VISUALIZATION

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Photo-realistic broadcast graphics and the industry's most sophisticated virtual sets will enhance news, weather and sports broadcasts across Norway with TV2's purchase of its 10th Silicon Graphics(R) Onyx2(R) visualization system with the new InfiniteReality4(TM) graphics engine running vizrt viz(TM) |virtual studio software. Long-time SGI customer TV2 is a privately owned, commercial broadcaster celebrating its tenth anniversary this month. Headquartered in Bergen, Norway, with additional offices and studio facilities in Oslo, TV2 uses a combination of SGI(R) systems and vizrt's viz |virtual studio(TM) software or viz | content pilot template-based graphics applications on sports, news and some programs and entertainment shows. One of the first European broadcasters to make the transition to a server-based playout, TV2 also utilizes SGI Media Server(TM) for broadcast as its primary transmission and on-air server in Bergen. "With a typical TV2 evening news show averaging a rating of 20%, we wanted to continue to hold their interest and expand our viewership with even more exciting graphical possibilities. We chose to upgrade to InfiniteReality4 graphics to generate virtual environments that are visually almost indistinguishable from reality, because of its unparalleled fill performance and increased image quality," said John Inge Bratteveit, Director of Operations and Technical Services, TV2. "Since InfiniteReality4 graphics is the next generation graphics for the SGI Onyx systems -- of which we now own 10 -- and our existing and new vizrt virtual set software will be optimized with InfiniteReality4 graphics, it was a perfect solution." "Onyx2 with InfiniteReality4 graphics will deliver new performance levels and provide many graphical uses throughout TV2's program day," said Petter Ole Jakobsen, CTO and vice president, global accounts, vizrt. "vizrt software will achieve excellent performance on SGI's latest version of InfiniteReality graphics creating even richer broadcast graphics and stunning virtual sets." "SGI is committed to providing European broadcasters the return on investment they need to succeed in the new world of digital television. TV2 has clearly recognized the value our high-performance visualization systems bring to their viewers," said Mark Miller, regional manager, SGI. "Full-scene anti-aliasing, even greater texture memory and enhanced interactivity makes the Onyx family with InfiniteReality4 the preferred platform for creating the highest quality broadcast graphics and the most realistic virtual sets." SGI's new-generation InfiniteReality4 graphics was introduced at SIGGRAPH 2002 in San Antonio, Texas, this summer. Designed for the SGI Onyx family of visualization systems, the flagship SGI graphics subsystem enables photo-realistic rendering and interactive visualization of complex data sets with the best image quality, performance and display flexibility available in the industry. InfiniteReality4 graphics and the SGI(R) Onyx(R)3200 visualization system will be on display at the vizrt stand 2.219 at the IBC Conference, September 13-17 at the RAI Convention Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. SGI will exhibit at IBC stand 7.431.