The BBC will debut a new virtual reality tracking system for its coverage of the local and European elections, in preparation for next year’s General Election.

Some 23 hours of live election programming will come from BBC Studios and Post Production’s Elstree Studio D, in which the Mo-Sys StarTracker system will be attached to four of the studio’s 12 Sony HDC-1500 cameras to create a virtual studio for presenter Jeremy Vine.

The system tracks markers on the studio’s grid and sends positional information to render the correct viewpoint, allowing Vine to move around the green screen environment without affecting the position of the virtual graphs and charts.

BBC Studios and Post Production technical development manager Danny Popkin said the system was an improvement on the BBC-developed Free-d virtual studio set-up.

“That required large targets that were hung across the studio, but the system from Mo-Sys uses little reflective discs that do not require calibration. It’s easier for us to set up and use,” he said.

“For these elections, Jeremy Vine’s virtual environment will be better integrated into the set, but come the General Election, viewers will see quite a change as a result of this technology.”

The live programming from Elstree will support BBC News’ local and European elections broadcasts from New Broadcasting House in central London.

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