The broadcast, which, as its name implies, serves Scotland, originates from Studio C at BBC Scotland headquarters in Pacific Quay, Glasgow.

The basic concept and layout of the space follows the general look and feel of Studio B at the broadcaster’s London Broadcasting House headquarters that has also been replicated at select regional studios — with more slated to come online in the future.

All of the regional versions have been significantly smaller than the London set and have a similar flexible design consisting of three seamless video walls, one of which is wider than the other two, a freestanding LED tower on one side of the space and a seating area situated in the opposite corner.

Set Design

BBC Reporting Scotland

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“BBC Reporting Scotland” has a slightly larger studio with a wider rear wall. It also has an anchor desk, as opposed to a sofa-style seating setup in one corner.

Like its sister sets, the space’s various video surfaces are used for news, weather and sports reporting.

The tower can be used as both a news standup location with other reports originating from the desk. It also doubles as a sports standup location, while weather is delivered from the center portion of the rear video wall, much like at the other studios.

There is also the option to use the tower and other video walls for additional standups.

Created by Jago Design, who also created the original London studio, the space also leverages more on-camera moves that allow it to take better advantage of the dynamic video walls and tower.

AV integration was provided by Anna Valley.

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New PIX 11 graphics draw inspiration from angular logo

The new set is part of an overhaul of the station’s editorial and production facilities on the second floor of its 220 East 42nd Street building. Other updates include a new newsroom, control room and new graphics.

The new set, from FX Design Group, plays into the station’s “New York’s Very Own” tagline (adapted from sister station WGN’s longtime “Chicago’s Very Own” slogan), with nods to notable parts of the city ranging from below ground to soaring skyscrapers.

References to New York subway stations’ historic mosaics and tile work appear in various places throughout the space, typically as more of an accent, while strong backlit verticals outline the set’s structure while also drawing the eye upward, much like many of the towering buildings throughout the city.

One expanse uses 26 Phillips 65-inch LCD panels to create tbe illusion of floor-to-ceiling windows that can be filled with cityscapes and other looks.

In the center of this is a tower of 1.8mm seamless LED panels from Neoti, creating a separate graphical canvas directly behind the anchor two-shot in this position.

This unit can be used to show another view of the city or topical or branded graphics.

The main anchor desk features a curved center fronted with 1.6mm curved Neoti panels and two small movable segments with vertical banding that can breakaway from the desk to be used as standalone lecterns.

The set is full of flexibility that allows the station to produce a variety of segments, ranging from hard news to lifestyle, as part of its heavily locally-produced programming schedule. Options include demonstration desks, a curved sofa or bar-style stools.

There are also numerous 1.5mm Neoti seamless panels used to create additional video wall venues throughout the space, including one in the middle of the weather center.

Forecasters can present from a long desk positioned in front of the video wall or, after the camera zooms in and booms up, step closer to the LED array to present the forecast in a more traditional style with the blocking showing nothing but the LED and graphics on it.

Despite looking like a traditional green screen setup, this shot is actually done in front of a seamless video wall in the center of the weather space.

Above the weather center is a 20-foot Neoti LED ticker that can be used to showcase current conditions from around the region in wide shots. Meanwhile, a backlit header element wraps around much of the set at the same level as the LED ribbon, reinforcing the structural outline of the space. 

The weather area also includes a column clad in LED panels that can be used to display, among other elements, vertical imagery such as the State of Liberty or Empire State Building.

Tucked off to one side of the weather presentation space is a workspace for forecasters, which includes multiple horizontal video walls and glass wall separating from the rest of the studio.

Additional technology includes a 98-inch Planar QE9850T touchscreen that can be used for traffic, both in standup-style or directly from camera left of the anchor desk’s primary position plus 49-inch and 86-inch eye candy panels, all of which were integrated by Digital Video Group.

WPIX-TV

Overall, the new set is a significant update for PIX11, which had been using a rather small set that had been refreshed and tweaked numerous times over the years.

A TvOne Corio Master Scaler is used to handle the multipurpose video wall, allowing the station to showcase multiple content feeds and graphics.

Updated lighting from The Lighting Design Group completes the look, while camera robotics from Ross Video and CueScript teleprompters were also used in the new space.

The post PIX11 moves onto new set with hints of NYC, packed with tech appeared first on NewscastStudio.

While some primary areas of the set were retooled, other parts of the set were easily recognizable as holdovers from the “Ellen” days, though most did receive at least a bit of an update.

‘Sherri’ overhauls ‘Wendy Williams’ space with distinct look

One of the most obvious examples of this is the massive sliding doors-video wall camera left that Ellen DeGeneres entered through. Of course, the “Ellen” graphics and familiar simulated checkerboard pattern (leftover from the days when this wall was made of segmented lightboxes fronted with a simulated stone look) are no longer shown. 

In fairness, considering what this element must have cost given its size and motorized elements, it’s not surprising that producers opted to keep it.

The space behind the sliding walls is similar to the days of “Ellen,” where it served as a performance and multipurpose area and featured additional large LED video panels.

Also, while the audience area was updated cosmetically, it was fairly easy to see that, structurally, it was very similar to the “Ellen” days. 

One big update is a large white floor segment with a “J.Hud” abbreviation emblazoned on it. That same abbreviation is used in the bug and is also the name of Jennifer Hudson’s production company. 

All that said, the central part of the space was rebuilt as a semi-circular core with a curved sofa in front. In the center is a large structural element fronted with an oversized seamless LED array while on either side simulated windows are separated by paneled walls with sconces.

The furnishings are done in soft shades of beiges, grays and reds, with the sofa seeming to become part of the set organically. This is accompanied by a pale wood-toned coffee table with exaggerated wood spheres as legs.

The softer tones and curves give this area a bit of a flashback to the late 1990s and early 2000s, perhaps a nod to when Hudson rose to fame on “America Idol.”

Meanwhile, the show’s graphics and other elements bring a bold pop of color to the space. The show’s key art and open use a blend of orange, violets, magentas and golds along with sparkles and light bursts. These are brought onto the set thanks to the two large video arrays as well as integrated edge and accent lighting in bold colors, such as the violet vertical lines found in the home base background.

Whereas “Ellen” had an abundance of succulents on her set, Jennifer Hudson’s background is more floral. 

To the far camera right of home base is a space for a piano that’s wrapped in a tall wall featuring framed prints. Large, dark, floor-to-ceiling curtains frame this part of the studio.

Guests enter from behind the center structural element, walking behind a row of floral accents to a gap that leads to the heart of the set.

Overall, the “Jennifer Hudson Show” set feels a bit disjointed. The gentle curves in the primary area aren’t carried out well in the leftovers from “Ellen,” which are boxy. The piano area feels cramped and makeshift — and also doesn’t read well on camera.

While the sofa area’s color palette and lines feel slightly dated, it is consistent — in the sense that it takes that concept and runs with it. The neon-style edge lighting adds to the effect, but then the set abruptly changes to a flat wall with chair rail that has little in common with the main space.

As mentioned, the large video sliding video wall and audience scenery don’t help build much consistency. 

Images courtesy of Warner Bros.

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Throughout the pandemic, host Jane Pauley has used a virtual recreation of the show’s scenic design, which originally debuted during the 40th anniversary of “Sunday Morning” in 2017.

The virtual recreation of the “CBS Sunday Morning” set design.

The virtual space mimicked the real set, including a mix of faux vertical video displays and branded plexi panels. Earlier versions appeared to be created from actual photos of the set, while it would later introduce ones that appeared to be 3D models.

Set Design

CBS Sunday Morning

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The revised set for “Sunday Morning,” however, is significantly scaled back. Most of the physical scenic pieces are missing.

Gone are most of the panels, video technology and even the riser, which created an awkward height difference for Pauley.

“CBS Sunday Morning” back on a real set.

The show did return to its long tradition of topical decor, however, bringing in plenty of fall decor and even a dining table.

It’s unclear if the program will ever return to its now-former look. “CBS Mornings,” named after “Sunday Morning,” broadcasts from Times Square and could also be a future location for the program rather than its usual home in the CBS Broadcast Center.

Studio 45, which had been the home of “Sunday Morning” along with “Inside Edition,” was repurposed in September 2021 for “Inside the NFL” and a variety of Paramount Plus sports programming. 

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The upgrade coincides with the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, a time when many NBC stations take advantage of increased viewership to run additional promotional spots and debut changes. Scripps’ NBC in Tulsa and Kansas City also updated ahead of the Games with new logo designs. 

Studio A at WPTV has been completely overhauled, scrapping its set of nine years which saw updates to set technology in 2018.

The new design re-orients the studio space with the set placed opposite of the newsroom, while the previous used the newsroom as a background element for many years.

The set’s focal point is a 6×3 video wall and standing anchor desk with internal lighting. Back-lit RGBA graphics wrap the space adding flexibility and a bit of the ocean through a wavy pattern. Meanwhile, the set adds a pop of color through a narrow color-changing header.

The design also includes a six-panel vertical video wall and a large weather area backed by two additional monitors.

These spaces also incorporate cool grey stonework with integrated cove lighting and a deep-blue ripple pattern that continues the ocean theme.

Inside the studio, Ross Video CamBot robotic pedestals are in use along with CueScript prompters and JVC Pro cameras. 

Lighting design for the studio was handled by Dan McKenrick of TVLD, Inc.

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While the stadium has not had as many fans inside as the league and owners had hoped this season, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the team has made use of its broadcast facility inside the Intermountain Healthcare Performance Center to pump out content across social media along with the “Silver & Black Show.”

“The Raiders wanted to make a splash worthy of Las Vegas with their new stadium and headquarters. The look of their new studio needed to rise to the same level,” said James Yates, the studio’s designer. “The challenge was two-fold: Create an environment that had the same ‘flavor’ of the new stadium without making it a cheap knockoff and work within a color scheme of black, white, silver and gray.”

Yates incorporated the flowing lines of the stadium design while being careful to avoid directly quoting Manica Architecture’s design language, while also working in the moody palette of the Raiders.

Set Design

Las Vegas Raiders

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“I was concerned that the resulting design would look like it was shot in black and white like an old movie.  The Las Vegas skyline was the natural solution to expand the color palette,” notes Yates. “A 42 foot long backlit image with the blue desert sky and all the colors of the strip helped shake things up in terms of color.”

Along with having to work through the pandemic, the project team also had to manage issues from the training centers construction, including a giant beam that presented challenges for the grid.

“We ran into a big challenge when the building engineers added what I dubbed ‘the big bad beam’ to the structure of the building,” said Yates.  “The beam was over two feet wide and ran the length of the studio.”

The beam meant the studio’s lighting grid and lighting design, from FLDA, had to work around the obstruction to ensure necessary lighting angles with Yates noting the beam looked nearly intentional by the time the project was done. 

“I am particularly happy with how the casual sit-down area and the anchor desk came out,” said Yates. “To me, the desk echoes the face on the Raiders logo.  It’s sort of a stylized eye patch.”

The desk is fronted by a 1.9 mm pixel pitch LED display from DesignLED that follows the curve of the design with a 3×3 video wall behind with Philips seamless 1.8mm 55-inch panels.

Around the set, three vertical 55-inch displays and an 86-inch monitor are present in the casual area with a 72-inch display on a mobile kiosk. AV Design Services provided integration for all of the on-set technology.

On the control room side, Alpha Video Sports & Entertainment worked with the team to create the behind-the-scenes facilities and broadcast infrastructure at both the stadium and training facility, using Ross Video solutions. 

On the motion side, the Raiders worked with Troika to design the team’s in-stadium motion graphics system and broadcast branding package. 

Project Credits

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CNBC debuts ‘The News with Shepard Smith’ with clean, refined graphics — but a temp set

Set designer John Casey Production Design, faced with a typical boxy studio footprint and aiming to keep clean, modern right angles, lines and frames that appear across much of his other work for CNBC in the design, was sketching out initial ideas when he happened to glance at a clock and where the hour hand is at 7 p.m. (the show’s eastern airtime) when it hit him that mixing in an angled wall would be the perfect way to wrap anchor Shepard Smith’s storytelling home base in dynamic LED elements.

He took the lines suggested by that angle and created a large, straight span of LED bands that shifts to an angle as it approaches the turn onto the south wall of the space, calling that portion of the studio a “nice juxtaposition of the basics.”

Before any design happened, however, Casey also met with Smith, Steve Fastook, the senior vice president of technical operations for the network, and other “News” team members to hear about their thoughts on the design.

CNBC debuts ‘The News with Shepard Smith’ with clean, refined graphics — but a temp set

Much of that feedback came from Smith’s laser-focused vision for his newscast — and Casey took all of these notes to develop an initial design.

“I think we had two or three changes,” recalls Fastook, adding that it was probably the least number of changes he’s ever made to an initial set design.

As part of Smith’s goal to use the set as an extension of storytelling, Casey thought purposefully about how to place scenic elements and video walls.

For example, Smith’s cube-like anchor desk, which isn’t bolted to the floor, has been given two primary positions — one against the wider wall but also at an angle as the wall shifts direction.

The wall behind these two primary desk locations is made of three distinct “ribbons” of LED that were carefully thought out. 

Along the top is a narrow one inspired by and suggestive of the iconic CNBC ticker — and the network says it can indeed be used for that during financial news updates, but that it can also be used for extending generic and topical graphics displayed on the other two segments.

The three segments of LED along the west wall (left) can be used together, as shown in this ‘Coast to Coast’ look or separately. The motorized ‘north wall’ is shown on right behind the jib. Photo courtesy CNBC.

Below this are two other bands of LED, with the middle one being the largest and also carefully positioned to fall just behind a seated Smith, making it flexible enough to use as both a traditional background and with OTS elements the show plans to incorporate.

In this rehearsal shot, ‘The News’ anchor Shepard Smith is shown (just visible between the two crew members) against the angled part of the west wall with ‘The Vote’ branding, along with the 3D block pattern used in his graphics package, used on the angled portion while the larger segment shows a sweeping view of the Capitol. 

Meanwhile, the final band forms a sort of “digital knee wall” that can still show up in wider shots and standups — while also emphasizing the idea of a ticker or “layers” of storytelling. 

Behind these panels are carefully crafted and lighted rectangular frame-like elements equipped with color-changing lights that can be shifted to match the current story while also adding depth and layering to the look. 

Shepard Smith’s ‘The News’ refines its look on second night out

“CNBC’s Technical Operations team designed a gorgeous, sleek set that utilizes video via state-of-the-art technology to bring stories from around the globe right into our studio,” Smith told NewscastStudio.

The show’s new home is Studio B at the network’s Englewood Cliffs, N.J. headquarters — formerly home to “The Suze Orman Show” and “Nightly Business Report.”

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One of the most important factors for any broadcaster to deal with is constant downward pressure on budgets. As technology advances, everyone throughout an entire broadcast operation is continually tasked to do less with more. And in an industry haunted by the ghost of cord-cutting and looking at the rise of powerful new SVOD players as it restructures itself, any savings that can be made need to be made. It’s often a matter of it being better to choose to do it and having some control over the process than being forced to do it and have none.

This was an important theme across the industry before the coronavirus pandemic hit. It’s one marked extremely urgent now.

Luckily one of the areas where significant savings can be made is with the introduction of the virtual set. And one of the reasons they are starting to appeal to more and more broadcasters now is that they have become genuinely photorealistic.

For instance, our technology was used by Sony Innovation Studios to create a virtual version of the ‘Shark Tank’ set for Sony Pictures Television last season when pressure at the lot in Culver City meant that there wasn’t enough space for its usual two identical stages. The virtual set was used for filming around 100 exit interviews in front of green screen and was indistinguishable from the real world one to the extent that one producer in the production truck asked for a plant to be moved next to a couch, assuming they were watching the real-world feed.

As well as making things possible though, they make them cheaper. Good sets are expensive items to build and operate, especially as they have to withstand the rigors of examination at increasing resolutions. They need to be designed to fit constrained spaces with an eye on material costs; the design needs to be locked down early in the process; they need to be physically built; they need to be installed; they need to be lit; they need to be struck down; they need to be repaired; they need to be stored. And all the time this is happening the studio or sound stage is blocked from all other use.

The virtual set has none of these drawbacks. We’ve mentioned before one client we work with in Buenos Aries, Argentina that runs eight different programs a day from exactly the same studio. At the top of the hour one presenter walks out of the studio, another walks in, a button is pressed, and it’s a completely different space.

The cost savings are impressive. To pull the same sort of operation off in a real-world environment, you would need at least two fully crewed studios, and you would need eight physical sets, which even if they shared many elements would still need to be moved into new positions. Redesigning of even one of the sets would be a difficult task as all eight are so closely interwoven. The studios need to be heated, lit, cleaned… you get the picture.

What’s more though is that the virtual studios are also becoming increasingly easy to use as well. One of the UK’s major broadcasters, Sky Sports, is the rights holder for much of the live soccer shown in the country and decided it wanted to set up its own studio set at every single one of its 90 fixtures involving Premier League teams. Using Ncam’s markerless tracking system, they are able to arrive at a stadium, head to their assigned space, and have exactly the same studio design up and running within an hour, irrespective of location.

This is the sort of project that would have been prohibitively expensive in the real world, and, in fact, probably impossible given the different sizes of the suitable spaces at 90 different stadia.

Even for virtual set technology, it would have been difficult only a fairly short time ago. But markerless tracking is making the virtual set much more adaptable and a lot less finicky to use. Set up times are becoming quicker than ever, virtual set photorealism is set to take a further jump next year where Unreal Engine 5 is introduced, and technologies such as photogrammatic capture are enabling the recreation of real-world spaces inside the virtual quicker than ever.

There are other benefits to virtual sets as well. Alongside unleashing set designers’ ability to really max out their creative urges, they result in a reduced environmental footprint, allow a broadcaster to quickly and simply create consistent looks across their output, and are adaptive and endlessly iterative.

But these are very much the icing on the virtual cake. When it comes down to it, virtual sets are cheaper than real ones, and that is the bottom-line argument. It just so happens that nowadays they’re better too.

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It has been a strange year in the broadcast industry for any number of reasons, most of which are due to the coronavirus. But one of the meta trends that us and a lot of other people have noticed is that the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of several technologies that were already starting to ramp up in an interesting way. Remote production, whether for live events or in post-production is one of them (Netflix alone is posting somewhere around 200 shows using collaborative remote workflows), and another is the continued rise of the virtual studio.

The virtual studio is a technology whose time has very much come in 2020. It is in many respects one of the socially distanced production tools that has been necessary to keep the industry going, allowing sets to be changed at the click of a button, ensuring staff don’t have to move around anymore than strictly necessary, and seamlessly hosting talent both on-set and dialing in from remote locations, even home set-ups.

The coronavirus has played its part, but virtual studios were already firmly on the agenda of many more news organizations than ever before already, even before the lockdown orders started to roll out.

Column: How games are making virtual studios more realistic

Simply put, they let you do more with less. We have one client we work with in Buenos Aries, Argentina that runs eight different programs a day from exactly the same studio. Changing over is simply a matter of one presenter team walking out, a button being pressed, and another presenter team walking in. It can happen in the commercial break at the top of the hour. You would need at least two fully-equipped studios and a lot more labor to replicate that in the physical world, with all the moving of furniture and set elements, repositioning of cameras and so on that is required.

In many ways it is the epitome of all that was outdated with the CapEx model of broadcast costs; fixed assets sitting in a single location that can only produce one show at a time and having an unpleasant domino effect with costs down the line.

You would also need a proper-sized studio space, replete with lighting rigs and high ceilings. One of the keys to the appeal of the virtual studio is that they can transform rooms not much bigger than a normal office space into a viable space for production. As long as you can accommodate the set elements in the space that the talent needs to work in and the cameras to film it, the rest is very much up to your imagination and the limitations of the technology.

This is a key point, because one of the main drives behind this new wave of interest in virtual studios is that they are technically better than ever. And the main reason for that is down to the development of firstly extremely effective tracking solutions such as ours that will work in a variety of environments with swift calibration and then the widespread adoption of Unreal Engine in many leading virtual studio solutions.

Unreal has literally been a game-changer and taken what was effectively a cottage industry making bespoke graphics and hitched it to a multimedia behemoth that is responsible for a good percentage of the top-end graphics in films, games, and television — certainly all the real-time content. It’s the CG equivalent of the move from proprietary black boxes we’ve seen in broadcast as a whole to IT and even COTS hardware across the rest of the industry and allows us to piggyback on developmental work that is taking place worldwide and being driven by a multitude of sectors. The result is that quality has improved massively and prices have fallen dramatically.

The jump from Unreal Engine 3 to the current Unreal Engine 4 delivered close to undetectable real-time virtual environments. Indeed, often the only thing that does give them away is the presence of stylized graphic elements associated with advertisers or sponsors. It also did this at a price point — Unreal is effectively free — that made virtual studio an attractive proposition for Tier 2 and even Tier 3 broadcasters, democratizing the technology for a whole section of the industry that had never used it before.

There is more of this to come too. The graphics are getting better all the time (Epic has just announced Unreal Engine 5), bringing ever more realistic sets into the range of even the tightest production budget. 2020 could well be the pivot point where the discussion across news organizations and elsewhere is less about whether to use virtual studio or not, but what would be the reasons not to.

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“We are relaunching with new studios, a new design and more importantly, taking advantage of new technologies that will take the viewer into the next generation of journalism across not only our television screens but also our social media and digital offerings,” said Mamdouh Almuhaini, general manager of Al Arabiya Media Network.

The new studio and workspace is designed to accompany a new logo, graphics and music package. 

The overall space was strategically “designed (in an) organic way to bridge the gap between the screen and the audience and connect smoothly into the latest technologies (in) digital and … broadcast,” said Fadi Radi, Al Arabiya’s head of creative.

Architectural challenges

The 26,000-square-foot facility is located in a somewhat standard office tower not originally intended to be TV studio space, so fitting a multivenue studio along with 238 editorial workstations, 10 private offices and more was just one of the initial hurdles the design team at Clickspring Design needed to overcome, notes senior design director Murat Ustuner. 

“Because the whole floor houses both editorial working space and broadcast shooting locations, we tried to find a way to isolate shooting locations in a way that works with the high-end design look,” explained Ustuner. 

In addition, the space, like most multi-floor commercial real estate properties, has a utility stack for elevators, mechanical rooms and restrooms smack dab in the middle of the floor plan. This, along with the rectangular footprint of the building, creates two rather narrow spaces that needed to be quite literally designed around.

Throw in structural support columns that couldn’t be moved and you’re left with a space that provided plenty of challenges for the design team.

The tracks in the ceiling were meticulously mapped out and coordinated with workstation and scenic placement, including flowing glossy white headers, in order to allow the camera here to capture wide, sweeping views of the newsroom and production areas.

The two more open pockets on either side of the core stack were identified as being ideal for the main newsroom and studio spaces, while the narrower of the two passages connecting the two spaces was filled in with enclosed areas for media management, IT racks and HVAC equipment. 

Meanwhile, the elevator shafts and other support facilities were wrapped on three sides by curved swaths of video walls that, when viewed from above, form an organic, ovoid shape tilted slightly to one side, emphasizing the concept of natural, free flow that is found in much of the design.

These curved walls also gave designers a way to tuck in an employee lounge and kitchen, green room and lighting rack room as well as some glassed-in conference rooms.

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Wrapping around roughly half the oval in the middle of the building are two tracks with one robotic camera each. One is mounted on the ceiling and the other on the floor. This gives the broadcaster the opportunity to “shift the vantage point from high to low, creating additional perceived height on air,” pointed out Steven Dvorak, Clickspring’s vice president of design.

The tracks in the ceiling were meticulously mapped out and coordinated with workstation and scenic placement, including sleek glossy white headers, in order to allow the camera here to capture wide, sweeping views of the newsroom and production areas.

The glossy white high-end look was achieved thanks to custom epoxy coatings, including careful planning of the floor markings in white and bold black and grays.

The structural columns were “hidden” by constructing sleek, internally lit scenic elements with frosted design accents and outfitted with convex LED on the inner faces.

Al Arabiya’s ‘command center’ broadcast space. 

In an area known as the “Command Center,” a small but impressive curved video wall sweeps around an oval, glass-top anchor desk with a glossy segmented base. There’s also a standup area set up to allow for toss shots and the space can be reconfigured to support everything from a single person or panel discussions. 

Ringing the command area are concentric rows of curved workstations that closely match the path of the circle markings on the center of the floor.

Nearby, in a prized corner position, is a flexible space that allows for a less formal discussion set. 

There’s a wild riser with bold black curved elements that form a unique take on coffee tables as well as a movable monitor for both standup graphics and remote guests. 

The ceiling-mounted ‘shroud’ with circular LED installation. 

A smaller ring of workstations separates the corner area and a ceiling-mounted “shroud” that looks a bit like a futuristic portal. Instead of being a gateway to another dimension, though, the interior is outfitted with LED video panels.

Clickspring’s team carefully applied LED video technology according to the ‘size and proportions that respond to the needs of the content and the nature of the narrative used to communicate the story.’

“This serves a cool looking jewel hanging down from the ceiling and provides the ideal support for the camera shooting plans,” said Ustener.

While the shroud was designed with weather segments in mind, it’s already been used for a variety of other segments.

Social media area showing concave LED panels pivoted in a variety of positions. 

Next to this area is the social media center, which features three concave curved LED towers that pivot, backed by sweeping exterior views.

“For social media coverage, tall narrow arrays support vertically scrolling feeds typical of smartphones and a swipe left or right reporting style,” notes Dvorak. 

Because of how narrow this area is, the pivoting mechanism gives the option to shoot from either side rather than straight on.

During the design process, Clickspring’s team carefully applied LED video technology according to the “size and proportions that respond to the needs of the content and the nature of the narrative used to communicate the story,” said Dvorak, rather than adhering to the traditional 16:9 aspect ratio. 

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“News coverage of longer more in-depth reporting, encompassing a variety of related events, long LED ribbons support multiple highlights and a walkalong, linear narrative from beginning to conclusion,” said Dvorak. “(For) reports with heavy analytics such as business news, the arrays were given enough area to present multiple graphics in a dynamic dashboard format.”

The social media space flows into another anchor area designated for business news that serves as a transition between the narrower social media area before opening up to create a sort of high tech “tunnel” complete with circular decals and an LED floor panel installation along with a curved header element that “curtains” the inner video wall.

The business area with LED panels in the floor.

Another section of workstations sits behind the freestanding LED wall in this area as well as the middle of this side of the space while a “current affairs” broadcast venue is nestled among some smaller curved segments of desks and enclosed offices.

Think legs support a glossy curved desk within a semi-circular half wall topped with semitransparent video panels that can slide around in a variety of configurations — allowing it to be used to bring in remote guests or as background elements.

Behind this area is a wall of small glassed-in private offices fronted by large glass walls with a band of frost running down the middle. The frost gently fades out into clear glass above and below its center, creating an eyecatching background that echos a similar pattern found in other elements of the facility while also offering privacy and removing distractions from behind talent.

Augmented reality baked in

In addition to the extensive hard scenic options, Clickspring also created spaces that were specifically designed for augmented reality. They included countless examples of storytelling in the renderings shown to Al Arabiya. 

The circular LED floor tiles are primed for augmented reality applications, as is that ceiling-mounted “shroud.” The set’s various LED video walls also become windows for virtual reality extensions to add layers to a story

By The Numbers

All told, the new Al Arabiya broadcast facility boasts:
– Approximately 26,264 square feet
– 238 editorial workstations
– 10 offices
– 3 conference rooms
– 1 pantry
– 6 active broadcast areas
– 2 control rooms
– 4 edit suites
– 1 audio control room
– 2 radio studio rooms

Project Credits

– General Contractor: Ebonite Group
– Scenic Design and Master Plan: Clickspring Design
– Lighting Design: Al Arabiya Network
– Lighting Consultant: Eastern Lighting Design
– A/V Integration: InterTech Vision ME
– LED Display Technology: Barco and DesignLED
– Systems Integrator: Diversified
– Project Management: Al Arabiya Network

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