Announced earlier this year, Sony’s Edge Analytics AI video solution, REA-C1000, is now available, says the company, pointing to the advantages of the system to create impactful video presentation content.

The Sony REA-C1000 is now shipping, good news for those interested in this new solution that uses Artificial Intelligence-led technology to create video presentation content that previously would have required significant time, expense, and human resource to produce. In fact, as Sony states in the information provided by the company, “the new technology allows users to create video content in real time, without the need for specialized training, additional staff or equipment.”

The compact and lightweight REA-C1000 uses its advanced AI-based video analytics technology to analyze the input it receives from connected cameras and automatically extracts the object in focus to combine it with other images in real time. This unique technology using motion/face detection and color/shape recognition, effectively makes the REA-C1000 the powerful brain of any connected camera and AV setup, allowing education, government and corporate organizations to cost-effectively create professional, engaging content.

Detecting the presenter and audience

The REA-C1000 vastly improves the quality of communication by empowering the presenter to deliver content and to engage their audience like never before. The REA-C1000 can accurately and smoothly track a presenter, throiugh the use of PTZ auto-tracking, to ensure they stay in focus and within the frame throughout their presentation, and there is no need to invest in a camera operator.

Not only that, the REA-C1000 technology can detect and react to the gestures of audience members participating in a presentation. For example, when an audience member stands up, the REA-C1000 can trigger the camera to electronically auto-zoom in to that person, which is particularly useful in education environments to measure students’ reaction and in corporate presentation settings, such as during a Q&A session.

A virtual camera operator

The AI-driven automatic control of output image offers hassle-free shooting and efficient workflow to meet increasingly difficult and diverse shooting opportunities. It’s like having a virtual camera operator at your fingertips.

The Sony REA-C1000 is an exciting development for video content creation, but there are also optional features can be added. Here are two:

• Handwriting Extraction and Presenter Overlay which allows audiences to clearly see written content and diagrams, as well as the presenter’s gestures and expressions;
• Chroma Keyless CG Overlay extracts the presenter and overlays them onto any background without a dedicated green screen (planned to be available in Fall 2019);

Focus Area Cropping is also coming to the system. With it an image from one camera can be simultaneously shown as two different output images. The user can choose to select a cropped image from the main still 4K image. What’s more, the cropped area is selectable to be static or dynamic to follow the speaker’s movement. This feature will be made available through a future software update later in 2019, says Sony.