ViacomCBS was looking for a more efficient way to do production, and Sony’s browser-based remote production offering was the perfect solution
and inserting graphics and captions are performed through a browser, with no need for OB vans or broadcast uplink services. The service has capacity for up to six cameras or other input sources, with three simultaneous RTMP outputs that make it easy to stream to any URL or to multiple online outlets like YouTube Live, Facebook Live and Twitch. Its professional live graphics capability can integrate with Singular.live graphics, which can be controlled directly from within the Virtual Production browser. Virtual Production also accommodates easy audio commentary input, with the ability to make commentary directly from a laptop via the browser. Intercom functionality includes a simple ‘push and hold to talk’ control, with ‘speak to all’ and ‘speak to individual’ options and also enables intercom/tally direct to Android phones. Before Sony Virtual Production, ViacomCBS was saddled with typical production infrastructure and even more small productions, which meant taking OB trucks or flyaway PPU kits to every location. These were usually accompanied by thousands of metres of cable for video and for data – cables that all needed to be tested on-site.
eople say that virtual production came of age in 2020. But the truth is, it had already come of age long before – it was just waiting for the rest of us to catch up.
When Covid hit, productions were forced to move their teams into their homes and radically restrict production crews. Virtual production technologies were already waiting in the wings to help companies do this, sometimes with remarkably little friction. “Virtual production has caused a bit of excitement within ViacomCBS,” says ViacomCBS’s lead system engineer, Matt Okotie. “Everybody is talking about it at the moment. Their brains are exploding at the possibility of what we could do with this.” ViacomCBS has embraced the Sony Virtual Production system as an opportunity to completely overhaul how it does production and to establish lighter, cheaper and greener production workflows. Sony Virtual Production is an on-demand service, powered by Amazon Web Services, that allows cloud-based switching of cameras, captioning and control of comments from a laptop or digital device. As a SaaS offering, users only pay for what they use. With an entirely browser-based interface, switching cameras and smartphones, audio mixing
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