system and DIVA Software Suite. Haivision is adding its streaming solutions to GV’s live production gear. MRMC’s contributions focus on end-to-end solutions for the sports and broadcast industry. Vinten is offering its HD-VRC control system for robotic cameras to integrate with GV’s Ignite Automation Production Control platform, while Autoscript has teleprompting gear.

“As broadcast media companies strive to deliver the captivating content and high production values that consumers demand, we give our customers access to trusted solutions that are tested and configured to meet the demands of mission-critical production environments,” said Tim Shoulders, president of Grass Valley.

These five companies join previous GV Technology Alliance members ChyronHego, Frankly Media, Net Insight, RT Software and Telemetrics.

For more information, visit Grass Valley’s website. 

WASHINGTON--The Vitec Group has announced its product lineup for the Government Video Expo, Nov. 27-29 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

Highlighting the company’s booth will be the Vinten/Sachtler flowtech100 Carbon-Fiber Tripod, the newest addition to the company’s flowtech carbon-fiber tripod range. Compatible with all major 100mm fluid heads, flowtech100 supports a payload of up to 30 kilograms (66 pounds), making it the ideal tripod for electronic newsgathering, field production, and a wide range of commercial, educational, and documentary productions.

Like its predecessor, flowtech75, flowtech100 is based on an exclusive carbon-fiber technology that includes the world's fastest-deploying tripod legs, according to Vitec. With unique quick-release brakes conveniently located at the top of the tripod, the flowtech100 legs can be deployed simultaneously and adjust automatically to the ground's surface—saving operators from having to bend over and manually adjust multiple brakes on each leg. The exceptional torsional stiffness of flowtech100 ensures that the tripod will not twist during camera-panning movements.

For power solutions, attendees can check out the Anton/Bauer Dionic XT Battery Series, available in both V-Mount and Gold Mount. The high-performing and compact Dionic XT is a 14V Li-ion battery that delivers up to 12A of continuous power. It’s available in two models — the Dionic XT90 and the Dionic XT150 — and features ultra-high-strength ABS and rubber construction that cushions and protects the battery and ensures industry-standard performance. Dionic XT batteries work with Anton/Bauer's complete line of battery charging systems and are also cross-compatible with competing brands' charging systems and offer superior performance for powering accessories such as portable LED lighting.

For lighting, the company will highlight its Litepanels Gemini 2x1 Soft Panel, that allows for quick setup to produce true, flicker-free, full-spectrum white light for any frame rate, shutter angle, or intensity, making it ideal for live broadcasts.

Gemini enables lighting professionals to "go bold" by lighting with any color in the 360-degree color spectrum. The light's most recent firmware update includes new special effects, new gel modes, and advanced fan operation. An all-new lighting effects mode offers dynamic effects ranging from emergency lights, lightning, and fire to pulsing, square, and strobe. Gemini eliminates the need for color correction by offering full-spectrum white light that's perfect for lighting public speakers and on-air talent. The versatile Gemini's lightweight design allows the light to be rigged virtually anywhere, requiring less cabling because the power supply is built in.

Also from LitePanels is the Astra LED Panel, the company’s next gen version of its original 1x1 panel. The Astra 3X and 6X models feature a 50 percent increase in output, making them three and six times brighter than the original Astra. The Astra Soft Bi-Color provides flattering, diffused lighting for a soft, wraparound light quality.

The Astra Bi-Focus Daylight is the newest addition to the popular Astra family, giving users the ability to adjust from a 48-degree flood to a 15-degree concentration of light with the turn of a dial. Astra's high-performance LEDs and optics provide professional lighting designers with accurate color temperatures, high CRI/TLCI color rendering, and beautiful light quality. The Astra family's modular design features optional DMX and Bluetooth communication modules, along with V-Mount or Gold Mount battery plates for mobile power when AC power is not available.

Attendees can also check out the latest developments in Autoscript’s Intelligent Prompting range. The industry's first teleprompting system designed around an IP-enabled workflow, Intelligent Prompting can also accommodate video workflows. These developments include additional features within Autoscript's premier prompting software, WinPlus-IP, that build even greater redundancy and reliability into Intelligent Prompting deployments.

Also at GV Expo 2018, Autoscript will highlight its IPS range including the all-IP prompting monitor, EVO-IPS, andWinPlus-IPS software, a simple but powerful prompting application for smaller productions. The combination of WinPlus-IPS and EVO-IPS packages the power of Intelligent Prompting into a cost-effective, easy-to-install, and easy-to-use solution that's perfect for smaller IP-based studios, corporate and educational productions, and government-sponsored broadcasts.

“We look forward to showing GV Expo 2018 attendees how all of our lighting, camera support, prompting, and mobile power solutions can help them create and capture the video content they desire while giving them the flexibility and durability they need," said Paul Dudeck, Vice President, Sales, Americas, Vitec Production Solutions.

Vitec Group will be in Booth 691. Click here to register for the 2018 GV Expo. 

SEATTLE—Dating back to the 1960s, teleprompters have been must-have equipment for newscasts as well as politicians, even as the early models were Rube Goldberg-ish contraptions that scrolled typewritten scrolls just off the camera lens. Later, scripts rode a conveyor belt in front of chintzy black and white cameras, with the script displayed on CRT monitors that appeared in front of the camera lens through use of half-silvered mirrors. Computer-rendered text later replaced the scrolling paper scripts, and that’s where things have been for 40 or so years.

That’s not to say that nothing’s changed in prompting. There are a number of technology changes currently going on, with more just around the corner.

TIGHT SPACES

Michael Accardi, president of CueScript, said he’s seeing a number of news studios needing to work in tight spaces. That’s creating a lot of interest in his company’s PTZ prompter. “What we thought would be a small usage prompter has become outstanding for us.”

The trick to the PTZ prompter is getting the camera inside the hood, which allows proper positioning of the lens. “Being able to pan 90 degrees with a PTZ, being small enough to get it close to a wall in a newsroom, or for use in an office space; they get into places where people normally couldn’t get a prompter,” he said.

Accardi said studios are also considering IP-based prompters as part of an overall migration to an IP infrastructure. “We started doing IP from day-one, when we introduced our software in 2014,” he said. “Our approach has always been that you can go IP end to end, at all cost, if you so wish. But we don’t force it on you.”

CueScript’s prompter monitors, video boxes and controllers have IP network jacks on them, but the monitors and video boxes have SDI and composite inputs, and the controllers also provide USB and CAN bus (Controller Area Network) ports. “You get to pick and choose what you want,” Accardi said. “We don’t dictate to you.” But when the customer wants to go to IP, it’s there waiting to be implemented.

GETTING RID OF THE BOX

Robin Brown, prompting product manager for Autoscript and Autocue, said he’s also finding customer interest in IP prompting. In response the company launched their IP range in 2017, which gives customers the option to go between an IP and standard baseband video workflow.

“We understand that customers are still apprehensive or nervous about doing a complete switchover [to IP], so we provide a solution that has both different variances,” he said. “But the rate of uptake to an IP workflow does seem to be growing quite rapidly.”

Brown pointed to one of the big advantages to an IP prompting infrastructure: “The basic element is that it reduces the amount of hardware that you require,” he said. “Traditionally you would have a box that produces composite video or HDI video, which is connected to your PC via a USB cable or serial cable, or however it’s connected.”

IP can eliminate that box. “We’re not sending video over IP, decompressing video and then recompressing it,” Brown said. “We’re just sending data, and the rendering is done by the PC that is inside the monitor itself. It means that we’re sending tiny bits of data. Even if you have a relatively slow internet speed, you can send data. It also means that those on-camera prompter screens can be anywhere.”

BRIDGING STANDARDS

Mike Burdick, sales manager at Mirror Image in Oshkosh, Wis., said that as prompter users have been updating the PCs that drive their prompting systems, they’re finding those PCs don’t have analog VGA ports, but digital HDMI ports instead. It’s part of an overall studio infrastructure trend.

“As the majority of cameras and studios are being upgraded and updated, or built from scratch, they are going to more of the digital formats that are sweeping through the industry right now,” Burdick said. “At the larger studios, SDI is common with the cameras, so it’s easy to kind of loop everything together through camera and feed the teleprompter.”

As customers upgrade their prompting monitors, they aren’t always ready to move to digital, according to Burdick. “Everything from our lower entry-level equipment, up to the full-sized studio equipment that utilize a monitor from 12-inch to 19-inch size has both HDMI and SDI as well as the more traditional VGA and composite inputs,” he said. “We’ve just had a handful of our customers in the past month here that have upgraded just the monitor on their older teleprompters so they could retrofit into the new studio.” When they do upgrade their prompting PCs, it’s just a matter of changing out the cabling.

SMART[PHONE] PROMPTING

Josh Apter, founder and CEO of Padcaster in New York, said that while his company’s DSLR-compatible smartphone-based prompter is convenient for professional production use, his company originally discovered a large market for a sub-$100 Parrot Prompter in schools.

“There were so many schools doing student broadcasts, morning announcements and things, and they were using a piece of paper that had them looking off to the side, or looking down at something,” he said. “That obviously works, but when you give them something like our prompter that’s so easy to use, it changes the entire thing.”

Instead of something bulky and hard to configure, the Parrot Prompter is a bundled kit which easily screws onto the lens threading, allowing the user to attach a smartphone to the assembly.

The Parrot Teleprompter includes Bluetooth remote and comes with 12 different-sized mounting rings comprising the most common lens diameters, 37mm–82mm, as well as a cleaning kit.

In the works is a Parrot prompter that doesn’t require lens threads for mounting.

SHELTON, CONN.—In an effort to ease its daily news production, WDRB-TV in Louisville, Ky., constructed a second studio. New cameras, lenses, and pedestals were all acquired for the move, as were six Autoscript EPIC 19-inch teleprompters.

The EPIC combines an LED prompting screen with an integrated 19-inch full HD-SDI on-air monitor. The EPIC does not require an extra mounting bracket, allowing operators to utilize a camera’s full tilt.

The WDRB team also purchased Autoscript’s ClockPlus-E, which clips in front of the teleprompter and takes timecode data, tally status and power internally from the EPIC system as well as the TallyPlus.

WDRB-TV is the Fox-affiliate covering the Louisville metropolitan region.

LONDON—Vitec Videocom brand Autoscript has announced a collaboration with Sony that will integrate Autoscript’s WinPlus teleprompting software with Sony’s ELC control system.

The ELC is designed to manage newsroom control functions from a dedicated operator position, including video and sound sources, studio cameras and audio, playout servers, DDRs, and graphic devices. With the WinPlus software, the system adds control of script and the prompter rundown. The collaboration will also see Sony ELC launch the correct rundown and start position into WinPlus.

Autoscript is a provider of teleprompting equipment based in London.