Our xR journey began back in 2018, when we first unveiled our pioneering SmartStage – an immersive, mixed-reality production solution. At the time, this technology had already been utilised by Discovery Eurosport, in the form of ‘The Cube’, seen on their international coverage of the PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games.
The journey has since continued with intense R+D and has seen our Innovations team collaborate closely with content providers MalfMedia, to deploy SmartStage as a solution to help revolutionise the broadcast, corporate and education markets. Along the way, this ground-breaking technology has achieved multiple awards and accolades, positioning us and our partners as leaders in innovation, and the design, installation, and ongoing support of xR environments around the globe.
As a Certified Solutions Provider to disguise, we have also collaborated extensively with them during this time. While working closely together on some specific projects, we enlisted their expert team to help us build a range of tools to make the delivery of these projects easier.
Fast forward (with caution) to 2020 and SmartStage recently made a debut appearance on Channel 5’s The Gadget Show. The feature explored how disguise’s award-winning xR software and other technologies integrated within the SmartStage environment, have enabled the physical and virtual worlds to blend like never before. It demonstrated how dynamic content and the placement of real and virtual objects within the environment, enables presenters to react and interact with their surroundings in a naturally authentic way. It also highlighted some of the more recent developments, such as teleportation and a smart ‘torch’ revealing content seemingly hidden to create an immersive experience for users. Another collaborative partner is FRAY Studio, whose content was also featured on The Gadget Show.
During the pandemic, these tools have had a major impact in the virtual production world, allowing businesses to communicate effectively with their audiences at a time when meaningful engagement is paramount. In 2020 alone, SmartStage has facilitated more than 1000 hours of live broadcast in xR, over 1000 hours of remote learning and in excess 500 hours of live corporate events. This has all been achieved within a COVID-secure studio environment.
As we look ahead to 2021 and beyond, finding new ways to support our clients’ utilisation of tech is what drives our constant R+D and this journey very much continues. Harnessing the power of xR to create ever-more immersive virtual worlds is key to the amazing innovations and projects we will be working on over the coming years.
Our Technical Solutions Director – Andy Hook comments: “It was fantastic to see xR and our SmartStage solution getting such a great reaction from mainstream media coverage on the Gadget Show. As disguise’s Certified Solutions Provider, we have used their advanced media server platform to turn many of our clients’ ideas and visions into projects. It was the natural choice for us to work with disguise when we started our xR journey more than 3 years ago and it’s amazing to see the tools we’ve helped them develop since then being used across a wide range of industries. White Light is now regarded as the world leader in designing and installing xR solutions and our SmartStage packages have been deployed around the globe helping bring the power of xR to broadcast, corporate and education clients.”
Michael Al-Far, MalfMedia’s Creative Director adds: “From a content and creative perspective, the explosion of xR as a workflow in live entertainment and broadcast has been a blessing in these uncertain times. Our ground-breaking work with White Light in the field of xR has added another level of creative possibilities and has lifted our work and inspired clients and other colleagues to follow.
I am convinced xR is here to stay and when our industry can get back to normal and we can again work together in our beloved venues, studios and theatres, there will be an interesting crossover between the more traditional ways of content delivery and this whole new exciting Extended way of standing out.”
To follow our Broadcast news subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter @BroadcastWL.