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 Onyx2 visualisation system with the new InfiniteReality4 graphics engine running vizrt virtual studio software.

Long-time SGI customer TV2 is a privately owned, commercial broadcaster celebrating its tenth anniversary this month. TV2 uses a combination of SGI systems and vizrt's virtual studio software or content pilot template-based graphics applications on sports, news and some programmes and entertainment shows. One of the first European broadcasters to make the transition to a server-based playout, TV2 also utilises the SGI Media Server for broadcast as its primary transmission and on-air server in Bergen.

With a typical TV2 evening news show averaging a rating of 20 per cent, the broadcaster wanted to continue to hold their interest and expand our viewership with even more exciting graphical possibilities. The company says that it 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.