Al Jazeera delivers stunning election graphics across entire network with Astucemedia and Vizrt

posted:

01/12/2016

Al Jazeera turned voting-data into compelling storytelling to help viewers at home get a better understanding of election results.

As part of its live coverage of this year’s U.S. Presidential race, Al Jazeera Media Network provided viewers with up-to-the-second voting results. The results were visualized by an integrated data analytics and real-time graphics rendering solution from Astucemedia and Vizrt. The solution allows broadcasters to take real-time voting data and easily turn it into compelling on-screen graphics to help viewers at home get a better understanding of election results.

The Astucemedia and Vizrt graphics solution was used network wide for the U.S. Elections by live programs produced for Al Jazeera Arabic, Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Mubasher and Al Jazeera Balkans. The results were displayed in English, Arabic and Serbo-Croatian.

Al Jazeera’s Decision Desk was broadcast from the network’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar. Leveraging the speed and flexibility of the Astucemedia/Vizrt solution, special templates were set up to automatically retrieve the data and display fully rendered 3D graphics in real-time on the various channels the Al Jazeera Media Network serves. Producers used the Astucemedia US Election Data Platform web interface to monitor and manage live results data from the Associated Press (AP). The platform also allowed Al Jazeera to analyze the live data to make their own editorial calls on projections for the state race and published the same data to Aljazeera’s web-site.

“The speed and flexibility of this joint real-time 3D graphics solution allowed Al Jazeera’s staff to get results to the screen faster and more efficiently,” said François Laborie, Chief Commercial Officer at Vizrt. “With graphics templates designed to automatically retrieve the data and display it on the various platforms Al Jazeera staff had the option to make early projections if needed or wait for the official AP winner projections and results.”

In addition to the on-screen graphics and charts, the Astucemedia/Vizrt solution also drove Al Jazeera’s on-set video walls in their studios and facilitated augmented reality (AR) graphics to represent the House and Senate races. The AR graphics were created using tracking from Motion Analysis, the Astucemedia Election Data Platform, and the Viz Virtual Studio software package from Vizrt.

“The solution is so elegant because Astucemedia plugins run seamlessly inside the Viz Engine to ease the flow of live data into attractive graphics in Vizrt and also for mobile and web , but also provide this enhanced middle-layer between AP and Vizrt” said Alexandre Leclerc, CEO at Astucemedia. “We’ve worked with Vizrt on other projects and have had immense success on the creative and technical aspect. We saw the same during Al Jazeera Network’s coverage of the U.S. Presidential Election Night.”

About Astucemedia:
Astucemedia is a pioneer in real-time broadcast graphics design and data integration. Its innovative Astucemedia Data Management Platform integrates real-time data from multiple vendors of finance, social, sports, weather, news, and election data into a unified workflow. Its robust, dependable API adapts data-driven graphics to real-time broadcast graphic systems, web and mobile application. Astucemedia’s world-class graphics design and creative services enliven data integration, interactive graphics, augmented reality, and channel branding. Astucemedia’s global customer base includes: ABC News, Al Jazeera Network, BeIN Sport, Fox Sports, CBS, Fusion, CBC, SRC, TFO, Sky News Arabia, MBC Al Arabiya, Abu Dhabi TV, Saudi TV, Al Ekhbariya, Bahrain TV, Thomson Reuters, TF1, RTS, AVA, TV5, TRT World, among other high-profile media and entertainment companies.

About Vizrt:
Vizrt provides real-time 3D graphics, video playout, studio automation, sports analysis, journalist story tools, and asset management tools for the media and entertainment industry. This includes interactive and virtual solutions, animations, maps, weather, social media, video editing, compositing, and multiplatform VOD and live playout tools. Vizrt has customers in more than 100 countries worldwide including CNN, CBS, Fox, BBC, BSkyB, Sky Sports, CBS Sports, Fox Sports, Al Jazeera, NDR, ITN, ZDF, Star TV, Network 18, TV Today, CCTV, NHK and the list keeps growing. Vizrt has nearly 600 employees and operates in 40 offices worldwide. Vizrt is a privately owned company by Nordic Capital Fund VIII.