Media team update: June 2026

Vic, Bob and splats...

New kit & team upgrades

  • New lighting in both the lightboard and green screen studios
  • New podcasting kit — Rode Podcaster 2
  • New 360 camera — Insta360 X5
  • Blackmagic Ultimatte system
  • Libec pedestal tripod
  • 35mm Arles Prime cine lens
Rodecaster Pro II Insta360 X5 Libec pedestal tripod 35mm Arles Prime cine lens Nanlite PavoSlim 360C

Vic and Bob...

side

  • Vic and Bob are our two Ultimatte boxes — they handle both green screen removal and background compositing
  • We can now see something close to a finished product live in the studio, saving a massive amount of post-production editing
  • The same tech is used in virtual production — notably US TV broadcasting, and BBC sports panels — as a halfway house to smartstage/XR

Implementation

  • All of the team are currently hands-on learning the new workflow
  • Still recording from the camera for now, while using Vic and Bob to set cameras and lights
  • Eventually we'll record directly from the Ultimatte — starting with lower-stakes or last-minute requests to cut delivery times
  • Time saved gets re-allocated to more engaging edits, motion graphics and richer content

Backgrounds and Gaussian splats

  • We're exploring 3D backgrounds through the Ultimatte for more realism
  • Last week we captured the UG space with the 360 camera and generated a Gaussian splat — our first test background

What is a Gaussian splat?

  • Turns ordinary photos or 360 footage of a space into a photorealistic 3D scene
  • No polygons — the scene is millions of tiny, soft, coloured blobs ("Gaussians") that overlap to recreate surfaces, reflections and soft edges
  • A virtual camera can then move anywhere in the scene in real time — one quick capture gives us backgrounds we can reframe for any camera angle, making second-camera shots far more realistic

Meshes vs point clouds

Meshes versus point clouds

Meshes — hand-modelled polygons  ·  Splats — point clouds as soft coloured blobs, no modelling

Next steps

  • More time with the kit to build familiarity across the team
  • Record more backgrounds across WBS
  • Explore using Claude to build a tool for loading and adjusting our backgrounds