Planar, a global leader in visualization technology, and sister company OptiTrack, the worldwide leader in 3D tracking systems, have joined other industry leaders and SMPTE®, the home of media professionals, technologists and engineers, to form The Advisory Group of the On-Set Virtual Production (OSVP) Initiative.
This initiative is the first project within the society’s new Rapid Industry Solution (RIS) program.
SMPTE’s commitment to providing tools, standards and education on emerging technologies requires the society to operate with greater agility in responding to technology challenges. Planar and OptiTrack are proud to take part in SMPTE’s new initiative for the RIS program, which is focused on creating a portfolio of essential tools that can help the industry tackle the complexities of OSVP, including the development and curation of knowledge resources.
The companies’ participation follows the launch of Planar Studios in June of 2021. The initiative combines the advanced technologies, industry partnerships and personnel customers require to create realistic in-screen content for today’s ever-expanding virtual production (VP) and extended reality (XR) applications.
“The success of the On-Set Virtual Production Initiative hinges upon the expertise and support of a wide range of technology and thought leaders,” explained Hans Hoffmann, SMPTE president and head of media fundamentals and production at the EBU. “For this reason, SMPTE has established an Advisory Group drawing from emerging technology companies, traditional production users, manufacturers, educational institutions and professional organizations. We are so thankful to have the best minds in the industry to assess the challenges, establish our goals and deliver a fast-track response,” Hoffmann continued.
The key goal of the RIS OSVP Advisory Group is to establish interoperability, training, workflows, best practices and a unifying common language to smooth collaboration, building on whichever formats the creative industry chooses to leverage. SMPTE underwent in-depth discussions with groups and individuals in all aspects of the OSVP pipeline to uncover several hurdles that are currently preventing many from deploying these new content creation technologies.
Planar and OptiTrack’s participation in the Advisory Group allows both companies to have a voice at the table, helping review, recommend and guide the outputs from the group. As global industry leaders bringing decades of unmatched on-camera video wall display and optical tracking technology expertise, Planar and OptiTrack are well positioned to contribute to the two main goals of the initiative: enabling systems interoperability and training at all levels.
“Planar and OptiTrack are excited to be building a framework for the On-Set Virtual Production Initiative with SMPTE,” said Executive Vice President Adam Schmidt. “LED video walls and motion capture technology represent key components of today’s virtual studios and together, Planar and OptiTrack bring more than 60 years of experience delivering best-in-class display and optical tracking technologies. We look forward to collaborating with this impressive group of industry leaders and seeing what we can help establish to support future VP applications.”
Planar and OptiTrack will also work with SMPTE to produce training at all levels, building on SMPTE’s longstanding expertise in technical education. The companies will help develop unique offerings for general education, professional development, technology training and business planning and scheduling, with emphasis on applicability to the real world, drawing on Planar’s established leadership in LED video wall technology and on-camera broadcast studio installations as well as OptiTrack’s position as the largest motion capture provider in the world.
About SMPTE®
SMPTE is the global society of media professionals, technologists, and engineers working in the digital entertainment industry. The Society fosters a diverse and engaged membership from both the technology and creative communities, delivering vast educational offerings, technical conferences and exhibitions, the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal, and access to a rich network of colleagues essential to their career success. As an internationally recognized standards organization, SMPTE also provides a vital technical framework of engineering standards and guidelines that allow the seamless creation, management, and delivery of media for art, entertainment, and education worldwide.
About Planar
Planar is a global leader in visualization technology, delivering best-in-class image performance for the world’s most demanding environments. From broadcasters and government agencies to corporations, sporting venues and educational facilities, the world’s leading organizations use Planar’s broad selection of display solutions in applications ranging from digital signage and simulation to large scale events and large-scale visualization. Planar is the global market leader for LED video displays, narrow pixel pitch LED and the indoor LED video wall market (Futuresource 2021). Founded in 1983, Planar is headquartered in Oregon, USA with offices and manufacturing facilities in Oregon, Europe and Asia.
About OptiTrack
OptiTrack is the worldwide leader in 3D tracking systems through its 3D precision, low latency output, easy to use workflows, as well as a host of developer tools. Serving primary markets in drone and ground robot tracking, movement sciences, virtual production and character animation for film and games as well as virtual reality (VR) or mixed reality (XR) tracking, it remains the most widely used tracking solution on earth and is the favorite of world leading academia research and professional teams whose requirements are the most demanding in the world.
About the On-Set Virtual Production Initiative, A Rapid Industry Solution, Facilitated by SMPTE
SMPTE’s mission has always been to bring together members of the Media and Entertainment industry, providing tools, standards and education on emerging technologies. Building on SMPTE’s commitment to meet industry needs, we understand that today’s environment requires us to operate in an agile manner as well as be responsive to the diverse perspectives in our industry. Our outreach to key ecosystem stakeholders revealed a strong desire for SMPTE’s help in solving industry problems in a rapid timeframe. Based on this guidance, we have responded with a new initiative, the Rapid Industry Solutions (RIS), and the first RIS project is focused on the complexities of on-set Virtual Production.
