Brainstorm will showcase its most advanced technologies, starting with a spectacular presentation in the main Virtual Production Theater, demonstrating the immense possibilities InfinitySet offers for creating virtual content of all kind. The main demo will display advanced, photorealistic augmented and mixed reality content in a highly visually engaging presentation, by using a combination of chroma sets and shaped LED videowalls, provided by Alfalite, the European LED manufacturer, and featuring real-time, seamless extra-render and set extension with color-matching 3D LUTs, in-context AR motion graphics, fully immersive talent tele-transport, multi-background content and much more. Fully compatible with Unreal Engine 5, InfinitySet now includes full integration of objects created in InfinitySet or Aston within the UE environment and vice-versa, including shadows, reflections, and AR with Unreal Engine, providing unmatched flexibility for content creation.

Motion graphics are essential in any broadcast workflow, and Brainstorm will show how Aston can provide designers with the most advanced tools for data-driven, in-context, AR graphics, which can be displayed in immersive virtual environments, including UE scenes, and seamlessly interact with the scene and the talents. Aston will also show how multi-channel graphics can easily and transparently be part of any show, enhancing the information and making it more attractive for the audience. The graphics system will also showcase dedicated Touchscreen, Esports and Weather applications.

Also, Brainstorm will showcase the latest developments of its Edison Ecosystem. Built around Edison PRO, it is a complete solution that transforms any live or online presentation into an immersive experience by using AR and virtual environments. The Edison ecosystem includes control devices (Stream Deck) or free applications like Edison OnDemand. The ecosystem also includes the custom-built capture environment EdisonGO, an iOS application available for all users that provides video and tracking to Edison. This ecosystem of tools enhances storytelling with easily created real-time 3D graphics and other visual aids, while presenters are immersed in a virtual, photorealistic environment, running the presentation with clickers or other remote devices.

Also, Brainstorm and MOOV will feature a daily session at 1pm, in which Adam Lawrence, creative director of MOOV and Miguel Churruca, marketing and communications director of Brainstorm, will talk about the ITV Sport Rugby World Cup project, which extensively uses virtual production for such Sports event.

According to Héctor Viguer, the company’s COO and CTO, “For a company like Brainstorm, turning 30 years old is a fantastic achievement, which reinforces our philosophy of continued innovation and encourages us to keep pushing the boundaries of technology to make our users’ dreams come true, virtually!”

At booth PD-53, from 1 to 3 June, the company will demonstrate InfinitySet’s advanced features for virtual production, including chroma sets and in-context augmented reality. Fully compatible with Unreal Engine, InfinitySet is the tool of choice for virtual content creation for News, Sports, Augmented Reality, Elections, Entertainment and even drama and film production. Brainstorm will feature live public demonstrations, always complying with all the safety measures required by Broadcast Asia and the Health authorities. Along with InfinitySet, the motion graphics solution Aston will demonstrate why is the designer’s choice for motion graphics creation and CG, including multi-channel options. This feature also offers multiple channel play out from a single or different workstations, and also allows for the compositing of large canvases in any resolution or aspect ratio, comprising different graphics or projects or layers that can be rendered in a single or several outputs with the desired aspect ratio to fill in the video wall as required.

Edison PRO, the company’s virtual studio-in-a-box product designed for live events and presentations, also benefits from some of the Suite 5 enhancements, plus its own features as a result of its upgrade to V5, and will be demonstrated as well at the booth. With the feedback of the worldwide users and early adopters, Edison now includes a wide range of new features aimed at simplifying live presentations and events, which open new possibilities for content creation. New features include workflow and IO enhancements, new virtual lights and actor improvements plus a new chroma keyer that vastly improves the integration of the actors.

“Broadcast Asia remains the indispensable trade show for the Asia & Pacific broadcast and audio-visual market and we are looking forward to meeting our customers and users in person again”, says Stanlly Loke, Brainstorm’s VP Sales for SE Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea. “Brainstorm has benefited from two record years of sales even during these harsh years and we are glad to be back and be able to perform live demonstrations and allow attendees to watch first hand how our products and solutions can enhance their graphics and virtual production and workflows”.

At booth PD-53, the company will demonstrate InfinitySet’s advanced features for virtual production, including chroma sets and in-context augmented reality. Fully compatible with Unreal Engine, InfinitySet is the tool of choice for virtual content creation for News, Sports, Augmented Reality, Elections, Entertainment and even drama and film production. Brainstorm will feature live public demonstrations, always complying with all the safety measures required by the CABSAT and the Health authorities. Along with InfinitySet, the motion graphics solution Aston will demonstrate why is the designer’s choice for motion graphics creation and CG, including multi-channel options. This feature also offers multiple channel play out from a single or different workstations, and also allows for the compositing of large canvases in any resolution or aspect ratio, comprising different graphics or projects or layers that can be rendered in a single or several outputs with the desired aspect ratio to fill in the video wall as required.

Edison PRO, the company’s virtual studio-in-a-box product designed for live events and presentations, also benefits from some of the Suite 5 enhancements, plus its own features as a result of its upgrade to V5, and will be demonstrated as well at the booth. With the feedback of the worldwide users and early adopters, Edison now includes a wide range of new features aimed at simplifying live presentations and events, which open new possibilities for content creation. New features include workflow and IO enhancements, new virtual lights and actor improvements plus a new chroma keyer that vastly improves the integration of the actors.

“We are delighted to meet our clients and users again at such an essential venue for the Middle East broadcast and audio-visual market, as CABSAT is,” says David Alexander, Brainstorm’s Commercial Director. “Brainstorm has enjoyed two record years of business, even in these difficult times, and we are looking forward to showing live demonstrations once again, and allow attendees to see, in person, what our solutions can do to enhance their virtual production and workflows.”

As LED-based XR is becoming increasingly used, Brainstorm has developed new features that allow for easier, faster and more integrated creation of immersive XR content specifically designed to be displayed on large LED videowalls. With these features, Brainstorm’s clients will see their XR content creation significantly accelerated when creating in-context AR in LED walls, XR Set extensions, or even backgrounds for film and drama production. Suite 5 has a dedicated interface for creating XR installations, which allows for modelling any kind of video wall, including curved, shaped and corner installations, and map the desired 3D content in such model. This facilitates the creation of virtual AR content to be directly displayed and seen by the camera with the correct perspective at all times. Also, by taking advantage of the Layers and Stacking features of InfinitySet, different renders, even with different resolutions and aspect ratios, can be mapped in a canvas of any size and aspect.

In addition, the unique integration of InfinitySet and eStudio with Unreal Engine is now even tighter, allowing for the inclusion of fully editable Brainstorm scenes and templates within an Unreal project, and vice-versa. This is especially useful when creating AR projects within Unreal, which benefit from Brainstorm’s advanced data-driven graphics and broadcast workflows compatibility. This is coupled with the acclaimed UnrealControl feature which supports editing the Unreal Projects directly within InfinitySet’s familiar interface with total ease and control of blueprints, objects and parameters. Suite 5 also features a new, redesigned internal chroma keyer that includes a new mode that embeds the Unreal Engine chroma keyer directly into InfinitySet. Brainstorm Suite 5 is fully compatible with Unreal Engine 4.27 and will be with UE 5.

“Brainstorm has been deeply involved with Augmented Reality and Virtual Production for decades now, and Suite 5 is the result of applying our expertise to the new display methods that broadcasters and filmmakers are introducing into their workflows” says Hector Viguer, Brainstorm’s COO and Engineering Director. “The advanced features of Suite 5 will allow any user to comply with any kind of VR/AR/XR requirement, regardless of how complex it is, and leaving them free to choose the production workflow they feel is best for their production, whether LED walls or chroma keying. We want to be agnostic so we can provide a solution for any requirement.”

Some other features are included, like improved HDR workflows, and better integration with robotic heads from manufacturers such as Panasonic or Sony. Also, Edison, the company’s virtual studio in a box product designed for live events and presentations, will also benefit from some of the above plus its own features as a result of its upgrade to V5.

Brainstorm Suite 5 will be available on March 1st, and will also be demonstrated at NAB 2022 at the Brainstorm booth N2608.

Ricardo Montesa is passionate about innovation. His studies in Industrial Engineering culminated in a graphics proposal for the audiovisual world. Little time was needed for that inner strength to become Brainstorm, a pioneer in the world of graphics, data visualisation, 3D objetcs and, more recently, augmented reality and the optimisation of resources with virtual sets.

“Thank you very much for this distinction, which surprises me personally” said Montesa, moved by the distinction.

Ricardo, university professor, project leader, a man of our time and our corridors, is undoubtedly a pillar of innovation in this industry, who uses his ideas, and shows them from virtual sets, with amazing scenarios created by software , to add – who would say – much more magic to TV.

Ricardo Montesa (Valencia, 1960) is the CEO of Brainstorm, a provider of real-time interactive 3D graphics solutions. He achieved an Industrial Engineering degree from the Polytechnic University of Valencia. After his final degree project, he founded Montesa Grafics, a company dedicated to the development of specific software for real-time 3D and 2D rendering of graphics, mainly aimed at contests and elections.

In 1993 he founded, with other partners, Brainstorm Multimedia, a company of which he has been CEO and Director of Development ever since. Under his direction, Brainstorm presented and began marketing the software called eStudio in 1994, currently the world’s reference for the generation of real-time 3D graphics and virtual scenery, including applications for sports and electoral events.

Between 1996 and 1997 he joined George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) company in San Rafael, California, as a software developer for special effects. After his American experience, he returned to Spain to retake the technical direction of Brainstorm, directing the design and development of the applications created by the company, applications that are used today in many of the largest and most prestigious television networks around the world such as BBC (UK), NHK (JP), KBS (KO), NBC (USA), RTL (DE) and TVE (ES).

Ricardo Montesa is an experienced speaker with outstanding teaching experience at the University, and his vision has led Brainstorm to be awarded for its innovative work on numerous occasions”.

*Extracted from the PRODU news piece.

*The awards show was entirely produced using Edison PRO, Brainstorm’s brand new product for live virtual events and presentations. Watch following the whole PRODU Tecnología Awards Ceremony.

Based on Brainstorm’s real-time 3D technology, Edison PRO allows broadcasters, corporate, live events, education, houses of worship, influencers and online content providers to turn a simple presentation into a complete interactive show through an affordable and easy-to-use platform that does not require expensive hardware or a studio setup. A complete standalone system featuring future-proof hardware, Edison PRO is ready to work out of the box — all that is required is a camera and a portable chroma set to include the presenter in the virtual world with the presentation.

By using drag-and-drop operation, Edison can be used by anyone, and ships with a library of pre-defined templates, scenes, furniture, pointers, screens, and other objects to populate the scene, plus a number of interactive templates for quizzes and polls to further customize the event. It is also fully compatible with Unreal Engine, allowing Unreal’s photorealistic scenes to be used as 3D backgrounds for a presentation, enhancing the looks of your presentations. An optional Edison UC (Edison Unreal Control) plugin allows for controlling and editing the blueprints, objects, and properties of the UE scene directly from Edison’s own, user-friendly interface.

Installation, training, and support are straightforward, ensuring a rock-solid operation even in highly demanding live production environments. Edison PRO can be customized with options to match any customer requirement, present or future.

“By coupling advanced technology with extremely easy operation, Edison PRO helps users to bring their live and online presentations to a whole new level,” comments Brainstorm CEO, Ricardo Montesa. “It has been developed to bring the high-end quality of broadcast shows to users at a whole new price point, leveraging our more than 25 years of broadcast experience to create impactful presentations using pre-existing content, without requiring the expensive and time-consuming ad-hoc generation of new assets.”

More specifically, JB&A has initially been assigned the distribution of Edison PRO, which will be launching imminently. Through Edison PRO Brainstorm offers an affordable and easy-to-use high-end presentation tool that quickly transforms any live, online presentation, or conference session into a fully immersive experience using Augmented Reality (AR) and virtual environments.

“JB&A provides a unique approach to product and service distribution, acting as a value-added distributor,” comments Ruben Ruiz, EVP, Brainstorm, US & Canada. “They have been able to create best-of-breed product workflows at the distributor level with an extensive list of value-added channel partners, and we look forward to working with them to greatly expand Brainstorm’s footprint across North America.”

“We are delighted to add Brainstorm to our roster of channel partners,” comments Jeff Burgess, JB&A CEO. “Virtual production and 3D graphics in AR/VR/XR are technology trends in high demand in the industry across a growing number of sectors, and Brainstorm’s best-in-class product range is an excellent fit at many different levels for many different use cases.”

About JB&A Distribution
JB&A is a leader in the fields of Video, Broadcast, Production, and Pro AV. They are dedicated to bringing the most innovative and complete solutions to market including: Digital Media Management, IP Streaming, Digital Projection, and Connectivity. JB&A is staffed by industry experts, and is a unique mix of Consultant, Channel Partner, Solutions Provider and Distributor with an ecosystem of certified, tested and proven products and workflow solutions.

For more information about JB&A, please visit https://jbanda.com.