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.

Bannister Lake Releases Chameleon Version 10 Real-Time Data Aggregation and Graphics Management Solution

Chameleon, Bannister Lake’s data aggregation and graphics management solution is introducing dramatic new enhancements with a strong focus on election data. Within its election module, Chameleon Version 10 improves how election data is ingested and managed. The new release expands the ability to enter manual election results where data feeds may not be available. This is particularly useful in less populated districts or in jurisdictions where it is not practical to organize a real-time results feed. The new functionality also provides an important failsafe in situations where a data feed may have stopped working.

In addition, Chameleon Version 10 dramatically improves the management of referendum and proposition results, providing editorial staff with more options for displaying down-ballot data. The election module also features improved management and filtering for acclaimed candidates.

“We realize that elections are more than just national events. These new features help ensure that broadcasters covering races in remote locations or in smaller communities can use data on-air more effectively,” said Bannister Lake’s President, Georg Hentsch.

The new release highlights Chameleon’s ability to feed data to web widgets, allowing producers to visualize data interactively online or on mobile devices. This feature drives new storytelling opportunities not only for elections, but also for news, sports and financial data. Bannister Lake is also introducing support for automatically sending out tweets based on Chameleon data conditions, enriching live data experiences on social media.

Chameleon Version 10 also provides improved sponsorship management, allowing users to manage campaign and client data more efficiently. The new and improved sponsor module tracks and connects campaigns to specific sponsors, making as-run logging clearer and better defined.

The new version of the product also includes enhanced security features aligned with NIST guidelines with improved password protection. Chameleon now offers clients an upgraded password strength checker and warns users when they are changing their password to a common password based on a list of the 1,000,000 most used passwords.

Version 10 also boosts Chameleon’s query functionality, its ability to filter custom data, introduces media bins for organizing media into containers and additional support for the onboard HTML5 designer tool.

Chameleon Version 10 is now available. Bannister Lake is dedicated to releasing new features and functionality several times a year to improve the capabilities of its software products.

Bannister Lake Successfully Concludes the FIA-Certified Gran Turismo Championships 2018 World Final in Monaco

Bannister Lake, the leading provider of professional broadcast data aggregation and visualization solutions, today announced that its Chameleon data aggregation and management software played an integral role in delivering editorial and graphic content for the FIA-Certified Gran Turismo Championships 2018 Series. The tournament has quickly become one of the world’s most popular eSports events featuring the best Gran Turismo drivers. Chameleon was used during the championships run-ups in Salzburg, Madrid, and Las Vegas leading up to the world finals in Monaco that took place Nov. 16-18. In all, the tournament covered four international regions over a three-month period, ultimately reducing the field of hundreds of contestants down to 30 finalists.

In partnership with Montreal’s The Boombox Group, Bannister Lake provided the event’s data management solution populating graphics both in-venue and for the tournament’s web broadcasts. Chameleon was used to filter data coming from Google Sheets and organize data for each of the competition’s races. Chameleon also provided the event with tournament standings based on points and finish position and its BLADE RESTful API was used to reformat data content to make it readily available to graphics engines for display.

Bannister Lake has worked on numerous eSports and high-profile sporting events including the recent FIFA eWorld Cup™ 2018 and the 2018 US Open Tennis Championships. Both events used Chameleon to aggregate a wide variety of data content, moderate and manage content, and distribute it to various output channels.

“The FIA-Certified Gran Turismo Championships had its own unique challenges, but we were able to take full advantage of our production experience,” said Al Savoie, Bannister Lake’s technical and creative director who supervised data graphics integration onsite. “A great example of this is our ability to trigger specific graphics directly from the switcher to sync driver cameras, with their corresponding lower thirds. This gave the technical director the ability to go to three boxes at any time and have the correct name, flag, and manufacture of each of the drivers.”

Bannister Lake’s Chameleon has quickly become a popular choice for eSports production, providing a more engaging experience for fans while creating new revenue opportunities for event organizers. By aggregating and displaying multiple real-time data sources, it enables fans to receive added editorial information while allowing sponsors to generate more impressions.

Bannister Lake Software a Smash at the 2018 US Open

Bannister Lake played a vital role at this year’s US Open at the USTA Billie Jean National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, NY. Bannister Lake’s powerful data engine Chameleon served as the data management solution for multiple data feeds from a diverse set of sources. Chameleon was used to reformat, filter, moderate and distribute data and graphics to dozens of various shaped digital signs throughout the tennis facility. Bannister Lake was instrumental in devising the workflows and processes that handled over 250,000 XML files corresponding to the participation of over 1000 players playing hundreds of matches. The complexity of the project was compounded with Chameleon also taking on responsibility for managing other data sources including weather, event news, social media, schedules, headshots, scores, sets winners, standings and other tournament related data. Player’s personal biographical data such as place of birth, height, weight, handed and others information was also included.

“We knew Bannister Lake’s Chameleon could handle the complexity. It’s the industry’s most powerful engine for aggregating any data type and it’s the only way we could have pulled off the US Open project under the extreme time constraints; that and all the hard work by our team.” said Georg Hentsch, President Bannister Lake.

“Our extensive work in both the broadcast market and in eSports prepared us for the production challenges of the US Open. Chameleon has powered a variety of event-based productions, most notably eSports tournaments which typically includes hundreds of matches played over a short amount of time with a large number of players. So, we were more than ready.” said Alain Savoie, Creative and Technical Director at Bannister Lake.

Bannister Lake’s unique workflow was built around leveraging the single Match ID unique identifier which was used to drive all the data associated with a particular match. Chameleon was then able to use automation to populate the various graphics templates and tickers that were in turn distributed via Ross Video’s Tessera and XPression graphics engines to the screens throughout the facility. In total, 7 XPressions running simultaneously with 15 output channels, displaying 15 different screen layout styles were utilized. In addition, 11 tickers running different content on different layouts were also being used.

In addition to Chameleon, Bannister Lake provided a complete cloud-based backup system and their unique Community data service. Community allowed editorial and production teams at the US Open to contribute news and essential information to the hundreds of thousands of tennis fans who attended the event.

 

Bannister Lake’s Chameleon Serving Up Aces at the US Open

The US Open Tennis Tournament at Flushing Meadows, NY is underway and at the heart of the enormous task of managing and visualizing the event data is Bannister Lake’s Chameleon. Chameleon software is handling thousands of datasets, moderating and distributing schedule information, matches, standings, social media, news, weather and more. Cloud backup is also provided by Chameleon.

Data projects of this magnitude require collaboration with multiple partners. Bannister Lake is working alongside Marty Dormany of The Academy of Lower Thirds and the team at Van Wagner Sports and Entertainment. Through the combined efforts of these talented professionals, tennis fans throughout the Billy Jean King National Tennis Center receive live updates and vital tournament information from place-based digital signs throughout the facility.

“It’s one of our largest and most complex projects”, says Alain Savoie, Bannister Lake’s Creative Director. “There are 763 players competing with 899 matches to be played over the 2-week period. Every single game needs the ability to be called up on the fly and include match data and player data.”

Chameleon is not only parsing and managing data, it is also providing the event’s scorebug and ticker solution. In all, 11 different ticker feeds are being generated and feeding various screens around the venue. In-stadium scorebugs are being displayed in the Arthur Ashe Stadium, Louis Armstrong Stadium, and in The Grandstand. In addition to Chameleon, Bannister Lake’s Community data service is being used by production teams to input content.

The US Open signage graphics are being run off 7 Ross Video XPressions outputting to 15 channels displaying 15 different screen layout styles using XPression Tessera and controlled through Ross Video DashBoard. Chameleon’s tight integration with Ross Video products assures operational efficiencies and outstanding performance.

Bannister Lake’s Chameleon with its powerful data engine, innovative parsing, versatile data reformat tools and ease of operation and setup make it the industry’s best choice for complex, mission-critical data visualization tasks.

Chameleon powering digital signage systems at the US Open Grand Slam Tennis Tournament in Flushing Meadows, New York

Here’s the pain point: You need to manage an incredibly large amount of real-time data coming from multiple sources in a variety of formats. All those complex data sets need to be moderated, parsed, reformatted, visualized and then distributed to various screens/devices. Somehow you have to boil all that content down to present a compelling visual storyline that engages your audience. Bannister Lake’s Chameleon product handles this task everyday working with North America’s top broadcasters.

For the next 2 weeks Chameleon is powering digital signage systems at the US Open Grand Slam Tennis Tournament in Flushing Meadows, New York. Chameleon is managing thousands of data files from a diverse set of sources and distributing them to approximately 100 screens spread over the tournament’s four main venues, keeping spectators informed. Chameleon’s powerful data engine, innovative parsing, flexible management tools and ease of operation and setup make it the best choice for complex, mission-critical data visualization tasks.