SmartSet Project: Bringing closer High Performance Low Cost Virtual Studios for Creative Industries SMEs

Over the last decade, the impact that the Internet had on the entertainment and creative industry has marked a before and after in the way of sharing content, contributing to the emergence of new business models and the proliferation of IP television channels and new creative companies.

On the other hand, virtual studio technologies turned into a growing trend among big broadcasters in pursuit of offering a higher immersive and appealing experiences to their audience.

With all this in mind, SmartSet arouse as a response to the growing demand from creative SMEs seeking for an advanced, cost effective virtual studio solution that enables them to increase their competitiveness in the market. Thereby, SmartSet is particularly addressed to small TV channels, production companies, online television channels or even educational centres.

The technical challenge resided in being able to provide a virtual studio solution that was both affordable and technically manageable for this new type of customer. A simplification of the technology was essential in terms of the hardware involved and the complexity of the graphic engine.

After further developments, SmartSet succeeded in offering not only a user friendly interface based on pre-designed program templates but also comprising a software-based chromakeyer, a semi-automatic camera calibration system, realistic casting of shadows or automatic tracking of the talent within a scene, which bring closer a professional output to SMEs.

SmartSet has undergone an extensive validation process, performed by five creative organisations, BonumTV (Hungary), JoulupukkiTV (Finland), Hallingdolen AS (Norway), SolidariaTV (Spain) and Lapland University of Applied Sciences (Finland). Each one of them presenting different needs and expectations, this process provided valuable feedback from a user´s perspective. This synergy enabled to conceive a closer- to-market product taking into consideration the main demands that ensure an attractive and pragmatic solution.

Joulupukki TV is a small but very dynamic video content production company based in Rovaniemi, capital of Finnish Lapland and the Official hometown of Santa Claus. Their business line is to create tourism related Youtube and Facebook videos for tens of travel companies in Finnish Lapland, having two Santa Claus and tourism related Youtube channels, with over 40 M video views.

One of the constraints Joulupukki TV's Santa Claus had to face regarding video productions was that the company does not count on its own studio, making use instead of the existing tourism infrastructures of Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi. However, due to the boom of Lapland's tourism these facilities are becoming less and less available, restricting their use.

The adoption of Smartset virtual studio allowed Joulupukki TV to create high quality videos without being dependent of existing tourism infrastructures and to design completely new scenarios. On top of that, the solution provides the chance to produce creative and innovative travel videos using for instance a “news format” for its b-to-b tourism customers.

The original article by Francisco Ibañez.