WO1997047130A1

WO1997047130A1 - Mobile virtual plateau

Info

Publication number: WO1997047130A1
Application number: PCT/ES1997/000141
Authority: WO
Inventors: Rafael Calvo Beca
Original assignee: Rafael Calvo Beca
Priority date: 1996-06-04
Filing date: 1997-06-03
Publication date: 1997-12-11

Abstract

It is comprised of a vehicle prepared for television retransmissions, wherein there is provided a closed television studio, having a plateau with chromakey background, lighting, cameras and production control means with the technology necessary to make and produce any type of virtual programs. The production control means is comprised of a keyboard/interface with the computer, wherein is selected the plane provided for each camera; a selector to which are connected the cameras and through which passes the foreground signal required by the computer; a computer which selects the foreground signal and reads in its memory the background which corresponds to said determined signal; and a mixer where the two signals are mixed.

Description

MOBILE VIRTUAL DISH

DESCRIPTION

a) Title of the invention

MOBILE VIRTUAL DISH

b) Mastery of the technique to which it refers

REALIZATION OF TELEVISION PROGRAMS

• WITH VIRTUAL SCENARIOS

• ON DISPLACEMENTS

c) State of the prior art

At present, the realization of television programs with virtual scenarios is not widespread at all. The reason is the high cost of the graphic work stations (Silicon Graphics, Hewlett Packard, etc.) on which the systems available today for virtual realization have been developed. These systems start from the base of generating the sets in real time, which requires a very powerful computer platform. All of them have been applied exclusively in dishes located in real estate.

The production of programs in displacements is not uncommon, that is, in places far from the dishes built in real estate. A Mobile Unit is usually used that carries a realization control and transports cameras that are taken out of the vehicle to capture the images in scenarios

SUBSTITUTE SHEET (RULE 26) natural, whether exterior or interior (sporting events, political events, etc.).

Unusual is the mobile stage, a vehicle that opens and becomes a set: it requires an independent mobile unit when recording. It is not closed or therefore acoustically isolated. Current mobile scenarios are used only to support brief interviews, but do not offer the dignity necessary to host an entire program.

To date, no mobile unit or mobile stage has used virtual sets.

Virtual techniques lend breadth, variety and richness to the sets, fully surpassing the real scenarios that could be transported in a vehicle and that would hardly cover the minimums required on television.

license of the invention

The MOBILE VIRTUAL DISH consists of the merger of a Mobile Unit equipped with realization control and cameras and a closed television studio, in which new virtual scenography techniques are applied.

It integrates different equipment and materials in a long vehicle, which when it reaches its destination expands and becomes a fully self-sufficient dish for the production of virtual technology programs.

We emphasize that this is a complete, soundproof study. virtual and mobile, synthesis not achieved so far and which gives rise to new formulas for television production.

We have made its appearance possible by combining the most diverse and recent technologies and providing our own software and hardware developments.

SUBSTITUTE SHEET (RULE 26Ϊ Our virtual scenery system is original. Currently, we use pre-rendered decorations, which allow us to offer high quality textures and finishes, but the expected evolution of technology will soon allow us to generate the decorations in real time.

We use robotic cameras on digital positioners that hang from the ceiling, although normal cameras operated by operators can be used in a reduced version of the system.

All realization control is governed by a personal computer and, thanks to its own powerful software, everything is handled by a single person.

We use a special keyboard for camera control, which we have manufactured to serve the usual user of the television realization of a comfortable interface with the computer.

We incorporate new cold light fluorescence screens, which provide diffuse lighting that requires a virtual studio. Conventional incandescent lighting would make the project completely unfeasible.

For the first time, a blue plastic laminate is applied to the walls and floor of the studio, which solves the traditional problems involved in painting, especially on the floor of the plate, achieving a permanently homogeneous blue.

We now develop the fundamental and most characteristic aspects of the Mobile Virtual Dish.

SUBSTITUTE SHEET (RULE 26) NEW TV PRODUCTION FORMULAS

The MOBILE VIRTUAL PLATE represents an important step forward in television production, given the new applications it gives rise to and the cost savings it represents. Here are some new production formulas.

^• Before and after the big televised sporting events - football, cycling laps, tennis championships, etc. - different programs of interviews and debates can be held within this mobile virtual dish, with the protagonists of the event displaced to the place where they are held : players, coaches, managers, fans, etc.

It is clear the need to extend the time dedicated to the retransmission of the event, in order to be able to maximize its rising costs. In the current circumstances, it is necessary to choose between holding short interviews in improvised sets in the place of the event or commenting it from some remote study and devoid of the heat of the news.

The virtual stage can be as important and worthy as you want, homogeneous throughout the same soccer championship or a cycling tour, acoustically isolated from public address systems and ambient noise and without the risk of sound instrument couplings.

• Sample fairs and markets could use our MOBILE VIRTUAL DISH as a closed-circuit television station, for information - through different monitors - of how many run their pavilions. The exhibitors of the fair would comment on their news. Featured visitors would be interviewed. Publireportajes and advertising spots would be included.

The possibility of making a special broadcast around the days of the fair, whether by satellite or by Herzian route within a local area, is not ruled out.

SUBSTITUTE SHEET (RULE 26) • Within the MOBILE VIRTUAL DISH and at really competitive prices, given its characteristics, programs of the most diverse contents can be produced.

A series of programs could be produced - contest or debate - with the participation in each of people from different geographical locations.

It would be available at any geographical point, where there may be no television studio.

The realizations carried out in our MOBILE VIRTUAL DISH may be similar in appearance to those carried out in a traditional dish (although their costs are not comparable, neither the simplification of the production or the ease in the realization). But a truly virtual realization can also provide a strong added value in creativity.

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE MOBILE VIRTUAL DISH

The vehicle that has to be chartered as a MOBILE VIRTUAL PLATE is the gooseneck semi-trailer, since it allows an interior height greater than that provided by the remaining semi-trailers or truck platforms. The trailers would also be worth the height, but they cannot be carried directly by a tractor unit. The maximum gauge is always 4 meters, but the lowest part is 84 cm. ground. (See drawing 6)

Its length can exceed thirteen meters, but our study only requires a minimum of 7 meters. The width of the vehicle in running order cannot exceed 2.50 m., But when it expands it can reach 6.20 m.

SUBSTITUTE SHEET (RULE 26) The study that gives rise to the expanded vehicle is therefore a room of a minimum of 7 meters long by 6.20 m. wide and a height in the lowest place of 2.50 m. They are the precise measures for the intended purposes and the techniques employed. The virtual decoration ends up providing the desired and necessary dimensions for each program.

The work area where the possible presenters, commentators and guests are located, occupies just over half of the study: 6.20 wide by 4 m. deep

Walls and floor throughout this area form a kind of cyclorama, without corners or shadows. They are coated with a plastic laminate that is washable and provides a homogeneous blue in all its parts.

On tables and lecterns in blue, of different sizes, various virtual designs will be applied afterwards.

Armchairs, chairs and sidewalks -real- basically complete the props. The remaining elements will be strictly virtual.

The studio is soundproofed by thick polyurethane sheets, which completely isolate it from the outside. The entire ceiling and walls that do not enter the recording field are acoustically conditioned by means of foam rubber sheets.

FLUORESCENCE LIGHTING

A closed plate of the dimensions allowed by the chosen vehicle would hardly withstand a conventional incandescent lighting. It would require a maximum power generator set - located in another truck - to supply all the electric current they consume

SUBSTITUTE SHEET (RULE 26) the light bulbs and the precise air conditioning equipment to compensate for the heat given off by them.

Fluorescent lighting does not incur such inconveniences. It is undoubtedly one of the decisive factors that make this project viable. Does not require high plate height. Their screens can be suspended directly from the ceiling and be very close to the "actors" since they barely give off heat.

Light consumption is drastically reduced compared to traditional lighting. The entire plate illuminates homogeneously at about 1,000 lux with less than one thousand watts. Fluorescent lighting is also diffuse by nature, as a virtual study requires.

The generator set can be compact, relatively small, and carried at one end of the same vehicle. Its main function will be to supply the air conditioning, a task facilitated in the absence of large heat sources. The fluorescent lighting allows you to enjoy a pleasant room temperature.

THE COMPUTER

The realization control is located at one end of the study. (See drawing 1.1)

Its central core is a computer equipped with different cards. As minimum requirements, a Pentium computer of 16 Mb of Ram and 100 MHz, with quad-speed CD-ROM.

The personal computer serves the background or decorated images, which is known by background.

When choosing the cards, you can choose between several levels of image quality and features.

SUBSTITUTE SHEET (RULE 26) • Level 1. Using the SVGA card of the computer. To pass this signal to video, you must use a complementary device that is a VGA to PAL converter. To avoid that, at each change of plane, the background is constructed in sight, the previous fund is frozen and replaced once it has finished forming. Limitations: there is neither movement nor screen in the scenery.

• Level 2. Two video cards are used, a first in video server functions, which is able to dump funds with movements, at the rate of twenty-five frames per second, and another second that covers the function of overlay, embedding a screen on the background. The output signal is composite video.

As examples of cards, which can be found today in the market, we cite the AV Master card as a reader and the Movie Machine as an overlay, both of Fast.

• Level 3. The quality of the cards is the only difference with the previous level. The output is in components or YUV.

As simple current examples in a market that stands out for its constant evolution, we will cite the AV Master or DPR as readers plus the Video Machine as an overlay, all of them manufactured by Fast.

The computer has two hard drives. One is dedicated exclusively to the management of the system and the other to save the different frames of each background, which is previously taken from the CD-ROM.

The images to embed on the screen come from any source: a player magnetoscope or a signal from a Mobile Unit. (See drawing 1.2)

SUBSTITUTE SHEET (RULE 26) THE CONTROL KEYBOARD

The director manages the computer through a special camera control keyboard -interface of its own design-. (See drawing 1.2 for fit into the system).

Figures 2 and 3 reproduce, respectively, the keyboard diagram and the printed circuit board.

Its exterior is represented in drawing 4. The four upper keys correspond to the four intended cameras.

Under the camera keys 1, 2 and 3 there are three columns of four keys that serve to notify the computer of the plan or type of framing in which each camera is to be placed. The computer carries out the orders corresponding to both the positioner and the lens of the affected camera, which is thus prepared for the following plane, placing the camera in the pan (horizontal) and tilt (vertical) position and the lens in the Zoom and focus required.

When the filmmaker subsequently clicks on that camera, the computer will know the frame it has and will provide the corresponding background.

These three cameras offer fixed planes, but each allows several different frames, specifically, four per camera, twelve planes in the total of the three cameras. They move when they are not punctured, until they are placed in the desired frame for the next plane.

If the cameras were not robotized, the filmmaker would give the framing orders to the camera operators, also pressing the key corresponding to the order given so that the computer had knowledge of the position of the cameras at all times.

SUBSTITUTE SHEET (RULE 26) Four more keys have been arranged under the camera 4 key, which will be used to order certain movements within a certain background plane: for example, lowering or raising a screen, starting or stopping a moving element , etc.

A fourth camera allows you to coordinate, through special software, the zoom and pan movements of the camera (while it is punctured) with the previously recorded backgrounds corresponding to those movements. It is operated from the touch screen of a second computer, equipped with a video card, Fast DPR type, and a powerful dedicated hard disk.

All cameras arrive at the inputs of a selector or switcher that, following the indication of the computer, lets one of the signals pass, which constitutes the foreground. (See drawing 1 .2)

In summary, the process is as follows: from the keyboard the filmmaker notifies the computer which camera and which plane he wishes, the computer sends the background signal that corresponds to the requested plane and asks the selector to give way to the camera's foreground signal chosen

The background and foreground signals reach the chromakey inlay where they are mixed.

At its output, the mixed signal is recorded on a magnetoscope, goes to a monitor or set of them or sent out of control for external use.

It is convenient that the foreground signal is in RGB or YUV, to ensure the quality of the mix in the embedding. But in any case, the embedding must correspond to the type of signals that come to it, be it composite video, Y / C, RGB or YUV.

SUBSTITUTE SHEET (RULE 26) COMPLEMENTARY TECHNICAL EQUIPMENT

The realization control (see drawing 5) is completed with a monitor for each camera, a monitor for the image to be embedded on the screen, an output monitor and a television. The screen and output signals are passed to the plate, to two other monitors.

The system requires a synchronism generator to make all signals compatible. Its quality is controlled with an oscilloscope and waveform monitor.

The audio requires a whole system that runs in parallel with the video. Different microphones are available in the studio and are completed with various sound sources in the control, such as a double deck and a compact disc reader. The computer provides special sonic effects sicronized with some images. An audio table receives the different input signals and mixes them according to various criteria of functionality and aesthetics. A signal will go to a presenter's hearing aid, through which the filmmaker can also issue orders.

From the realization control, communications -in video and audio- may be established with other outdoor mobile units, with which it is convenient to coordinate.

SUBSTITUTE SHEET (RULE 26!

Claims

CLAIMS ON THE MOBILE VIRTUAL DISH

First: The realization of television programs characterized by being carried out inside a vehicle using virtual scenarios.

Second: The construction of a vehicle characterized by containing a complete closed television studio, equipped with a plate, lighting, cameras and realization control, self-sufficient for the production of virtual technology programs.

Third: The system of realization of programs with virtual technology characterized by:

• a keyboard, which functions as an interface with the computer and which is used for the filmmaker to choose the plans provided for each camera, select one of the cameras and start certain movements in the background. If the cameras are robotic, the flat keys are used to position them and move their zoom and focus.

• a camera selector, to which all cameras are connected, which lets the foreground signal that the computer is requesting at all times pass through.

• a computer, which interprets the messages that arrive from the keyboard and acts as a video server, reading the background that corresponds to the camera and plane chosen. In your case, insert the signal that comes from an outside source into the set.

• an inlay, where the background and foreground signals are mixed.

Fourth: Camera control keyboard characterized by functioning as an interface with the computer and for serving the filmmaker to choose the plans provided for each camera, position them and arrange the zoom and focus of each, select one of the cameras and set March certain movements in the background.

SUBSTITUTE SHEET (RULE 26)