Customer: RFD-TV
Application: Chameleon and Custom Development
Platform: Broadcast
RFD-TV and Barchart Data Integration
Bannister Lake Announces Partnership with Traffic Camera Data and Service Provider Vizzion
Bannister Lake is pleased to announce today it has entered into a partnership with Vancouver-based traffic camera data aggregator, Vizzion. Vizzion is an industry-leading traffic camera data service featuring over 64,000 traffic cameras in 43 countries. Working with over 200 national and regional camera partners in more than 600 markets, Vizzion provides visual verification of traffic flow, traffic incidents, and weather-related road conditions. Through an exclusive partnership with one of North America’s largest internet-connected dashcam companies, Vizzion also supplies imagery from on-vehicle cameras across North America.
Bannister Lake has developed and implemented a data parser for Vizzion data that incorporates traffic camera feeds and mapping into its industry-leading Chameleon data aggregation and management solution. Using Chameleon, clients will be able to strategically isolate specific Vizzion camera feeds and add them to their on-air displays. Clients can also leverage Chameleon’s BLADE RESTful API to strategically distribute traffic cameras to a variety of endpoints including online, mobile, OTT, and web widgets.
Vizzion’s traffic camera content compliments Bannister Lake’s already existing real-time transit data feeds, creating a valuable transportation information solution for viewers. Chameleon clients can create and distribute a wide range of regional, local, and hyper-local information services by combining transportation information with editorial content such as local news, school closings and events calendars.
“Real-time traffic is an important content source and having access to Vizzion’s vast database of camera sources promotes a valuable editorial and business opportunity for Chameleon clients. We look forward to working with Vizzion as they continue to develop their products and services”, said Georg Hentsch, president, Bannister Lake.
“Bannister Lake’s Chameleon solution provides an innovative way to extend Vizzion’s reach to different platforms. The addition of our traffic camera database to Bannister Lake’s data sources will provide Chameleon users working in both broadcast and digital signage with a great way to connect with audiences and advertisers”, said Sean Beaudoin, Account Manager, Vizzion.
Bannister Lake is committed to creating software solutions that fully leverage real-time data. By fully utilizing its expertise in development, databases, APIs and applications, Bannister Lake creates solutions that engage audiences, attract advertising revenue and leverage automation.
Bannister Lake To Provide Covid-19 Data Through Its Community Aggregation Service
Bannister Lake announced today that as a public service offering, it is making authoritative COVID-19 data available to its customers via its built-in Community data aggregation service. Community collects data from credible public sources such as the World Health Organization and Johns Hopkins and ingests it directly into Bannister Lake’s Chameleon data aggregation and management solution. In addition, the company has developed a world map-based web widget populated with the same COVID-19 data illustrating the extent of the outbreak. Recognizing that as the virus spreads, reliable data is essential for audiences to understand the rapidly changing situation and to respond accordingly, Bannister Lake is making the data and widget available as a public service.
“At a time like this, real-time data from trustworthy sources is the only way audiences can keep up with news about the global pandemic,” said Georg Hentsch, president, Bannister Lake. “We understand the vital role media organizations play at this time. We want to do our part by supporting their communications efforts with immediate availability of our data and widgets free of charge.”
Within Chameleon, users can manage and integrate local, national and international news, closings, alerts, financial data and other topical content to create a complete view of the COVID-19 situation. This content can then be outputted as tickers, L-Bars, data-populated graphics or fully automated information channels. Chameleon’s RESTful API can be used to strategically distribute data to different broadcast graphic engines, digital signage systems, or as HTML5 for online and mobile distribution.
Media organizations can further query and edit COVID-19 related data to create a variety of custom visualizations including geographically focused datasets, charts, tables, and indicators. Users can schedule the playback of specific data to target particular markets or platforms with data content that may be especially important to that audience. Bannister Lake will continue to develop data parsers incorporating data from reliable sources to ensure that media organizations and their audiences have access to the most up-to-date and accurate content. Customers interested in integrating the data or requiring technical support can email info@bannisterlake.com.
Bannister Lake Provides On-Air QR Code Functionality to Canada’s ‘Today’s Shopping Choice’
Bannister Lake announced today that it has successfully added QR codes to “Today’s Shopping Choice” (TSC, tsc.ca) on-air graphic presentation, creating exciting new purchase possibilities for viewers. Bannister Lake has a long-standing relationship with the popular home shopping broadcaster, having created and implemented software solutions that are integral to the channel’s production workflow.
Bannister Lake’s established BL XPF Generator solution automatically pulls all the visual assets associated with the featured products that are scheduled during a specific TSC segment and in turn generates a Ross XPression graphic sequence that can be taken to air instantly. By adding QR codes to the asset mix through Bannister Lake software, TSC can drive additional sales while providing audiences with supplementary product information.
TSC viewers scan the QR code with their smartphones and are taken to a corresponding webpage to learn more about the product and make the purchase. This provides an additional path to purchase and is welcomed by tech-savvy viewers.
“QR codes are an important complement to the existing solution at TSC and a great example of our clients realizing the flexibility of our software,” said D’Arcy Pickering, vice president, sales, Bannister Lake. “We are always looking at ways our clients can engage more viewers and generate additional revenue.”
Bannister Lake has previously worked with TSC developing and implementing BL Macros, a custom solution that allows operators to call up special supporting graphics as required. These graphics include countdown timers, items sold, items remaining, and available sizes.
Bannister Lake’s custom solutions provide broadcasters and event producers with new opportunities to use data and graphics in innovative ways. As real-time data experts with strong development skills in database, APIs, and applications, Bannister Lake designs, builds, and implements bespoke software solutions that create more efficient workflows, engage audiences, and monetize data.
Bannister Lake Announces Partnership With Election Data Provider Decision Desk HQ
Bannister Lake is pleased to announce that it is partnering with Washington, D.C.-based election data provider Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) to provide U.S. election data and analysis. DDHQ is a leader in election data collection and reporting, providing results solutions that are up to the second, competitively priced, and accurate.
Bannister Lake has developed and implemented a parser for DDHQ election returns that ingests results data directly into its industry-leading Chameleon data aggregation and management solution. Within Chameleon, producers and analysts can track results, identify voting trends, make race calls, or use DDHQ supplied calls. Producers can then generate graphic playlists and use Chameleon’s RESTful API to distribute data and render graphics through popular broadcast graphic engines or through Chameleon’s HTML 5 renderer.
Broadcasters and online media organizations will be able to use the combination of DDHQ data and Bannister Lake’s Chameleon software to produce exceptional election coverage. DDHQ data includes results for senate, congress, governor, and down ballot races, as well as presidential primaries and the presidency.
Of special interest to local broadcast outlets, DDHQ is the only service to collect and report election results for county and local offices. This includes judges, supervisors, town and school boards in addition to ballot propositions and referendum questions. Bannister Lake is an established leader in managing election data. The company’s Elector software is used by leading Canadian broadcasters to cover elections while Chameleon is equipped with a robust election module geared toward U.S. and other styles of elections.
“Bannister Lake, with its Chameleon software and proven track record with broadcasters across the United States and Canada is a natural fit for DDHQ data,” said Drew McCoy, president, DDHQ. “The product will allow broadcasters in any market, and online services, the ability to produce highly visual election coverage featuring graphics populated with up to the second results. We look forward to working with them, their clients and our partners to provide cutting-edge national, state, and local election coverage in 2020 and in the future.”
“Clients are looking for an alternative to current election data providers and require a robust election data management solution that can generate spectacular graphics,” said Georg Hentsch, president, Bannister Lake. “The combination of Chameleon and DDHQ data provides a cost-effective and editorially powerful solution for any organization covering the upcoming elections.”
Bannister Lake will be making DDHQ election data available within a variety of solutions, including broadcast graphic engines, web widgets, on-set interactive touch screen displays and as customized social media content. Together, the companies will provide election producers with a wide variety of data solutions to reach audiences on any platform.
Bannister Lake Announces MAM Integration Into Its Zeus Digital Media Storage and Playout Solution
Bannister Lake announced today that its browser-based media storage and playout solution, Zeus, can be fully integrated with popular media asset management (MAM) systems. With minimal customization the Zeus solution can access content within a MAM and still take full advantage of Zeus’ impressive search features and its convenient drag and drop playlist and sequence building capabilities.
Zeus is an ideal solution for productions that require a high number of images and video clips that need to be turned around quickly in a fast-paced and unpredictable environment. Home shopping channels, and news, entertainment, and sports productions are typical use cases.
Zeus features a centralized asset management structure allowing multiple users to access the system simultaneously, while ensuring the overall system is consistently synchronized. This dramatically speeds up the production workflow providing the entire production team with access to the solution. Producers are able to use their web browsers to access Zeus and build shows or content sequences offline saving valuable studio production time. An intuitive UI lets users import folders and conveniently move assets into the appropriate output framebuffer.
“Productions that depend on a very large number of clips and images and need to access them extremely quickly require a solution that complements their workflows,” said Georg Hentsch, president, Bannister Lake. “Zeus has the functionality to achieve this and with MAM integration the product is even stronger.”
Zeus supports up to 4 SDI (HD/SD) channels as well as NDI and also supports the ability to record incoming video.
Visit Bannister Lake at the 2019 NAB Show, booth SL5616.
Corus Entertainment: Driving New Business And Operational Efficiencies With Bannister Lake Software
Corus Entertainment is one of Canada’s largest media and content companies with assets in radio, television and online. The broadcast television side of the company is a mix of over-the-air broadcast stations and specialty cable channels. Like all media organizations, it is observing dramatic shifts in audience viewing habits and in the way advertising dollars are being designated. Corus is responding proactively to address the changing media marketplace, developing innovative technology and content solutions. It is a pioneer in Canada, creating consolidated news production facilities, building a national infrastructure with sophisticated content sharing capabilities and extending their various brands across multiple platforms. Corus also broke new ground in leveraging live data; both as a content source and as a driver of video and content to new platforms. Early on, Corus saw the value that data had as an editorial source that could be extended over its many media properties and as a powerful tool to strategically distribute content.
Data empowers Corus to accomplish two essential things: add significant editorial value to its multiple media properties and secondly, open new market opportunities driving untapped ad revenue. To meet these objectives and take full advantage of their data and content, Corus’ Global News division turned to Bannister Lake, a leading provider of professional video graphic display solutions for broadcast.
In working with Corus, Bannister Lake focused on three essential data-rich areas: elections, information tickers and creating new media products and services. Across Global News’ broadcast operations, Bannister Lake’s Elector election race software is being used to produce municipal, provincial and federal coverage. Elector allows editorial staff to quickly and effectively filter race results, identify important trends, make race calls and in turn populate and display dynamic election graphics on-air or online.
“Elector has become our go-to software solution for all our election coverage. It works great on municipal, provincial and federal races. Both our editorial and technical staff love its ease of use and quick implementation,” says Gerry Belec, director of news technology and operations at Corus Entertainment.
Across Global News, Bannister Lake powers L-Bars, tickers, and sponsor logos on all the local morning news programs. The key tool Global News uses to make all this possible is Bannister Lake’s Chameleon software. Chameleon provides Global News with a single data/graphics management solution that drives a wide variety of graphic playout devices across the entire Global News organization. By centralizing data through Chameleon, Corus not only realizes operational efficiencies, but also permits broadcast sales to create new media products and sell both national and local sponsorships on all its broadcast tickers. Editorially, Chameleon enables Global News to integrate the widest possible variety of data sources on-air, including social media feeds, financial data, sports scores, closings and atypical feeds such as community events calendars.
Corus foresees Chameleon playing an expanded and valuable role as the media company develops and launches multi-platform solutions, expands online, distributes more content via partnerships and explores innovative media opportunities.
Global News takes advantage of BLADE, Chameleon’s RESTful API feature, allowing them to manage and distribute specific portions of a data feed. With BLADE, Global News can effortlessly direct their content to various output channels including thousands of screens across digital signage networks in multiple cities across Canada. This has fostered new revenue and promotional opportunities for Corus and has dramatically improved brand recognition. BLADE allows Global News to target specific end points strategically with content designated for that output.
Corus and Global News further benefit from Bannister Lake’s development strategy that emphasizes multi-user, web-based solutions while still maintaining high levels of security. Teams from across the country can simultaneously access the solution, load content, query data and create and edit playlists, but only according to their user status. Should unusual operational issues emerge, Bannister Lake’s development team can write custom code resolving the issue.
“We look forward to a long and creative partnership with Corus. We are thrilled that our software and custom services can be plugged into so many aspects of their business”, says Georg Hentsch, Bannister Lake’s founder.
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TV Technology
Bannister Lake’s Alain Savoie to Present at the 2019 NAB Show Broadcast Engineering and Information Technology Conference (BEITC)
Bannister Lake announced today that Alain Savoie, the company’s creative and technical director, will be presenting his co-authored white 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 Bannister Lake’s Vernon Freedlander who heads strategic partnerships and the company’s president, Georg Hentsch. The presentation takes place on Wednesday, April 10 at 4 p.m. at the Las Vegas Convention Center room N260.
Live data, its management and visualization, have become an integral part of the broadcast and visual communications workflow. Whether used in fast-moving, dynamic on-air presentations such as elections, news, sports, eSports, or finance, or to populate and control on-air branding, effective live-data aggregation and management drives efficiencies and creates new monetization possibilities. As broadcasters seek out new revenue streams, live data plays a key role both online and in developing new markets such as streaming and digital signage.
Savoie will be speaking on several important data-related topics that directly impact the broadcast industry. The presentation will focus on unique data-driven engineering and development methodologies, and how broadcasters can take advantage of the data aggregation and management tools and techniques these methodologies foster to create more efficient and automated production workflows. Savoie will also explore how broadcasters can utilize real-time data to create and distribute new revenue-generating products and services. Savoie will use examples from broadcast, eSports, and event signage to illustrate.
Savoie is an industry authority on live-data-driven graphics. He has worked on numerous high-profile broadcast projects integrating data into innovative graphic solutions. At Bannister Lake he is responsible for integrating data feed content into Bannister Lake’s data aggregation and management technology suite and in turn outputting data to on-air graphic systems throughout the broadcast and event ecosystem. Savoie works directly with engineers, designers, editorial teams, and event producers offering training, commissioning, graphic operations, and consultation to meet any data and technical requirement within the production and graphic display workflow.
At the 2019 NAB Show Bannister Lake will be highlighting its flagship data aggregation and graphics management solution, Chameleon. Chameleon provides networks and station groups with unparalleled data aggregation, graphics management, and visualization possibilities. Beyond broadcast, the Chameleon solution is used in multiple data applications: OTT, streaming, digital signage, HTML5, online, and mobile. Chameleon reads, ingests, and manages multiple, diverse data feeds through an advanced web interface, providing users with full control over incoming data. Users can edit, moderate, blend, and manage datasets to generate completely customizable and automated tickers, L-bars, full frame graphics, and branding elements.
Be sure to visit Bannister Lake at the 2019 NAB Show, Booth SL5616.
Bannister Lake to Highlight New Feature Set and NDI Version of Chameleon Data Aggregation and Graphic Management Solution at 2019 NAB Show
Bannister Lake’s industry-leading data and graphics management solution, Chameleon, will be in the spotlight at the 2019 NAB Show with a focus on the product’s new election, sponsorship, and security functionality.
As broadcasters start planning for the 2020 presidential election, Chameleon boasts improvements to its election race modules, providing producers with more options to ingest and manage result data feeds, referendums, propositions, and acclaimed candidates.
The latest release highlights Chameleon’s ability to drive online, mobile, and social media election experiences by feeding data to web widgets and automatically sending out tweets based on Chameleon data conditions. These exciting features allow producers to utilize Chameleon data to visualize election results interactively, presenting innovative new storytelling possibilities.
A new and improved sponsor module tracks and connects campaigns to specific sponsors, making as-run logging clearer and better defined. Chameleon also includes enhanced security features aligned with NIST guidelines with improved password protection.
Bannister Lake has also focused a great deal of attention on social media, enhancing Chameleon’s Twitter search capabilities and improving the product’s media module, introducing bins for organizing content and the enablement of multi-file uploads.
Product demonstrations will feature projects focused on Bannister Lake’s recent work in elections, eSports, and event signage.
At NAB, Bannister Lake will also be introducing a new version of its Chameleon NDI player, providing NDI users with the ability to fully manage and visualize live data feeds. NDI users will be able to integrate, moderate, and customize multiple live data feeds into graphic templates and provide their audiences with real-time news, weather, sports, social media, financial, and customized data.
As part of NAB’s Broadcast Engineering and Information Technology Conference (BEITC), Al Savoie, Bannister Lake’s creative and technical director, will be presenting his co-authored whitepaper “New Methodologies in Real-Time Data Aggregation and Management for Broadcast Presentation and Distribution.” The interactive session will explore Bannister Lake’s unique approach to data aggregation and feature production examples from both broadcast and eSports. Savoie’s presentation takes place on April 10 at 4 p.m. at the Las Vegas Convention Center room N260.
In addition, NAB attendees will have the opportunity to learn more about Bannister Lake’s Zeus media storage and playout solution. Perfect for image- and clip-intensive production environments, Zeus provides producers with easy and immediate access to content. It is an ideal solution for home shopping channels, entertainment programs, news, sports productions, and any situation where high volume, quick turnaround, and unpredictability of clip and image requirements must be carefully managed. With minimum custom development, Zeus can be fully integrated with popular MAM systems, providing broadcasters with access to vast libraries of clip and image content.
Be sure to visit Bannister Lake at the 2019 NAB Show, Booth SL5616.
Bannister Lake’s Chameleon Delivers 4K Graphic Content Over IP
Bannister Lake announced today that its data aggregation and management solution, Chameleon, is now capable of outputting 4K UHD video over IP video networks. The solution was recently showcased at the InterBEE exhibition in Japan using Visionary Solutions’ PacketAV 4K DUET encoder and decoders.
Visionary Solutions’ PacketAV 4K video over IP encoders and decoders solve the transportation issues common with non-IP cabling solutions, allowing Chameleon graphics to play back smoothly on 4K monitors in any location.
“We are thrilled to see Chameleon successfully operational in a 4K over IP environment,” said Georg Hentsch, President, Bannister Lake. “This marks an important milestone as we continue to build on years of consistent innovation and presents a data and graphics management solution that performs exceptionally well in any resolution and in any broadcast environment.”
“I love how clients marvel at the simplicity and efficiency of this system,” said Doug Strable, sales representative for Bannister Lake and Visionary Solutions products in Japan. “Chameleon’s web-based interface allows a non-technical user to update the information on all platforms, and the PacketAV DUET 4K encoders and decoders allow content to be displayed through a standard LAN network. The combined system is easy to set up, easy to maintain and easy to update.”
Chameleon graphics rendered to HTML5 were transported over a standard 1 Gigabyte network to multiple 4K video monitors with native 4K image quality, while maintaining its industry-leading data management functionality.
As the international broadcast industry continues to experiment and migrate to 4K over IP workflows, it is vitally important that graphics technologies keep pace with developments and support the trend. Similarly, the production community requires solutions that allows data content to be quickly repurposed to find value in a 4K environment.
Bannister Lake is an industry leader in data and graphics management, providing software and services for a broad range of broadcast and digital signage projects, including real-time election results, social media integration, financial, sports, news, and eSports.