Verizon Media Tackles Production Tech with Global Studios

Verizon Media (formerly Oath) now has production studios located in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, London, New York, Paris, Singapore, Sunnyvale and Taiwan. In addition, it built a 5G Los Angeles studio with plans to help pioneer new formats and production tech enabled by advanced 5G wireless connectivity. The worldwide facilities are being used by Verizon Media brands such as AOL, HuffPost, TechCrunch and Yahoo. The L.A. space — led by Verizon Media’s immersive media arm RYOT — is outfitted with full motion capture and volumetric capture stages.

“After first testing these technologies in Los Angeles, Verizon Media is then looking to customize them for the needs of its other studio spaces,” reports Variety. “For instance, it brought a simplified motion capture system to an existing studio space in Taiwan, where it is now used to produce content for one of Verizon Media’s YouTube channels.”

The L.A. studio also includes a 5G node so that RYOT can “experiment with ultra-fast, low-latency wireless data transfers,” explains Variety. “It is the only 5G studio in the world,” said Verizon Media’s Alex Wallace. “No one knows where 5G is gonna take us, but we want to be at the forefront of it.”

According to head of RYOT Zeda Stone, the team is looking to help make production pipelines nimble and perhaps replace TV satellite trucks with something smaller. Efforts also include “real-time animation and motion capture with 5G,” notes Variety, “and envisioning a future when audiences with 5G phones can directly interact with that type of content.”

In April, Verizon Media opened its 360-degree, 4K-capable facility in New York City (pictured above). According to the press release, Yahoo Finance streams “live programming from New York, with additional studios in London and Canada … talk show BUILD Series livestreams more than six hours each weekday from studios in New York, London and Australia,” and “Yahoo Sports produces original shows … in Los Angeles, Sunnyvale, New York and Canada and has a new, AR-enabled studio in Paris.”

No Comments Yet

You can be the first to comment!

Sorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.