Portugal’s SIC TV Turns to Avid for State-of-the-art Graphics

Avid® (Nasdaq: AVID) today announced that Portugal's leading private broadcaster, SIC TV (Sociedade Independente de Comunicação), has signed an agreement for Avid to provide its Maestro™ graphics workflow and multi-year service agreement for SIC TV's new headquarters, which is Europe's first Video over IP production facility.

Avid's Maestro graphics gives SIC TV's production teams powerful collaborative and creative capabilities to engage audiences while increasing efficiency and reducing operational costs. Avid worked closely with channel partner VANTeC, whose deep graphics expertise and strong local support capabilities proved invaluable to SIC TV. VANTeC deployed Maestro graphic engines to handle SIC TV's myriad production needs, ranging from on-screen news graphics and video walls to virtual sets, augmented reality, sports graphics and branding.

"Avid's new Maestro | Engine provided hybrid Video over IP and SDI interfaces, which allowed us to standardize our graphics production; maximize resources by sharing templates amongst designers and operators; and improve operational efficiency, collaboration, creativity and innovation," said José Lopes, Director of Operations and Technology at SIC TV. "The power and flexibility that Avid Maestro graphics provides made it the clear technology choice for our new facility."

To meet the demands of 24/7 news and entertainment programming across multiple TV channels, SIC TV expanded its graphics workflow, from real-time graphics creation using Maestro | Designer to management, distribution and playout using Maestro | News to presenting content using Maestro | Virtual Set and Maestro | Telestrator. The Maestro | Engine real-time graphics rendering platform powers SIC TV's Maestro graphics, while Avid's FastServe ® | Playout next-gen video server streamlines ingest and playout.

With Avid's state-of-the-art Maestro graphics, SIC TV is elevating its on-air visual identity and increasing its brand awareness through high quality content and photorealistic graphics.

"In Portugal's competitive media environment, SIC TV needs to retain and build market share with captivating graphics that drive audience engagement," said Jeff Rosica, Avid CEO and President. "With this agreement, SIC TV will be able to engage viewers with enticing storytelling and more real-time broadcast graphics—while at the same time reducing its operational costs. Already it is seeing results, having claimed the top spot among Portugal's private broadcasters in just one month."

Alexandre Roriz, VANTeC CEO, added, "The ability to easily integrate Avid's powerful Maestro graphics with SIC TV's solutions enabled us to create agile, automated workflows across all production teams. As a result, SIC TV is poised to continue its rating climb and has established itself as one of the world's leading Video over IP production facilities."