Singular.live is first cloud graphics platform used by ITV
Details
Faye Sutton
| 05 August 2021
Singular.live, the pioneer of cloud-based technology for live graphic overlays, has become the first cloud-based graphics platform to be used by ITV.

singularSingular powered the graphics for ITV Wales’ coverage of the Welsh Assembly elections last May. Live election broadcasts require fast, accurate and up-to-date data. For the 2021 Welsh Assembly elections, ITV Wales used a new Singular feature – Data Streams – which is purpose built for high frequency, high volume and low latency data. Data Streams with JS Data Nodes, created by the ITV team in Singular, enabled live election data to be delivered in JSON format for immediate display as graphics. As a consequence the majority of the overlays were automatically updated.

The ITV team used SVG maps of the region to display how the electorate voted. ITV Wales was able to manipulate the maps using composition scripts within Singular. This allowed ITV Wales to isolate any area within the map with the latest relevant data. This data was constantly and automatically updated through the Data Stream workflow. This was possible because of Singular’s powerful Composition Scripts. These enable the addition of fully customisable control through JavaScript layers from directly within the Singular Composition without using the Graphics SDK or any external hosting.

Keith Jones, technical support engineer, ITV Wales, commented: “The building, linking and updating of the custom overlays worked with ease, allowing for a more time-efficient and stress-free production. Overlay composition build and data delivery was much easier than using traditional systems. Being an HTML5, cloud-based solution, Singular provided easy access to the graphics wherever they needed to be seen.”

Added Andrew Heimbold, CEO of Singular.live: “Three of the main benefits Singular drives are its ease of use, efficiency and flexibility. These have shone through in the exciting results of this project. It is fantastic to see Singular used for the very first time by ITV, amid a very high profile event. This is a great vote of confidence by a major broadcaster and we are very happy the platform was able to deliver peace of mind for this election broadcast to the ITV Wales team.”