CCTV Equips Sports Awards Ceremony with Ventuz Installation

Date: 16th March 2015
Customer: CCTV, Agency: Hunters
Event: Events, Sports Awards Ceremony
Market: Broadcast
Technology: Projection Mapping, Video Wall

After one decade of hosting the Sports Awards Ceremony, CCTV enhances the show with a live Chat integration to allow viewer participation.

The CCTV Sports Awards are a highly prestigious event which attracts the entire Chinese sports elite as well as a large number of TV viewers. The ceremony honors outstanding performances in a wide variety of categories. In order to reflect the high standards applied to the athletes, the event itself utilizes the latest technological developments to create a unique experience for the nominees and audience alike.

This year, the Chinese agency Hunters was hired to realize a solution that would bring the audience from all over the country onto the large projection screen. Using Ventuz as their real-time 3D engine, Hunters created an integration of the popular communication tool WeChat. It allowed people to log into the shows auditorium, which was displayed with headshots of all participants on stage. The host could then select individuals from the virtual audience who could give a short comment. The application proved to be very popular during the show, which was aired live on February 1st.

Hunters is the creative studio of TVM. The team has supported many famous Chinese programs. “Ventuz is one of the most reliable and flexible broadcast graphics tools out there”, explained Allen Hyoga, founder of Hunters. “We have created a number of shows for CCTV with Ventuz in the past, among them the Opening Ceremony of the Nanjing Youth Olympics, the broadcast of the Brazil World Cup last year, as well as this year’s Spring Festival Special Program.” 
 
Ventuz was also used to handle the intricate projection setup. Five different stage elements were illuminated by three projectors from a single Ventuz server. With the help of AMD’s Eyefinity technology, the system streamed real-time content and HD videos smoothly onto the stage backdrop.