With GenAI rapidly becoming one of the leading topics of interest at the upcoming NAB Show in Las Vegas, many may be curious as to the extent of artificial intelligence usage by broadcast media that could come in future years.
ENCO will most likely be turning heads — human and virtual, perhaps — with its latest offering.
ENCO plans to showcase an AI-driven virtual anchor delivering live news from a realistic 3D virtual news set during this year’s NAB Show, from a virtual production facility at its booth in the West Hall (W1743) of the Las Vegas Convention Center.
The presentation will be produced live from a virtual production studio powered by Qimera AR/VR/MR systems in combination with generative AI technologies.
ENCO first unveiled their partnership with Qimera at the 2023 NAB Show, where the two companies debuted a complete virtual production. “The AI virtual anchor is an exciting new innovation for this year’s exhibit, leveraging AI models to generate virtual human anchors that speak with human-sounding voices,” ENCO notes. “These are generated by ENCO new SPECai generative AI text and voice creation application.”
Specifically, the Qimera virtual production workflow will acquire and summarize a news story, delivered as synthetic speech through the virtual anchor.
“The convergence of AI with news production technology represents a significant step forward in that it introduces an automated way to create compelling, localized content in real-time,” said ENCO President Ken Frommert. “We fully expect this impressive technology to make a big impact in 2024 because it offers a broad, robust feature set with a simplified, intuitive user experience unseen in the marketplace.”
The Qimera virtual production environment accelerates the learning curve by removing all the complexity from the process. The underlying Qimera technology generates realistic, real-time graphical sets by harnessing its integrated Unreal Engine, NVIDIA GeForce graphics card, and 3D asset library. Other integrated features include virtual cameras, tracked/trackless camera systems, a 4-input switcher and DMX lighting controls.
As Qimera’s exclusive North American distributor, ENCO sells and markets Qimera’s virtual production technology and integrates it with ENCO’s automation, studio production and captioning product lines. This NAB virtual production studio experience is designed to call attention to the extensive products offered by ENCO and its partners.
“Our 2024 NAB Show exhibit is a strong example of how ENCO blends the physical and digital worlds with AI to ignite groundbreaking creative possibilities,” Frommert added. “We are just getting started.”
— With reporting by Brian Galante, in Boston
