Sky Sports News Goes HD with Chyron Graphics
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Sky Sports News’ launch of an HD channel, the first HD sports news channel in Europe, relied heavily on Chyron technology during the transition to HD. This marks the third time that Sky Sports has employed the use of Lyric PRO 8, the power behind Chyron’s flagship on-air graphics Hyper X3 system.
Chyron is a long time partner of Sky Sports News and has played a key role in the launch of the HD channel. In this latest endeavor, Chyron’s dedicated Creative Services team worked closely with the Sports team to integrate the new graphical look of the channel.
“Chyron’s support to our operators, designers was much more akin to a partnership than a supplier,” says Darren Long, Director of Operations, Sky Sports News. “Chyron is always a company wanting to do its best. Its Customer Service department is second to none, which in this day and age, is hard to find. Chyron should be as proud as we are of this Sky Sports News HD launch.”
In September of last year, Chyron announced Sky News’ investment in 11 HyperX³ graphics systems, together with a CAMIO Cluster Server and OMS (Order Management Solution). The gear will be on hand at Harlequin 1, Sky’s new combined HD studio, post-production, and broadcast control center, when in it launches in 2011.
“We’ve been partners with Sky Sports since 2007 when Chyron became the single prime supplier of live studio graphics, so naturally we were very excited to be a part of the launch of Sky Sports News HD,” says Michael Wellesley-Wesley, CEO, Chyron. “The team assembled at Sky has made an unprecedented commitment in taking sports broadcasting to the next level and bring the best possible service to its customers.”
Chyron was also involved in the development of rich side panel graphics for the Sky News HD channel launch earlier this year. “The panels are an innovative new way of storytelling for Sky News HD,” says John Jelley, Producer, HD Strategy and Development, Sky News. “They add compelling detail to our journalism and context to the key stories of the day. Producer- driven templates are created to track the output, without needing on-air reference or voiceover. They include live video, rendered graphics, analysis and data, and accompany live reports from locations, studio guests and Breaking News.
“To operate the panels we use a combination of EVS (for the video), the Avid iNews newsroom production system, and Chyron products, the LUCI system with Lyric playlist control. The Chyron products gave us design flexibility, as well as reliability for playout.”