[simon]

People on here keep evangelising this kind of 360 LED wall stuff and, while I think it would work as a part of a physical set - i.e., as a backdrop videowall that moves with the camera, I just do not see any real point to the every wall (and floor) stuff. Once all things are considered, it just isn't really that much (if at all) better than VR. Sure it does to some extent 'physicalise' the virtual set for those in it and does get rid of keying issues, but the virtual elements aren't actually inherently any better quality (if using the same renderer) and it is more expensive to install and less energy efficient to run. Plus, while those in studio can now see the 'set', it will always be from an odd perspective and watching it switch perspective with the camera must be distracting - and that's without getting into the calibration issues associated with camera switching.

The 'genuine reflections' point is also particularly interesting. You're right that you can have more reflective elements as part of the physical set, but the way that those physical reflective elements interact with the virtual set will often be less realistic. If you have a black glass desk top, as per ITV, and you want it to reflect a skyline as it would reflect a genuine one out a window, you can't achieve that effect using an LED wall as the physical desk can only reflect what is shown on the screen. In a VR environment, you combine the reflective technique that Stuart mentions above with a virtual skyline cyc and get a fairly real reflection.

I've attempted to demonstrate this difference by recycling my WIP VR Breakfast mock from TVLF...

The 'LED display' is on the left, the VR cyc on the right and shows the sky as a genuine reflection would, were the environment real.

My understanding is that with an LED-based virtual set, it's much easier to convincingly blend subjects into the environment. I do agree that the benefits would probably be pretty marginal, though.

I think having presenters being able to see their surroundings would help for more flexible uses of the space, for example when shooting explainers where you might want to point at things. It's certainly not a make or break feature though, we've obviously seen presenters manage this in front of a green screen before.

In any case, I think in news at least, a 'real' set with a generous set of video walls gives you a good balance. It allows you to change the look of the studio between programmes or when you want to refresh the look, while also keeping the whole set looking more real. The BBC has shown how effective this can be in B, and if you took the towers away from that studio it would be incredibly flexible as a set. If you then add this sort of technology in you can add depth to the sets.

In many ways it's a pity this technology didn't mature a bit more before the BBC installed the new set in B. I think having the ability to give depth to its graphics would have been stunning on the massive curved screen. It'd be really interesting if they could retrofit the tech to the touchscreen for VR-style segments on things like election programming. The benefits of the presenter being able to point at stuff in the screen confidently, and being able to overlay graphics in the real screen while still having the virtual world around the presenter (eg a virtual House of Commons) would look great. Look at 4:00 in this video:
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