Virtual Set & Augmented Graphics Transform News Programming CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY: FIRST COAST NEWS CASE STUDY

Virtual Set & Augmented Graphics Transform News Programming CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY: FIRST COAST NEWS CASE STUDY

CHYRONHEGO S ADVANCED VIRTUAL GRAPHICS TRANSFORM NEWS PROGRAMMING As the NBC affiliate serving the Jacksonville, Florida market, Tegna Media station, First Coast News, is committed to staying on the leading edge of production technologies to tell a more compelling story, keep viewers engaged, and expand market share. 2

A NEED TO LOOK DIFFERENT There just doesn t seem like that much innovation happening in most U.S. newscasts, says Rob Mennie, president and general manager of First Coast News. Motivated by a need to ramp up for a major sports highlight program, he and his staff wanted to do something different with the look of their coverage and provide exciting content for their viewers. I think in the news business we got to the point that every story was told the same way. We wanted to do something big and different. In sports, especially, there s an opportunity to take a bit more risk. We turned to ChyronHego to offer some possibilities. Not all stories are the same. This helps us tell the story, it helps us explain the story, it helps us show the story. We can use bigger images. We can use bolder images. We can change images more often. We can do things we ve never been able to do before. ROB MENNIE President & General Manager of First Coast News in Jacksonville, Florida To bring new levels of excitement to news and sports broadcasts at First Coast News, ChyronHego proposed an innovative solution: the award-winning augmented reality (AR) and virtual set software solution, Plutonium, paired with the StarTracker in-studio optical camera tracking system from Mo-Sys Engineering Ltd. 3

RAMPING UP FAST FOR THE LONG TERM ChyronHego came up with this solution very quickly, and within a week we were up and running with it on a daily basis to produce our Rio games program on a virtual set, says Victor Murphy, director of technology at First Coast News. It really seemed like magic, something no one else had seen before. I would hazard to say that our presentation was unlike any other on a U.S. sports broadcast. Mennie comments, We had a team of ChyronHego people on-site to get us through the first week of the show, and they were a tremendous help not just to show us how the system works, but to suggest different ideas and approaches for tailoring it to our own production. The virtual set solution was a success right from the beginning, and we now use it in every show, morning, noon, and night. The virtual set and augmented graphics system was new to the First Coast News staff, but the talent quickly learned to navigate around in the green screen environment. We have a group of people here who that have embraced it. We use it everyday, we use it in every show so we ve developed muscle memory, so we don t have to worry about how to use the tool so much anymore, but how to use the tool to tell a better story. Murphy stated. 4

SEAMLESS WORKFLOW & EASY TO USE The ChyronHego virtual graphics tools have proven to be very easy to use for all members of the crew. From the producers to the on-air talent, the staff has embraced the solution as a normal piece of their storytelling workflow, and they use the tools to design augmented reality pieces to help convey sports, news, and sales elements. They re able to incorporate the creative elements for shows, expand the look of their studio by running multiple, virtual sets. Right away we were able to come up with some very clean, sharp, and stylized sets with AR graphics that we could turn on and off and because the system is so logical, we re able to then modify it ourselves, says Mennie. Murphy adds, Our anchors and reporters have really taken to the new technology. Very quickly, they got comfortable in front of the green screen and learned how to gesture and refer to virtual elements that aren t really there. Even our most inexperienced crew were able to start working effectively with the system right away. Our news directors love the tool so much that they ve started to see how far they can push it, and it s even become a recruiting tool for expanding our engineering staff. 5

ENTHRALLING AUDIENCES WITH COMPELLING CONTENT Since adopting the ChyronHego virtual studio and AR graphics solution, First Coast News has seen a marked uptick in audience enthusiasm for its news and sports broadcasts. Notes Mennie, People tell us that our shows just look different they re not stale or boring. We re breaking through the noise with our audience, and viewers have become enamored of the interesting visuals that reinforce the story. It s a far cry from the traditional model of an anchor sitting behind a desk with a skyline background. 6

Virtual graphics have become a featured component of almost every newscast and they produce several shows each day. They create augmented graphics elements like virtual football helmets coming out of the ground for a football update story. They ll have a virtual school bus drive right onto the set as part of their regular morning news update. The ChyronHego virtual graphics solution helps First Coast News tell their stories in a more significant way. Mennie comments, Like a lot of news organizations, we had reached a point where we were telling every story in the same way. The ChryonHego virtual studio and AR graphics tools have allowed us to break out of that mold now we re not just giving the news, but we can actually explain and show the story in a really meaningful way. We feel like we ve broken new ground not just for our station but for the market. ChyronHego has put the fun back in television again! 7

ABOUT CHYRONHEGO ChyronHego, a portfolio company of Vector Capital, is a global leader in products, services, and solutions for the broadcast and sports industries. Specializing in live television, news, and sports production, ChyronHego offers some of the industry's most widely deployed solutions including Lyric, the world's most popular broadcast graphics creation and playout offering; the all-new CAMIO Universe newsroom workflow; and TRACAB Optical Tracking, the global leader in optical sports tracking systems as well as Click Effects, the most proven and versatile stadium broadcast family of graphics products. Headquartered in Melville, New York, ChyronHego also has offices in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. CONTACT SALES AND SCHEDULE A DEMO @ NORTH AMERICA +1.631.845.2000 EMEA +46 8 534 88 300 LATIN AMERICA +1.305.972.1396 ASIA/PACIFIC +65.64071330 JOIN THE CONVERSATION ONLINE WITH CHYRONHEGO @ For more information on ChyronHego, visit www.chyronhego.com. www.chyronhego.com Copyright 2018 ChyronHego Corporation. All rights reserved. ChyronHego is a trademark of ChyronHego Corporation. All other tradenames referenced are service marks, trademarks, or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications subject to change without notice.