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Blackmagic Design announced that Sky News UK has integrated a series of Ultimatte 12 compositing processors and an Ultimatte Smart Remote 4 to produce dynamic virtual studio segments for its award winning 24 hour rolling news cycle, in particular for its ‘Sunrise’ breakfast programming.

The installation forms part of a major relocation project, which saw the news broadcaster move to new, state of the art studio facilities within Sky Campus in West London. “Our key aim was not only to retain the extremely high quality production values that Sky News is renown for, but also to ensure that we were able to create depth, scale and variety when presenting news output,” explains Ben Wickham, head of studio output, Sky News.



The three walled greenscreen takes up around half of the studio, and is predominantly used for Sky News’ virtual news studio, built within a highly realistic 3D VR environment. Within the virtual set, a video wall can be deployed for welcome sequences, lead item discussions, correspondent reports, sports bulletins and weather forecasts.

Ben explains that this is where the cleanness of Ultimatte’s keying and spill suppression come into their own: “As well as a range of different presenters’ hair colors, skin tones and clothing, it has to deal with changes in camera angle, and greenspill from the three walls on presenters’ heads and shoes. The Ultimatte’s real time edge handling and color separation means that we can always be confident of the results on screen, no matter how many different VR studio slots we have in the running order.”

News programming in the studio is captured by five cameras, including two dedicated VR units; one on a jib and a pedestal unit operated remotely from the gallery. “Our VR elements have to be as flexible as possible, so we can cut between our VR camera signals and also transition between the virtual set and the presenters’ desk in the other half of the studio,” continues Ben. “The integration between studio set and VR cameras has to be seamless.”



Sky News is already expanding its use of VR with Ultimatte 12 with enhancements to its editorial news elements, for example, creating a series of real life locations to recreate timelines of key news events. “Often we simply can’t film in these locations live, as they may still be an active crime scene, however by constructing a virtual recreation, we can have a presenter walk through the scene, giving the story an added dimension,” explains Ben.

“We chose Ultimatte 12 primarily because its precision, wide color space and real time image processing would match Sky News’ rigorous demands for production excellence at all times,” Ben concludes. “It’s critical that any VR elements we introduce into our studio productions retain as much authenticity as possible. Ultimatte’s flexibility, combined with high quality VR builds ensures that viewers will continue to turn to the channel as a reliable and information news source.”

Press Photography
Product photos of all Blackmagic Design products, are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/press/images.

About Blackmagic Design
Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com.

This software update improves performance of the redundant inputs for Mini Converter SDI to HDMI 6G as well as general performance and stability improvements for a range of Mini Converter models.

Sound Devices has expanded its groundbreaking MixPre Series to introduce two new models – the MixPre-3M and MixPre-6M – powerful multitrack audio recorders with built-in USB audio interface. Designed specifically for musicians, the ultra-portable M-Series record up to 12-tracks of studio-grade audio (up to 96kHz/24-bit) and integrate features like overdub, track laying, punch in/out, bounce, reverb, vocal air, and metronome.

Available now, the MixPre-3M and MixPre-6M are the newest members of the versatile MixPre M-Series for music creators and performers. The M-Series models feature Sound Devices’ world-class Kashmir™ mic preamps and ultra-low-noise A-to-D architecture — offering the tone and warmth of analog recordings desired by all musicians and audiophiles. The M-Series can also stream multiple channels of audio via USB to a computer, which is ideal for music composers working with a DAW.

Although musicians can find countless ways to use a MixPre-3M or MixPre-6M, a few of the common uses include:

• Track-laying and overdubbing a multi-layered song without a DAW
• Premium-quality USB audio interface for any DAW and "DAWless" setup
• Streamlined tracking-to-editing workflow in a DAW
• Mixing and recording small ensemble live performance
• Playback of multichannel pre-recorded backing tracks
• Recording live events, concerts, and band rehearsals

The M-Series’ musician-friendly, touch-screen interface lets musicians quickly get vocal melodies, instrumental hooks, and rhythms down. Use the built-in reverb and vocal air effects to easily add character to the sound of instruments and vocals. The bounce feature can be used to free up tracks to allow the layering of more instruments or for rendering in effects. After laying and overdubbing tracks, musicians can mix their song using dedicated knobs to control levels, pans, solos, and mutes. Render recordings for uploading to website/social media, sharing with band members or exporting to a DAW for further production.

Connect instruments and/or mics via the XLR/TRS inputs or the Aux in connector. Featuring a digital patchbay, any of the physical inputs, including USB, can be conveniently routed to any track, eliminating the need to plug and re-plug inputs just to record to a different track. The built-in metronome can also be selected as an input, so users can record its click to a discrete track.



Sound Devices has also released a Musician Plugin: for 99 USD, the Musician Plugin adds all the musician-inspired features of the M-Series, including overdub, punch in/out, track laying, bounce, reverb, vocal air, and metronome. The plugin can be purchased from Sound Devices’ new online store (store.sounddevices.com) and applied to MixPre-3, MixPre-6 and MixPre-10T models.

This update adds initial support for OpenFX plugins on the Fusion page, improves resizing of images with an alpha channel and adds support for tint, temperature and exposure controls for Canon RAW clips, as well as the ability to add filters to clips with Fusion effects. DaVinci Resolve 15 Public Studio Beta 5 adds new Python scripting APIs, addresses issues with automatic audio synchronization, loss of the first frame of audio playback, dynamic trimming reliability, video output from the Fusion page, LUT browser refreshes and dozens of additional stability and performance improvements.

Panasonic’s next-generation PTZ camera supports high-quality video production in stadium, lecture halls and other venues. Smooth and high-quality UHD (3840 x 2160) 60p/50p, high-magnification zoom and a wide shooting angle expand the range of the PTZ camera’s applications. The camera is equipped with a variety of interfaces (incl. 12G-SDI and Optical Fiber) and supports simultaneous 4K/HD operation which allows for versatility in current and future production systems. Available Q4/218.