Planar

PORTLAND, Ore., — January 18, 2022 — Planar, a global leader in visualization technology, and sister company OptiTrack, the worldwide leader in 3D tracking systems, have joined other industry leaders and SMPTE®, the home of media professionals, technologists and engineers, to form The Advisory Group of the On-Set Virtual Production (OSVP) Initiative. This initiative is the first project within the society's new Rapid Industry Solution (RIS) program.

SMPTE's commitment to providing tools, standards and education on emerging technologies requires the society to operate with greater agility in responding to technology challenges. Planar and OptiTrack are proud to take part in SMPTE's new initiative for the RIS program, which is focused on creating a portfolio of essential tools that can help the industry tackle the complexities of OSVP, including the development and curation of knowledge resources.

The companies' participation follows the launch of Planar Studios in June of 2021. The initiative combines the advanced technologies, industry partnerships and personnel customers require to create realistic in-screen content for today's ever-expanding virtual production (VP) and extended reality (XR) applications.

"The success of the On-Set Virtual Production Initiative hinges upon the expertise and support of a wide range of technology and thought leaders," explained Hans Hoffmann, SMPTE president and head of media fundamentals and production at the EBU. "For this reason, SMPTE has established an Advisory Group drawing from emerging technology companies, traditional production users, manufacturers, educational institutions and professional organizations. We are so thankful to have the best minds in the industry to assess the challenges, establish our goals and deliver a fast-track response," Hoffman continued.

The key goal of the RIS OSVP Advisory Group is to establish interoperability, training, workflows, best practices and a unifying common language to smooth collaboration, building on whichever formats the creative industry chooses to leverage. SMPTE underwent in-depth discussions with groups and individuals in all aspects of the OSVP pipeline to uncover several hurdles that are currently preventing many from deploying these new content creation technologies.

Planar and OptiTrack's participation in the Advisory Group allows both companies to have a voice at the table, helping review, recommend and guide the outputs from the group. As global industry leaders bringing decades of unmatched on-camera video wall display and optical tracking technology expertise, Planar and OptiTrack are well positioned to contribute to the two main goals of the initiative: enabling systems interoperability and training at all levels.

"Planar and OptiTrack are excited to be building a framework for the On-Set Virtual Production Initiative with SMPTE," said Executive Vice President Adam Schmidt. "LED video walls and motion capture technology represent key components of today's virtual studios and together, Planar and OptiTrack bring more than 60 years of experience delivering best-in-class display and optical tracking technologies. We look forward to collaborating with this impressive group of industry leaders and seeing what we can help establish to support future VP applications."

Planar and OptiTrack will also work with SMPTE to produce training at all levels, building on SMPTE's longstanding expertise in technical education. The companies will help develop unique o?erings for general education, professional development, technology training and business planning and scheduling, with emphasis on applicability to the real world, drawing on Planar's established leadership in LED video wall technology and on-camera broadcast studio installations as well as OptiTrack's position as the largest motion capture provider in the world. For more information about Planar and OptiTrack's cutting-edge solutions that are empowering the world's leading visual storytellers to deeply engage audiences, visit www.planar.com/PlanarStudios and www.optitrack.com/applications/virtual-production.