Remember when we wrote about the International Broadcast Conference and how successful was the Evolution of the Control Room session? Guess what? Our project won and we couldn’t be prouder.
The IBC Accelerator Media Innovation Programme has announced the ‘Evolution of the Control Room’ as the winner of the 2024 Project of the Year Award. The award, judged by media professionals, was announced at the Accelerator programme’s Kickstart Day at BBC Broadcasting House on February 12th.
This winning project combined two separate proposals to explore the future of live production control rooms. It delved into technical innovations and raised broader industry questions about workflows, architectures, and control systems. The project’s research and development was divided into two streams: TRANSMIXR’s proposal investigated XR, AI, and voice control within the control room, while TV2 Denmark and BBC’s proposal focused on modular, HTML-based graphics solutions.
At IBC2024, we showcased several proof-of-concepts, including a customizable, virtual control room for XR headsets; AI tools for news gathering, analysis, and reporting; AI-powered voice control for live production (both in XR and traditional environments); voice-activated automation for presenters; XR studio solutions with live volumetric video for multi-format distribution; and a comprehensive HTML-based graphics workflow supporting multi-platform delivery.
From TRANSMIXR, Grace Dinan, TUS Senior Virtual Production Broadcast Specialist, shares “TRANSMIXR proposed the exploration of XR and AI-driven solutions to optimise live media production workflows, including AI assistants, AI agents and natural language processing for interaction with studio automation systems and rundowns. Building on our IBC2023 PoCs for XR control rooms, this year we integrated AI-driven solutions into our virtual gallery, to source, analyse and report breaking news stories, and explored interaction with connected software and devices leveraging NLP voice control. Collaborating with our IBC Accelerator team was invaluable for TRANSMIXR, with additional expertise, access to cutting-edge software and top broadcast facilities to demonstrate the potential of XR and AI to evolve media production workflows and enhance multi-format delivery. We’re delighted to win the Project of the Year award. It’s a testament to the hard work and dedication of the entire team, and shows that our goals are aligned with industry needs in a rapidly evolving broadcast landscape.”
And who is the team behind this technological project? Well, it takes a village, as they say. The Evolution of a control room team includes our TRANSMIXR partners TUS, Trinity College Dublin, HSLU Lucerne University, with support from TG4, webLyzard Technology, StoryPact, CERTH, and other cool teams from partnerships we made along the away: Google, BBC, ITN, TV2 Danmark, YLE, EBU, Channel 4, Vodafone, Al Jazeera Media Networks, SVT, Tinkerlist, NxtEdition, SPX Graphics, Cuepilot, Loopic, Erizos.TV and the European project XRECO. Our partner EBU was part of the HTML graphics workstream.
We are very proud of our achievement and motivated to do even more. Knowing that there’s still much more to come, we challenge you to stay connected for further developments.
