VidiGo's Dutch Army Knife of Broadcast Tools

Broadcasting Feature at Creative COW

Debra Kaufman
Santa Monica California USA

©2011 CreativeCOW.net. All rights reserved.

Article Focus:
Dutch based software company, VidiGo now offers a range of products founded on the idea of simplifying workflow without compromising quality. Starting with a graphics engine for internal mixing of graphics with HD/SD-SDI output and evolving into a wide range of support to enhance productivity, including support for Adobe's Creative Suite and Blackmagic Design cards.

VidiGo CEO Hans Krouwels

"It all started with graphics," says VidiGo CEO Hans Krouwels. The Amsterdam-headquartered software company was founded with the idea that the production workflow could be simplified without losing quality. It now offers a range of products that cover the complete workflow of a professional TV production.

First came VidiGo Graphics, graphics engine for internal mixing of graphics with HD/SD-SDI input. After partnering with Adobe, VidiGo brought Adobe Flash to broadcast: With VidiGo Graphics, stations can use all the tools in Adobe Creative Suite 5 (Illustrator, Photoshop, and Flash Professional) and then render the files for on-air consumption in VidiGo Graphics.

"We realized we had a huge opportunity," says Krouwels. "We created VidiGo Graphics, based on Adobe Creative Suite, to run on standard PCs, allowing stations to maintain the same quality as high-end systems, at a fraction of the cost and many times the speed and flexibility." Since creating VidiGo Graphics, the company has added VidiGo ToolBox, VidiGo Live, VidiGo Works and VidiGo PlayOut.

With VidiGo Graphics, stations can use all the tools in Adobe Creative Suite 5

Most recently, VidiGo added support of Blackmagic Design cards to its product line. VidiGo Toolbox and VidiGo Graphics will now support the Blackmagic DeckLink Duo SDI card. (VidiGo also supports Deltacast cards). "Supporting Blackmagic video cards allows us to offer an even more cost- effective, yet still professional solution to broadcasters dealing with limited budgets," says VidiGo CEO Hans Krouwels. "Professional high-end solutions that are fun, easy to use and at the lowest possible price. is a vision we share with Blackmagic."


VidiGo COO Reinout Lempers

The company also announced a major upgrade of VidiGo Graphics. In cooperation with Adobe and one of their scaling partners, VidiGo has developed a dedicated Flash Player to get full control over timing. This new version makes handling slow moving objects, like a crawler or ticker-tape, much easier. "Before the upgrade, rendering those objects was handled by VidiGo's core engine instead of by Flash itself," explains COO Reinout Lempers. "Now, with VidiGo's dedicated Flash Player, users are able to render all objects within Flash. That will ease the development process substantially."

Lempers notes that, in addition to being a character generator, VidiGo Graphics can be used as a scoreboard application and offers social media integration and play-out. "It's a substantially lower investment than a hardware-based graphics system," he says "The user can rely on a worldwide creative Flash development community, without being locked in to specific vendors. And it offers an easy connection with social media and real-time data."

Other features include SDI standard with key and fill output, support for embedded audio, API for XML-based interactive graphics and integration with third party systems. It's also available in a downstream keyer version. In France, L'Equipe, a sports news corporation with the No. 1 news website in France, uses VidiGo. In the U.S., broadcast solutions company BTi integrated VidiGo. VidiGo Graphics also won a Mario Award at NAB 2011.

VidiGo Toolbox

A second product from VidiGo is the VideoToolBox, which the company calls its "Dutch army knife for broadcast." VidiGo's Toolbox combines a live desktop grabber, video file player, image still store, SDI output (SD/HD), and audio synchronization. "This is the answer to the increasing need to display PC or Web content in a live TV production," says Lempers. "You can easily grab PC or web content--anything from YouTube and Skype to Google Earth or PowerPoint--and take it to air with fill and key." The desktop grabber features automatic window detection and free selection of regions as well as live switching between different regions. Other features include an intuitive user interface, with the ability to reposition, resize, zoom in and out and adjust the audio for exact lip-synch. With the still store, the user can move, scale and mask photos to SDI output.

VidiGo ToolBox is software for TV production takes your PC and web content to live broadcasts in one click.

VidiGo Live

VidiGo Live is a software-based live multi-camera production suite that runs on standard hardware and can easily be controlled by one person. According to Lempers, VidiGo Live "does not require technical knowledge or previous video production experience to operate." Producers can also automate their show using pre-sets and macros. The company most recently unveiled VidiGo Live 4.0, which enables the use of 12 live inputs, video players, still stores, audio and Adobe Flash graphics.

VidiGo Live: a software based solution with a touch screen and hardware control panel for multi-camera live productions. Please click image above for larger view.

"VidiGo Live makes it possible to create professional video with the ease-of-use of consumer software, such as an iPad," says Lempers. "This is an ideal system to try new live broadcast concepts at affordable costs, even for smaller businesses." Vidigo Live also travels well, in a single flight case.

VidiGo Works

VidiGo also recently introduced a Version 2.1 of VidiGo Works, a client-server solution to manage assets, collaborate on video editing, ingest, import and deliver content in multiple formats and automate common tasks. The built-in video editor has basic editing tools, including graphics and captioning; editing is based on low-resolution proxy files with remote editing on the central server in high-resolution. All desktop application features are available from any Internet-connected workstation, allowing remotely located people to collaborate on projects over the Internet and deliver content in multiple formats and automate common tasks.

VidiGo Works platform for audio visual asset management. Please click image above for larger view.

Version 2.1 enables XDCAM ingest, AAF export and a doubled render speed. "VidiGo Works is the heart of the VidiGo product range," says Krouwels. "Projects are accessible anywhere, anytime, anyplace, and it includes automated distribution in multiple formats." The client runs on standard Windows or Mac OS X workstations.

VidiGo PlayOut

VidiGo PlayOut, a 24/7 operating software tool that runs on Windows Server, offers HD video play-out with Flash graphics. It mixes and plays out a video layer with a graphical overlay that adds logos, animations, ads, promos, news banners, twitter feeds and so on to the output SDI signal. "VidiGo PlayOut offers a simple and quick way to show information, commercials or announcements in public or private environments on monitors and other display systems, as well as on air," says Lempers.