Every year, the Chinese national broadcaster CCTV (China Central Television) broadcasts coverage of China’s famous Spring Festival Gala, and this year’s show achieved approval ratings of 96.98 percent, making it one of the most popular Spring Festival Galas in recent years. Much of the program came from the main CCTV venue in Beijing, with additional content being broadcast from stages in Shenzhen, Jing Gang Shan and Changchun. The program featured a variety of exciting visual effects on stage, including augmented reality and animated graphics elements driven by the latest virtual studio solutions provided by Ross Video. In fact, Ross Video’s latest graphics rendering solution featured heavily across the coverage, with nine systems deployed across all four venues to help support this important cultural event in China.
Ross Video’s rendering solution, based on the Unreal 4 Gaming Engine from Epic Games, was a key element of the 4K UHD broadcasts, producing high-quality special effects and photo-realistic graphics that impressed both viewers and the media alike. In addition, the Furio camera motion system from Ross helped the show production team create dynamic and eye-catching camera moves that would not have been possible with human operators. Each venue broadcast a number of lavish song and dance routines enhanced by augmented reality graphic elements to give the show a lush, fairytale feel.
Looking back on the event, Andrew Tan, Ross Video’s Director of Sales for APAC, believes CCTV has raised the bar for future Spring Festival shows. “The annual Spring Festival Gala by CCTV is probably the most viewed live show in the world. In addition to the Furio Camera Motion System, which is now a regular fixture of CCTV programming, this year’s event used a mixed-reality solution for the first time, featuring nine of our Unreal-based systems across multiple locations. Ross Video is extremely proud and honoured that CCTV chose to partner with us and used our solutions and technologies to enhance the on-air look for this important show.”