The Shanghai Media Group (SMG), one of China’s largest media organizations, has adopted Virtual Placement, ChyronHego’s industry-leading tool for incorporating striking virtual graphics into live broadcasts. SMG is using Virtual Placement to strengthen its brand presence and create new revenue opportunities during its broadcasts of Super League games of the Chinese Football Association.
   

“Virtual Placement is the industry’s most sophisticated tool for placing eye-catching virtual graphics within a program that not only grab the viewer’s attention but enrich the acute nature of visual storytelling. When we looked for tools that could help us build our on-air brand and grow our viewership, we knew Virtual Placement would be ideal,” said Yang Chao, design director, Shanghai Media Group. “Because Virtual Placement is so easy for our operators to maintain and use, it’s opening up many different types of new advertising and revenue opportunities. It’s our first ChyronHego product, but it won’t be our last.”

Generally deployed in SMG’s outside broadcast trucks, the company has used Virtual Placement to create virtual elements for its live production to include product placement, advertising, scores, and sponsor logo graphics.

Virtual Placement uses advanced image-processing algorithms to analyze incoming camera movements in real time and add robust, tied-to-surface virtual graphics to live productions without the need for a specialist operator, expensive camera sensors, or lengthy calibration processes. Virtual Placement’s Scene Tracking feature makes it possible to place virtual elements into a live scene to make them look physically real and in harmony with the environment into which they are projected. The solution is easy to learn and operate, and it can be used to augment practically any live broadcast scenario with virtual objects — from physical studio sets to much larger scenes such as sports arenas, racetracks, or landscapes.

“Just like broadcasters throughout the Asia-Pacific, SMG is looking to generate more revenues in an increasingly competitive environment. That means engaging and exciting viewers who expect ever-greater sophistication in their graphics and programming,” said Ivy Wee, vice president of sales, Asia-Pacific, ChyronHego. “At SMG, Virtual Placement is a powerful tool for amplifying the company brand and grabbing the audience’s attention through realistic virtual elements, which creates even greater potential for advertising placement revenue.”