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Bannister Lake’s Chameleon Data Management Solution Powers Hamilton, Ontario-Based Cable 14’s New On-Air Look

Bannister Lake announced today that Cable 14, serving Hamilton, Ontario and surrounding communities, has successfully implemented the company’s Chameleon data management and aggregation solution to control and visualize data content on its broadcasts. Cable 14’s mission is to showcase and promote the local area and to keep viewers informed of local news, sports, and events.

Bannister Lake contributed to Cable 14’s important mission by developing and adding new data readers covering the Canadian University Football League and Ontario Hockey League. Bannister Lake also improved the channel’s ability to manage and visualize Twitter-based content as well as local traffic cameras.

Chameleon’s automation features played a key role in simplifying and streamlining the management of data feeds to help ensure content was continuously refreshed and that stale content automatically expired. Chameleon’s integration with Cable 14’s traffic system now allows the station to provide automated “Coming Up Next” snipes and billboards to promote upcoming programming.

“The Cable 14 implementation underlines our unique abilities to not only develop and read a wide variety of data feeds, but to also allow our clients to take full advantage of automation to optimize those feeds to meet their editorial objectives,” said Danny Ljubisic, director of business development and project management, Bannister Lake. “We were able to deliver this solution to Cable 14 in record time and ensure that their launch was successful.”

Cable 14’s new on-air presentation integrates social media and other local news sources to deliver compelling, hyper-local information that can only be found on its broadcasts. It also includes up-to-date sports scores and schedules from both local and professional sports teams and leagues. 

“As we kick off our 50th broadcast season, Cable 14 continues to evolve and deliver to cable television subscribers the best local content available on television and online,” said Bill Custers, senior manager, broadcast for Cable 14. “Cable 14 has been, is, and always will be, about Hamilton. This innovative, fresh look, facilitated by the Bannister Lake team, enables us to continue to exceed the expectations of our viewers every single hour.”

Bannister Lake’s Chameleon data management and aggregation solution is used by broadcasters, signage operators, and event producers to control and display a wide variety of diverse data feeds including news, sports, elections, financial, and wagering content.

 

 

 

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Bannister Lake’s Chameleon: The Other Canadian Champion at the 2019 US Open Tennis Championships

Bianca Andreescu’s spectacular win at the US Open Tennis Championships was an exciting moment for women’s tennis and for the entire country of Canada. As Canadians, we are thrilled for Bianca and excited to have handled the complexities of data management and aggregation for the US Open for the second straight year.

Bannister Lake’s Chameleon is the engine behind organizing the massive number of XML files and graphics that were strategically distributed and visualized on over 20 different video displays located throughout the Billy Jean King National Tennis Center. The various screens were viewed by a record number of 737,872 fans who attended this year’s event.

Real-time data on this scale presents enormous challenges. Bannister Lake’s technical and creative director, Al Savoie and the Bannister Lake development team were faced with reading and ingesting a wide variety of live data feeds from various sources, in various formats, including a new scoring system. The feeds then had to be organized within the Chameleon database and using the solution’s RESTful API distributed to specific screens-all of which had different editorial requirements, various graphical layouts and different dimensions. Some screens were formatted in portrait, some were ribbons, some landscape, and new this year were fascia displays courtside in the Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Outside of practice courts producers would display upcoming schedules, player biographies, schedules and brackets, however the screens located outside the main stadiums could display subsets of the live action data; serve speeds, number of aces, unforced errors and other game specific data. Producers have come to understand that the signage displays are most engaging and effective when the live data content is relevant and targeted. Due to the nature of the competition, content was often substituted updated and versioned depending on events. Chameleon’s unique strength is the ability to utilize its query and RESTful functionality in tandem, to organize data to create datasets that have a specific editorial function.

Live Chameleon data was quickly called up using a “match ID” system that Savoie was instrumental in developing. This would confirm that the correct headshots, bios and stats would quickly and automatically be loaded with a simple match ID entry. This dramatically sped up workflows, eased pressure on operators in the control room and ensured consistent editorial accuracy.

Like Bianca, Bannister Lake looks forward to the challenges at next year’s US Open and are confident we’ll once again both perform like champions.

 

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Bannister Lake’s Chameleon Closings Module Utilizes Web Connectivity to Alert Viewers

As the school year kicks off, Bannister Lake is ensuring that audiences across all platforms are properly and consistently informed about school closings. The Closings module within Bannister Lake’s Chameleon data management solution works in concert with the company’s Community cloud-based public access portal to make it easier for local television and community information channels to aggregate and distribute closing alerts to their viewers. When inclement weather, emergency situations, or labor disruptions arise, Closings provides schools, houses of worship, community centers, and other institutions the ability to quickly alert the public of cancellations or schedule changes.

The Closings module is included with Chameleon and enables broadcasters to group and playlist sets of institutions by type or geographic region. This capability allows tickers and other graphics to display organized sets of impacted institutions to inform audiences more effectively. A status function within Closings allows institutions to quickly and easily update their status when conditions change, ensuring that viewers are always kept up to date.

The Community portal is also included with Chameleon and provides an easy-to-use and secure gateway for institutions to enter predetermined closure-related details for broadcast. In addition, Google Sheets can be used to create a collaborative closings notification workflow that can be shared across an entire campus, or with a multi-location institution, spread over a large geographic area that requires a centralized management process.

“Chameleon’s Closings and Community modules work in tandem to deliver crucial closing information to viewers,” said Georg Hentsch, president, Bannister Lake. “We’ve developed a solution that allows broadcasters and the public to join forces and get this specific kind of news on the air quickly and accurately.”

Chameleon’s on-board RESTful API allows users to create subsets and reformat closings data and distribute content to web pages, mobile devices, and digital signage systems. Data can also drive custom web widgets to take advantage of animation and mapping to improve the dissemination and presentation of information to reach more viewers online.

Beyond Closings, Community can also be used to drive a variety of hyper-local content types that originate with viewers, including local sports scores, community events calendars, and public service announcements. 

 

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Bannister Lake Complements Broadcast Election Data Solutions With Sophisticated Online and Mobile Capabilities

 

With both Canada and the United States gearing up for national elections, Bannister Lake is now offering media organizations innovative web-based solutions to complement and augment their on-air presentations and dramatically expand election coverage. Bannister Lake HTML5-based web widgets use multiple static and real-time data sources to provide online and mobile audiences with easy-to-navigate, map-based visualizations to dig deeper into contextual election data. As broadcast audiences continue to drift online, the solution provides broadcasters with an opportunity to retain audiences with dynamic election graphics synchronized with their on-air presentations.

Bannister Lake’s development team has taken full advantage of the React JavaScript Framework to build web solutions that are lightweight, fully responsive, and run on the client side. This approach efficiently manages large volumes of election data while dramatically speeding up data retrieval and allowing users to access the solution on any device.

“At Bannister Lake we chose to develop web widgets that fully leverage the client side to avoid each query going back to the server,” said Bannister Lake President Georg Hentsch. “This provides a far superior user experience. And by incorporating live results, key demographic data, historical voting patterns, or other important data — all run through our unique development approach — producers can create more compelling journalism.”

The highly visual, animated, and interactive web widgets allow users to easily navigate directly to specific election races, districts, or regions to retrieve results. This capability provides broadcasters with more editorial options, allowing their on-air productions to focus on national trends, background, key races, and upsets, while the online presentation can provide a more localized and interactive presentation. Web widgets can be embedded directly into web pages or into applications to take full advantage of audiences using any device.

Web widgets can also be incorporated into on-set presentations via touch-screen displays, allowing presenters to walk viewers through important races and examine election trends.

Bannister Lake offers broadcasters two powerful election software products; Elector, designed for parliamentary style elections and Chameleon, which is equipped with an election module geared toward U.S. elections. Both solutions allow producers to take full advantage of Bannister Lake’s industry-leading query, data management, and RESTful API capabilities.

Web widgets expand upon Bannister Lake’s expertise in handling election results data while creating exciting new opportunities for journalists to target online and mobile audiences.

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Playing to Win – eSports Production with Real-Time Data-Driven Graphics

Published in Digital Media World July 2019

eSports events are becoming more sophisticated in terms of both the in-venue experience and the broadcast or streaming presentation. Tournament organisers are raising their game in production value and editorial enhancements, using high quality production talent and equipment.

According to Vern Freedlander, Strategic Partnerships at Bannister Lake, these developments are a response to the growing popularity of eSports around the world. Bannister Lake, Canadian software developers for the broadcast and digital signage industries, has gained a lot of experience in recent years serving the real-time data and visualisation needs of eSports productions.

Vern said, “Spectacular venues such as Red Bull’s Hanger 7 in Salzburg, Germany’s Nurburgring motorsports track, and Shanghai’s Mercedes Benz arena are hosting eSports tournaments. Events not only sell out major arenas, but millions of fans also watch on Twitch and YouTube to see competitors battle it out for serious cash prize pools.

“On the surface, eSports production resembles other sports broadcasts – mobile trucks, multiple cameras on jibs, slick video clips, impressive sets and lighting. However, what distinguishes eSports is the innovative use of graphics and the real-time data that populates the graphics. Esports tournaments are data-intensive, and new techniques to organise and display data are needed not only to make the events more visually compelling, but also to communicate fast-moving, complex information to fans.”

The Fan Experience

Conveying and enhancing the excitement of eSports at the arena and for fans watching on their devices requires graphics that add important information about the players and teams and takes advantage of the real-time aspect of these fast-paced games. “Unlike conventional sports coverage that follows the action of a single game with two teams competing, an eSports event will involve several games played over a two- or three-day period, while multiple teams compete simultaneously,” said Vern.

Bannister Lake’s Chameleon data aggregation and management system ingests multiple real-time data feeds and allows producers to organise, edit and moderate data content, and then populate graphics with customised data for display.

More than XML or RSS feeds, producers can simultaneously use Chameleon to manage and display diverse sets of editorial content that enhance the fan experience. Virtually any data source can be incorporated into the production. For example, topical event news generated by the tournament’s editorial teams, such as player profiles, standings, game schedules, and outstanding achievements, can be ingested through Google Sheets. This content may populate an L-Bar surrounding the game as a way to complement the action.

Moderated social media content can be included to create an interactive fan experience. Third-party feeds such as eSports industry news, weather, and events calendars can also be included.  

Revenue Opportunities

Chameleon can also manage advertising and sponsorship-related content, forming an important revenue opportunity for event producers. Sponsor logos can be triggered at appropriate times or branded content may appear within the L-Bar, for example. Vern noted, “The addition of game-related data pulled directly from the game’s API creates an entirely new level of excitement. Fans can view specific game-related data content aggregated, visualised and displayed alongside the actual game.

“For die-hard fans looking for key stats, the visualisation of API data adds a strong sense of engagement. Furthermore, game data can be coordinated to trigger other content when thresholds are met or when specific events occur. For example, if a team or player reaches a specific milestone, a special promotional ad may run automatically.”

eSports and Databases

Bannister Lake’s approach to data management is unusual in the production industry and opens up various possibilities for production and editorial. The method revolves around the use of attaching key value pairs around a standard relational database. “A typical sports database is made up of a series of standardised fields that corresponds to that particular sport and very rarely changes. eSports on the other hand are dramatically different with datasets that vary from game to game and may or may not be used in production,” said Vern.

“Bannister Lake allows users to add new tables as a companion to the core data. The underlying technique is to take these incoming diverse datasets and organise them in databases that support exceptionally fast recall. This creates a production system that is more flexible and allows producers to act as editors and add or delete datasets on the fly – depending on the game, the audience and the production’s editorial needs.”

Controlling and Expanding Data

The system’s API and Query functionality allows producers to take this further and distribute data content to specific end points. For example, fans who are following a team from Brazil could receive data only relevant to that team and receive customised ads and sponsorships that centre on that market.

Beyond in-venue signage and the broadcast streams, custom data can be distributed to web pages or mobile devices, enhancing the eSports experience while opening up new market opportunities. It can also drive entirely new ways of conveying eSports data such as augmented reality and virtual reality. Having more control over data, its management, and where it is ultimately distributed will most likely result in completely new ways of reaching eSports audiences.   

Vern said, “As the broadcast and AV communities continue to experiment with big data, the challenge remains in how to strategically harness data and present it in ways that enhance storytelling and drive new revenue opportunities.

“The need for web-based systems that can be implemented quickly in complex data-rich production environments, such as eSports, is critical. It is only by taking full control of fast-moving data and marrying it with great graphic design that producers, sponsors and above all, fans will fully realise the excitement and business potential of eSports.   www.bannisterlake.com

Published in Digital Media World July 2019

 

 

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Bannister Lake Takes on the Gran Turismo eSports Championships at the Legendary Nürburgring Track in Germany

For the second year in a row, Bannister Lake has partnered with Montreal’s Boombox Group to provide live data management and populate graphics for the FIA-Certified Gran Turismo Championships 2019 Series. The June 21-22 event took place at the renowned Nürburgring Track in Germany, home of the world’s most challenging 24-hour motorsports endurance race.

Bannister Lake software and expertise in live data management were used extensively throughout the event to read Google Sheets, ingest and moderate real-time social media feeds, and consolidate data for the competition’s various races. The solution’s data was used to drive graphics both in-venue and on the various broadcast streams.

Bannister Lake’s Chameleon software has quickly become a popular data management solution for international eSports events. Producers and event organizers use the product to add engaging content such as player and team profiles, event schedules, standings, and sponsorship information without taking away from the excitement of the game.

“It’s great to bring Chameleon on location at the Nürburgring. The track has an illustrious history in racing, and we’re thrilled to be part of the FIA-Certified Gran Turismo Championships,” said Al Savoie, Bannister Lake’s technical and creative director. “Throughout the series we will be finding new and exciting ways to integrate data into the production and leverage live data content to allow producers to tell more compelling Gran Turismo stories.”

The Nürburgring event featured 55 of the world’s best Gran Turismo drivers from 20 countries competing in the Manufacturer Series, the Nations Cup, and GR Supra GT Cup. Winners moved on to participate in racing events that will be held in New York, Salzburg, and the finals scheduled for October in Tokyo. Chameleon will be used throughout the FIA-Certified Gran Turismo Championships 2019 racing series to enhance editorial content and fuel new revenue opportunities for event organizers.

 

 

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Bannister Lake Updates and Enhances Twitter Search, Aggregation, and Management Capabilities

Bannister Lake announced today it has augmented and enriched its Chameleon Twitter management tools, providing producers with a highly advanced social media search solution that allows them to easily pinpoint relevant Twitter content and take it to air.

Chameleon’s Twitter interface offers users a variety of search parameters that go far beyond using hashtags or accounts. Users can identify Tweets from multiple angles: account mentions, key words or phrases, location, or language. By combining different search parameters, producers have various ways to filter and locate specific Tweets and drive editorial content. Producers can then use Chameleon to build, moderate, and customize playlists of Tweets to populate tickers, L-Bars, or full-frame graphics, or to make content available online or on mobile devices.

Unlike conventional Twitter search tools, Chameleon allows users to combine multiple searches into a single topic, providing a broader assortment of topic-related results while still maintaining editorial control over content. In addition, Chameleon supports Twitter’s Trends API to manage and display worldwide trends. Twitter content can be further filtered and managed through Chameleon’s onboard query and RESTful API functions.

“Chameleon’s native Twitter support goes well beyond the competition,” said Georg Hentsch, president, Bannister Lake. “By utilizing all aspects of the Twitter Search API and combining multiple searches into a single topic, Chameleon’s native Twitter support is preeminent. We dramatically improve users’ ability to locate the right content at the right time.”

Chameleon’s Twitter management features also support popular aggregation tools such as Tagboard, Juicer, and Inception Social, creating a powerful social media display solution for broadcast and digital signage applications.

Bannister Lake has long recognized the important role Twitter content plays across all media. By leveraging Chameleon’s capabilities to search, manage, and aggregate social media, along with integrating appropriate news, sports, finance, and other data sources, producers can create compelling and engaging data presentations. 

 

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Bannister Lake Web Widgets and New Results Timeline Feature Help Drive Global Television’s Alberta Provincial Election Coverage

Global Television’s coverage of the Alberta provincial election on April 16 featured two new data-driven products designed to communicate the nuances of election results to viewers and editorial teams.  Bannister Lake worked closely with Global Television’s production, design, and technical teams to deliver a touchscreen-based series of web widgets that incorporated live election results, historical results, and important demographic data. Global Television used the highly responsive web widgets to illustrate the connections between election results and contextual data such as household income and family status. By using easy-to-read maps, viewers could instantly comprehend and contrast regional and city-suburban voting outcomes.

Bannister Lake’s development of HTML5-based widgets adds an exciting dimension to election coverage and can be easily launched for other live data applications including sports, finance, and eSports. The widgets can be built quickly and are specifically designed to be fully responsive and interactive. Most importantly, the same products can be used on-air as well as online, granting viewers full access and control over the specific content they want to consume.

“As broadcasters look to expand their election coverage online and to mobile devices, our web widgets will play a vital role,” said Georg Hentsch, president, Bannister Lake. “Not only do they create a highly visual, interactive experience for viewers, they also allow interesting datasets to be incorporated, helping tell a more complete and compelling election story.”

Global Television also took full advantage of a new feature set recently added to Elector, Bannister Lake’s election race software solution. Elector’s Results Timeline feature helps analysts and reporters better predict race outcomes. Results Timeline displays a graphical timeline of election results per constituency or per party that is consistently updated as data comes in. This feature provides an easy way to read visual representation of the overall voting trend and allows analysts to quickly identify races that are fluctuating dramatically, have a clear winner early on, or are too close to call.

“Election night coverage is all about results,” said Gerry Belec, director of news technology and operations at Corus Entertainment. “Having Bannister Lake on our side, creating innovative data solutions, was instrumental in producing a great broadcast. The touch-enabled maps and the new features in Elector allowed us to use data in new ways that genuinely engaged our audience.”

In addition to touch-enabled web widgets and Results Timeline, Bannister Lake also supported Global Television’s Alberta election coverage with a variety of data-driven solutions, including augmented reality graphics, full frame results graphics, tickers, and L-bars.

 

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Avid and Bannister Lake Enter Into Sales and Distribution Agreement

Las Vegas, NAB Show 2019. Bannister Lake announced today it has entered into a joint sales, marketing, and distribution agreement with Avid®. Avid will serve as a non-exclusive distributor of Bannister Lake’s Chameleon data aggregation and management solution. With integration between Chameleon and the Avid Maestro™ Graphics, Avid users will be able to easily aggregate, moderate, and populate data-driven graphics for news, sports, financial, and other productions. Chameleon will be available through Avid’s sales channels.

Chameleon provides a sophisticated and powerful link between data and graphics for broadcast, OTT, digital signage, HTML5, online, and mobile applications. The solution reads, ingests, and manages multiple diverse data feeds through an advanced web interface, providing users with full control over both incoming data and output formats. Customized data is imported into graphic templates directly or through Chameleon’s RESTful API for use in news, sports, elections, financial, and other content genres. Chameleon data can also be imported into augmented reality and virtual reality products as well as IP-based solutions. It has also become a popular solution in data-intensive scenarios such as eSports and sports wagering.

“We are excited about bringing Bannister Lake’s wealth of data knowledge and expertise into the Avid ecosystem,” said Ofir Benovici, Avid’s vice president of media enterprise. “As live and static data play an increasingly important role in the production process, our end-users will realize greater value through more efficient workflows, better storytelling, and the opportunity to secure new business.”

“Avid is a natural fit for our data aggregation solutions,” said Georg Hentsch, president of Bannister Lake. “Not only will Avid customers be able to do more with their graphics, they will have the opportunity to leverage data in all kinds of ways that were previously unavailable. We look forward to a long and innovative relationship with Avid.”

Bannister Lake was established in 1994 and provides the broadcast industry with a variety of innovative solutions to manage data and graphics. The company supplies products and software development services to customize, automate, and distribute data content to various end points. Bannister Lake solutions can be found in television stations, networks, and at mission-critical events where live data is an essential part of communicating with audiences.

Bannister Lake will be exhibiting at the 2019 NAB Show, Booth SL5616.

 

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Bannister Lake Raises the Bar on IP Video Production with Chameleon NDI® Player

Bannister Lake announced today that it is fully embracing the NDI® workflow with its powerful Chameleon data aggregation solution. For producers working within the NDI ecosystem, Chameleon provides a straightforward method to bring live data directly into their productions. Chameleon reads multiple data sources, including news, weather, sports, traffic, social media, and financial data content, allowing users to edit, moderate, and customize their data. Using Chameleon’s Query functionality, data can be parsed at a granular level, enabling producers to select subsets of data to target viewers. The solution automates the flow of data to endpoints, ensuring that content is consistently relevant and timely. In turn, using Chameleon’s RESTful API, data content can be reformatted for distribution to virtually any device or endpoint.

Chameleon also extends NDI well beyond broadcast as a data aggregation solution for eSports and digital signage, providing producers with new business opportunities. eSports events — broadcast, streamed, or in-venue — benefit from Chameleon’s ability to read and display important game-related data feeds and provide fans with score boards, player profiles, standings, and other key data. Live data is an integral part of digital signage, keeping viewers updated with the latest news and information.

“We are excited by the growing popularity of NDI-supported solutions and the significant number of downloads of the NDI SDK,” said Georg Hentsch, president, Bannister Lake. “Chameleon adds an entirely new level of NDI production professionalism by allowing users to manage and display highly relevant and timely data content that their audiences demand.”

In addition to managing traditional editorial data content, Chameleon provides an ideal solution for producers who require a way to display local and hyperlocal content, including election results, school closings, and event calendars. In addition, Chameleon’s custom data feature can ingest data from Google Sheets, providing an opportunity to integrate local sports data content.

To help the NDI community better understand the business, operational, and technical capabilities of Chameleon and data content in general, Alain Savoie, Bannister Lake’s creative and technical director, will present his co-authored technical paper, “New Methodologies in Real-Time Data Aggregation and Management for Broadcast Presentation and Distribution,” at the 2019 NAB Show. Along with Savoie, the paper was written by Hentsch and Bannister Lake’s Vernon Freedlander, who heads strategic partnerships. The presentation will take place on Wednesday, April 10, at 4 p.m. at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Room N260.

Bannister Lake will be at the 2019 NAB Show, Booth SL5616.