MONTREAL, Quebec — September 13, 2019 — Matrox® Video today announces that Vizrt, the innovator of software-defined visual storytelling (#SDVS) platforms, has selected the Matrox X.mio5 Q25 SMPTE ST 2110 network interface controller (NIC) card to power its Viz Engine 4 render engine. The next generation of Vizrt’s core graphics engine and video compositing platform, Viz Engine 4 leverages the Matrox X.mio5 Q25 25 GbE NIC card to enable unrivaled multi-channel 4K video I/O over 25 GbE for state-of-the-art virtual studio set and augmented reality productions.

Attendees of IBC 2019 will be able to see the platform drive photo-real, augmented reality graphics at The Big AR Sports Show, daily on the Vizrt booth in Hall 7-7.B01.  

Reinventing virtual studio sets, augmented reality graphics 

Viz Engine 4 revolutionizes how virtual studio sets and augmented reality graphics are designed, rendered, and combined with live video. The programmable graphics pipeline features physical-based rendering and global illumination to help build the foundation, with options like reflection and depth of field providing extra realism. The new Fusion Keyer control meanwhile, allows users to perfectly immerse presenters into a virtual environment, giving a clean, unobtrusive key for ultra-realistic results. 

Exceptional graphics engine for IP-based workflows  

Designed to future proof the Viz Engine 4 ecosystem, the latest render engine features Matrox X.mio5 Q25—a cutting-edge NIC card with multi-channel IP video I/O support from HD to 4K, on-board multi-channel HDR conversions, along with motion adaptive de-interlacing, pristine scaling, and powerful compositing engines for high-density 4K video processing. Architected as a video-aware COTS SMPTE ST 2110 NIC, Matrox X.mio5 Q25 delivers 24/7 reliability and interoperability required of broadcast equipment, while offering the flexibility and scalability expected of IP infrastructures including standard network stack functionality.  

“Vizrt is extremely pleased with the seamless and successful implementation of the Matrox X.mio5 Q25 NIC card into the Viz Engine 4 technology,” said Gerhard Lang, Chief Technology Officer at Vizrt. “X.mio5 Q25’s ground-breaking board design boosts the platform’s compositing capabilities, enables flexible multi-channel high-resolution and HDR output functionality, and provides advanced SMPTE ST 2110 support, making Viz Engine 4 the most future-ready platform on the market.”  

“The evolution of Vizrt’s graphics engine continues, and we are happy to see Matrox SMPTE ST 2110 cards play an integral role in this development,” said Alberto Cieri, senior director of sales and marketing, Matrox Video. “Backed by Matrox X.mio5 Q25’s industry-leading SMPTE ST 2110, IP, UHD, and HDR support and expertise, Viz Engine 4 empowers broadcasters, content producers, and journalists to explore unique and innovative designs to maximize their storytelling potential.” 

Matrox X.mio5 Q25 and the complete range of Matrox SMPTE ST 2110 NIC cards can be seen in action at IBC 2019 from September 13-17, stand 7.B15. 

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About Vizrt 

Vizrt is the world’s leading provider of software-defined visual storytelling tools for media content creators in the broadcast, sports, digital and esports industries. Vizrt offers market-defining software-based solutions for real-time 3D graphics, video playout, studio automation, sports analysis, media asset management, and journalist story tools. More than three billion people watch stories told by Vizrt customers everyday including from media companies such as CNN, CBS, NBC, Fox, BBC, BSkyB, Sky Sports, Al Jazeera, NDR, ZDF, Star TV, Network 18, Tencent, and many more. Vizrt is a global and diverse company with over 700 employees, operating in 30 offices worldwide with 52 nationalities, and recently has acquired IP-based, software-driven live video solution company, NewTek. Vizrt is a privately-owned company by Nordic Capital Fund VIII. Vizrt is mores stores, better told. www.vizrt.com 

About Matrox Video

Matrox Video is a technology and market leader in the field of 4K, HD, and SD digital video hardware and software for accelerated H.264 encoding, realtime editing, audio/video input/output, streaming, A/V signal conversion, capture/playout servers, channel-in-a-box systems, and CGs. Matrox's Emmy award-winning technology powers a full range of multi-screen content creation and delivery platforms used by broadcasters, telcos, cable operators, post-production facilities, live event producers, videographers, and A/V professionals worldwide. Founded in 1976, Matrox is a privately held company headquartered in Montreal, Canada. For more information, visit www.matrox.com/video. 

Matrox Media Contact: 

Email: pr@mtrox.com

Tel: +1 (514) 822-6000

Website: www.matrox.com

HOLLYWOOD—Virtual and augmented reality technology was showcased at the 2015 SMPTE Technical Conference, which wrapped up Oct. 29. TV Technology was able to check out a couple of demos, including a VR short from the movie, “Wild,” starring Reese Witherspoon, and a couple of apps from designers in the Department of Film & Digital Media at Baylor.

Fox brought the “Wild,” demo to a corner of the VR/AR exhibit room, where random SMPTE-goers sat wrapped in VR goggles and looking around the room at a forest that the goggle-free could not see. The clip was low action and so not so conducive to cybersickness—a common complaint with VR. In the “Wild,” clip, the viewer is sitting in the middle of a quiet forest on a sunny day. The colors were vibrant, but the resolution low, as is also typical of VR. The scene seams were relatively easy to detect, but not distracting.

Several seconds into the clip, Witherspoon comes walking up in character, wearing a backpack and hiking up a nearby trail. She pulls off her pack and sits near the viewer on a rock, seeming to look right at the viewer, though within a few more seconds, it's clear she's looking at something behind the viewer, which turns out to be Laura Dern, who played Witherspoon’s character’s deceased mother. So essentially, the viewer is sitting between Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern. Dern then disappears when the veiwer looks away, Witherspoon takes up her pack and trudges down the trail. A small fox runs through the scene. Cut. (“Wild VR Experience” images courtesy of 20th Century Fox.)

The Baylor team, incuding Professor Corey P. Carbonara, Ph.D., Assistant Professor Daniel M. Shafer and grad student Blake Copeland, demonstrated augmented reality apps that created 3D animations from the two-dimensional pages of books. (Depicted in accompanying videos below.)

Team Baylor also brought a VR modeler based on an “open source Scanner sample app in the Structure SDK,” according to Copeland. The app worked with an iPad affixed with a $110 LIDAR-equipped camera no larger than a typical portable phone charger. The camera device is pointed at the subject while the operator moves slowly around it, capturing data from all angles and producing an .obj file (which we cannot display here, but the two still images were captured from the process.) Copeland used it to create the author’s avatar in a matter of moments, while onlookers tried to make her crack up.