C2S Nigeria, the African office of WTS Group based in Lagos, has supplied AIT News with a new virtual-set studio and graphics system for their 24-hour news TV channel on the Daar Sat Platform in Nigeria.
The contract included a graphics package, virtual-set studio design, equipment upgrade and operator-training. The project was started and completed within months, seeing some of the most advanced news and graphics technology currently available implemented in the system.
AIT approached C2S Nigeria, a well-known broadcast equipment supplier and system integrator, to upgrade their existing news studio in Abuja to HD. More than just an upgrade, a sophisticated graphics system was conceived to provide four “corners’ for the studio, which would be dedicated to news, finance, sports and weather coverage. The system was designed to run on templates driven by a central database, enabling operators to air current news, as it happens, in a more automated, immediate and visually sophisticated way.
The main equipment used in the studio install came from Orad. The BlueSet package was upgraded for its easy to use, plug-and play capacity, working with Orad’s graphics asset management product, Maestro. 3DPlay was used for channel branding and stings, supported by three HDVG+’s for rendering. With HDVG+, 3DPlay can render up to 12 inputs and perform perfect real-time DVE effects based on templates. Graphics, ID branding, and virtual-set design for the studio were supplied by wTVision.
Rotem Cohen, Business Development manager at C2S Nigeria comments:
“The key to the new system was its implementation. We upgraded AIT to make the absolute best of the virtual-set technology, and by using a central database the entire process is now automated, rendering time is minimal to non-existent and graphics are continuously available for TX. For that to happen, the system had to be seamless.
“Using Orad’s graphics products to build the system has meant that AIT benefits from sophistication of hardware, a seamlessly networked system, ease of use for operators and real wow-factor set and graphics provided by wTVision. Much of AIT’s previous hardware was from ORAD, so the broadcaster also received cost benefits by upgrading, through equipment trade-in for the new, more advanced technology. The result is a news channel that stands up to highest-grade performance and which we are very proud to have been a part of.’
Managing director at AIT, Oluwatosin Dokpesi, adds, “We have a long-standing relationship with C2S and WTS, Rotem Cohen was involved in supply for our original studio, so it was a natural decision to use them for the upgrade. We have invested in ORAD equipment in the past, and their powerful technology meets all our needs for automation and graphics, so we are very happy. We were very ambitious for the upgrade, and the work has definitely paid off.’
The studio is already operational with operator training by C2S Nigeria currently underway.
