
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
In a changing broadcast environment, where streaming of content directly to the viewer is becoming the new norm, the need for quality but cost-effective on-air graphics for live streams has given rise to a new, out-of-the-box solution that matches TV-level production at a fraction of the price. It gets even better because the new work ow is unlike anything that has ever been seen before: it's a platform that not only offers TV-quality results, but it is cost effective and has no expensive hardware, software or staff. It is, furthermore, a cinch to use on a self-service platform that anyone, yes anyone, can manipulate to manage all on-air graphic aspects of their broadcasts and live streams.
There are two parts to a sports game on TV. There's the actual play and then there's the stats and graphics that enrich the action. A big part of creating professional and engaging sports broadcasts is live on-air graphics they tell a story and show relevant information, from game scores to player and team stats. Graphics also display in-game advertisements from sponsors who support the club's brands, broadcasters and leagues, which seek to target highly-defined sports audiences.
For smaller teams, clubs, and schools, producing sophisticated graphics - live and in-game - is prohibitive. Hardware is expensive; software, difficult to master. Skilled staff is required to operate the consoles, and designers are needed to create the graphics. Matching the TV-quality level of production traditionally costs tens of thousands of dollars, and that's per game.
As live streaming has become more popular and affordable, the need to produce quality on-air graphics on a professional level has become a necessity, and all too often smaller sporting organisations and production companies are hard-pressed to compete with the major broadcasters, as traditional graphic and titling solutions are unrealistically expensive.
However, a few years back a group of Australia-based innovators formed a company called Live Graphic Systems. They put their heads together and came up with a new breed of automated graphics and broadcast management software that offered TV-quality sports graphics but with no need for hardware, designers, skilled graphics operators or developers. The system is called LIGR.
Since its inception, LIGR has produced graphics for over 10,000 sports games across the globe with over 1,000 sponsor ad-sets uploaded onto their platform. To date, it's estimated that LIGR has saved over 100,000 hours of graphics operation, design and development which equates to more than $20 million saved. LIGR provides out-of-the-box, ESPN-quality graphics templates that let you produce a professional live stream in a few simple steps. Just login, select your sport, and choose your graphics theme. Then upload your team, player and sponsor assets one by one (or upload your fixtures and squads in one hit), and watch as professional automated graphics animate over your live streams.
The system incorporates a sponsorship management tool that incorporates brand and sponsor assets into the live stream graphics and has a sponsor reporting dashboard to provide metrics and insights about when and how the sponsors information was displayed during the broadcast. LIGR provides a complete asset management system (AMS), where the user can upload their assets, which are mapped to their teams and are then assigned to the schedule of games. Each league has its own assets, such as logos, watermarks, naming conventions and colours, and the user sets all of this up pre-season or pre-game. When games are scheduled in the LIGR scheduler, all assets will map to each competition and each home and away team automatically.
Being an HTML 5 solution, LIGR works with all production work ows to deliver the graphic solutions. It integrates with all software vision mixers that support web browser inputs, such as OBS and vMix, as well as all cloud-based vision mixing and distribution platforms that support web browser graphics overlays and automated camera systems that support web browser graphics overlays, such as Pixellot.
In April this year, LIGR are set to release the LIGR Deck system which automatically creates an entire game's live graphics by simply live scoring the game. The users can utilise the LIGR Live Scoring App in a smart phone, or by connecting to the official scoring system or an external live score data source such as Stats Perform, Genius Sports, Sport Radar either way, this completely removes any manual graphics operation.
Users can upload and manage the assets they need in an easy-to-use dashboard and the graphics will animate on- and off-screen-automatically, and based on the live match data. Last year, LIGRA were set a challenge by Cricket Australia to produce professional and data integrated graphics for over 120 live stream games across the season. The system had to integrate with Cricket Australia's OptaPro system (which provides analytical data) in real time while connecting brands to specific triggered events in-game. The system had to be able to run graphics in a combination of auto and manual mode, with graphics to be overlaid off-site in a cloud-based master control room (MCR) with direction fed by an on-site producer to the off-site graphics operator. LIGR worked on a unique workflow that combined traditional workflows with automated and remote workflows for the local JLT Cup, The Woman's Big Bash League, as well as international non-televised live streams.
Interest in live graphic systems technology is gaining momentum, and not only in the streaming environment it is also attracting attention from mainstream broadcasters. LIGR really is the easiest way to deliver a consistent and professional level of live streaming quality graphic conte
More from Screen Africa
30/04/2020
-- --
The 14th South African Film & Television Awards (SAFTAs) ceremony was held on social media platform, across Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in an effo...
01/04/2020
-- --
South Africa's local film and television industry has been severely impacted by Covid-19 and a number of productions have been haltered not to m...
31/03/2020
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
When it comes to the storage of media assets (or any data, for that matter), whether it's online or up on the cloud, ...
31/03/2020
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
Written by Jerome Wauthoz, vice president of products, Tedial
The cloud has had a major impact on broadcast workflows, wi...
31/03/2020
-- --
Facebook
Twitter
Google
Pinterest
-- --...
31/03/2020
Dorothy Ghettuba
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
Netflix premiered its first script-to-screen African original production, Queen Sono, on 28 February. C...
31/03/2020
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
In a market where there is only uncertainty, and where many industries have already collapsed, as businesses face ruin and...
30/03/2020
-- --
Everyday various sectors across our continent are adjusting and finding ways to deal with challenges brought about by the current coronavirus pandem...
30/03/2020
-- --
On 28 March, Patrick Zuchowicki, president of DISCOP markets, announced the postponement of DISCOP's 2020 African markets. With much regret, I ...
27/03/2020
--
-- --
In Rage, Showmax's first Original horror movie, a group of school-leavers descend on a tiny coastal town for a celebration of their freedo...
27/03/2020
Carol Coetzee,KZNFC CEO
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
This year marks five years since the inception of the KwaZulu-Natal Film Commission (KZNFC). We s...
27/03/2020
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
Currently screening on Afrikaans lifestyle channel VIA (DStv 147), new South African TV show Trap! Dis My Huis - co-prese...
26/03/2020
-- --
Botswana-based wildlife filmmakers, Dereck and Beverly Joubert's film Okavango won five awards at the 2020 New York Cinematography Awards (NYCA)...
26/03/2020
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
Sometimes it feels like there might be something in the water. By that, I refer to the experience when you find yourself o...
25/03/2020
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
In a changing broadcast environment, where streaming of content directly to the viewer is becoming the new norm, the need ...
25/03/2020
-- --
XenData, a global provider of data storage solutions, announces its new Multi-Site Sync service for cloud object storage which creates a global file...
24/03/2020
--
-- --
On-set at DP Alan Stockdale's latest colorful music video:
Atomos' Shogun 7 monitor-recorder was used to enhance the amazing capabili...
24/03/2020
-- --
IABM, the international association for broadcast and media technolo...
23/03/2020
-- --
The Independent Producers Organisation (IPO) executive committee recently issued a statement with regards to COVID-19 and current developments withi...
23/03/2020
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese is a self-taught filmmaker and visual artist from Lesotho, now based in Berlin. His film Mother, ...
20/03/2020
Cape Town International Film Market & Festival 2017
-- --
The ninth Cape Town International Animation Festival (CTIAF) has been postponed to 24 to 27 Apr...
19/03/2020
-- --
The Durban FilmMart has announced a new partnership with Talents Dur...
18/03/2020
-- --
The world of entertainment is changing rapidly. Increased access to fibre to the home, as well as a growing number of content creators and video-on-...
18/03/2020
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
Written by Andreas Jacobi, CEO and co-founder of Make.TV a division of LTN Global
The South African TV market continu...
18/03/2020
-- --
The organisers of the Media Production & Technology Show have announced the postponement of the 2020 event as a result of the spread of COVID-19.
...
17/03/2020
-- --
Exactly a month since its development announcement of the EOS R5 - a full frame mirrorless camera built on the revolutionary EOS R System - Canon In...
17/03/2020
-- --
The world of entertainment is changing rapidly. Increased access to fibre to the home, as well as a growing number of content creators and video-on-...
16/03/2020
-- --
Facebook
Twitter
Google
Pinterest
-- --...
16/03/2020
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
In an effort to increase awareness and un...
16/03/2020
-- --
Discovery Inc has appointed Clare O' Neil as their commercial director for Discovery in Africa. O' Neil's focus will be on driving comme...
16/03/2020
-- --
RapidLion - The South African International Film Festival awarded 16 winners at its 2020 awards ceremony which took place on Saturday, 14 March in J...
16/03/2020
-- --
The National Film & Video Foundation have announced that the 2020 SAFTAs ceremony will not go ahead as planned.
In light of the announcement made ...
12/03/2020
-- --
The 2020 edition of the annual NAB Show, which was scheduled to run this April in Las Vegas, has been cancelled due to concerns over the spread of c...
11/03/2020
-- --
At what will be the first major public appearance following the announcement of Black Dragon Capital's intent to acquire Grass Valley, at NAB Sh...
11/03/2020
-- --
In response to the coronavirus outbreak, media technology leader Avid has announced its decision to cancel participation in all trade conferences an...
10/03/2020
-- --
The World Literacy Foundation and the Vizrt Group have announced an ...
10/03/2020
-- --
At NAB Show 2020, EditShare, through workflow demonstrations and theatre presentations, will showcase how their scale-out shared storage and collabo...
09/03/2020
Leanne Mostert, Webber Wentzel
-- --
Written by Leanne Mostert, Bernadette Versfeld, Tim Ball, Carla Collett, Cameron MacKenzie from Webber Wentzel
The ...
09/03/2020
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
A year after announcing Cartoon Network A...
09/03/2020
Charlene Govender, Sasani Studios
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
Screen Africa chats to Charlene Govender of Sasani Studios about how increased investm...
06/03/2020
-- --
On 5 March, in the attendance of the Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture, Nathi Mthethwa and Eastern Cape Premier Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane, the East...
04/03/2020
-- --
The streaming media industry is now entering a new era, as major launches and acquisitions carve out a global landscape for 2020 and beyond. US Dire...
04/03/2020
TVU MediaMind
-- --
TVU Networks, a global technology and innovation leader in live IP solutions and Technology and Engineering Emmy Award winner, will ...
04/03/2020
Image credit: University of Edinburgh
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
When is technology development ever going to slow down? Just when you thought that...
04/03/2020
-- --
In a world that is fast-paced and ever-evolving, remaining the same is not an option. This seems to be the mantra that South Africa's number one...
03/03/2020
-- --
For more than 50 years the world's most successful broadcasters have relied on Calrec. They still do. As our industry adapts to new viewing habi...
02/03/2020
-- --
On 27 February, Netflix announced that it will increase its investment in Nigeria's creative community with the production of its first African ...
02/03/2020
Generation Z (Source: Pexels.com)
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
Standing at the beginning of a new year in a new decade is exciting. This new decade, i...
02/03/2020
-- --
SCREEN AFRICA EXCLUSIVE:
It's not a secret that the issue of land redistribution remains a contentious and highly emotional subject in post-Ap...
28/02/2020
--
-- --
More than half of the catalogue of TV shows and movies on Showmax, whether measured in hours or number of episodes, is now local content. This...