World Series of Poker on ESPN3 uses Ventuz for live on-air graphics

The World Series of Poker is one of the biggest sports events for the international broadcast market, with as many as 650,000 viewers tuning in to the primetime broadcast on ESPN. The Canadian agency Real Time Graphics used Ventuz to produce the show’s on-air graphics including player panels, hole cards, community cards, a full page leader board and lower 3rd graphics. RTG also introduced an updated version of their CardTracker® RFID playing card tracking system.

RTG first created on-air graphics for the WSOP in 2006 for the first ever live-to-air Pay-Per-View broadcast of the Main Event Final Table. In 2011, the team began using Ventuz to enhance their graphics tools and speed of delivery. Using Ventuz on the production of WSOP 2011, RTG was able to implement the entire graphics package for the show in only ten days prior to the event’s airing, which included a 3-day training session with Ventuz’ Erik Beaumont.

“I am extremely pleased with how Ventuz has provided us with a solid foundation for rapid development and integration of our on-air graphics for our always demanding live-to-air poker broadcasts.”, says RTG’s Project Manager, Kelly Lewis.

RTG’s most recent re-innovation is the CardTracker® RFID playing card tracking system. Each card of the Poker deck contains an embedded RFID chip. RTG’s CardTracker® scans the cards and identifies each card’s value by looking it up in a database. The value is then transferred to RTG’s PokerGFXTM software, which interfaces with Ventuz to populate the graphic templates for the broadcast. RTG first pioneered this technology in 2004, however, the Nevada Gaming Commission only greenlighted the technology this year, for use in RTG’s engineering and technical production of 34 live-to-web streaming events on ESPN3.com and 888.com this summer.

RTG also maintains their ChipTracker™ system, which utilizes RFID microchips embedded into the gaming chips. This data assists their StatsTracker™ software system in tracking the betting and pot sizes during gameplay, which in turn controls how and when the graphics are displayed on air. AMD graphics cards serve for real-time graphics display on screen.

RTG has completed its 2013 World Series of Poker obligations, after airing the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event Final Table in Enghiens-les-bains (Paris), France, broadcast on ESPN in the U.S., Eurosport in Europe as well as a live-to-air webcast on WSOP.com. The World Series of Poker Main Event Final Table completed in November where RTG provided their Ventuz-driven graphics services, stats and video ingest services in the biggest poker event of the year, broadcast live-to-air on ESPN.