Diversification in Broadcast - Medical Punditry

Kash Achrarya

Author: Kash Achrarya

Published 17th December 2015

by Kash Acharya Issue 108 - December 2015

What do sports pundits and surgeons have in common with regards to broadcast technology?

Both have a need to inform their audience, in the case of sports punditry, interactive graphics and annotations help the presenter to engage the viewer by showing visually how certain plays and moves were made. So you may be asking how does this relate to surgeons?

Medical teaching to the next generation of student surgeons as well as other clinicians frequently involves the use of live surgery which is broadcast to the teaching lecture theatre where an expert is helping the students understand how and why certain medical procedures are used during the operation.

Traditional Audio Visual presentation technology used within the teaching environment in most cases provides the presenter with a simple laser pointer. Used in normal presentations such as Power Point type slide presentations this works well, by projecting a small laser red dot to allow the presenter to point out key words within the slide text. When it comes to video based material such as live surgery, this becomes wholly inadequate, not to mention that the red laser dot is hardly visible in areas of the video which may be displaying a lot of blood and even changing the laser to another colour does not help as the laser is very small and is very difficult for students to see on moving video.

As e-mediavision.com we are mostly known for our Broadcast sports, news and weather, Telestrator products such as the Point-HD and the new PlayZone HD, broadcast is just one market we are involved in, as a company we realised very early on that diversification was a key part of our strategy which included Telemedicine and Healthcare.

Working with a leading Laproscopic surgeon, Neil Pearce at Southampton General, we redesigned and adapted our broadcast Telestrator solution for the medical market. The Point-HD Medic solution which is now helping clinicians to teach their students. Sharing the same common goals between broadcast and healthcare presentations, the Point-HD provides both users with an easy to use solution where animated pointers and customised graphics are used to focus attention and engage the viewer.

Hidden beneath the simplicity of the touch screen based user interface lies a complex system, the difference between broadcast environment is that unlike broadcast where we have dedicated VT ops, director , producer etc, with Medical we have a non technical clinician who has to be all of these at the presentation podium, so ease of use and simplicity is vital for the non technical medical user.

Point-HD provides an easy to use solution for the medical user, elements of the system enable the presenter to record the live surgery, pause and rewind, this key functionality enables the medical presenter to quickly show what just happened during live surgery as well as seamlessly switch back to the live feed at a press of a button.

Whilst 3D which was once the buzz of the broadcast industry, is finding a new use in Medical presentations, live surgery is being broadcast and produced with 3D 1080i, 3D really helps the medical student visualize as if they were standing inside the operating theatre next to the surgeon.

Point-HD is already 3D enabled, allowing the presenter to annotate live over the 3D feed all from the touch screen with ease.

Not just for medical teaching, the Point-HD solution has had further enhancements and now allows remote surgeons to assist their colleagues live using the Point-HD with Microsoft Surface Tablet, this allows a surgeon to now seek live and real time assistance from another peer located on the other side of the globe.

Compared to when we started 12 years ago, the company is now diversified into a number of different markets and applications from Military, Medical, Security, Automotive and others, the products and solutions for all of these markets have evolved from broadcast technology.

We are constantly evolving and engaging new emerging technologies within broadcast, such as 2K, 4K, UHD, no matter what version is adopted by the TV broadcasters, our Point-HD is already enabled to work with all.

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