VRT Uses AR, XR and Virtual Set Extension with their 33-Meter-Wide LED Wall

How Belgium’s public broadcaster for the Flemish region turned a studio once used for only two hours a day into a flexible hub for daily news, sports and election coverage.

At VRT, the public broadcaster for the Flemish region in Belgium, a multi-functional studio now supports a wide range of productions, from two daily current affairs shows to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and 2024 Election coverage. The studio is built around a 33-meter-wide LED wall and powered by Zero Density engines running Unreal Engine, with Reality 5 and Reality Hub. They are supporting AR and XR, and taking it further with Virtual Set Extension workflows. The studio is the result of a build that took more than a year. The project transformed a space once occupied by physical sets and used for only two hours a day into a more efficient, flexible environment for virtual production, augmented reality, extended reality and LED-based storytelling.

From a One-Hour-a-Day Studio to a Round-the-Clock Production Hub

Before the rebuild, VRT’s studio was occupied by full physical sets that were used for just two hours a day. For a public broadcaster producing news, sports, entertainment and event coverage, the team saw an opportunity to make the same space more efficient and multi-functional — capable of supporting different sets, formats and creative concepts within a more flexible production setup.

“When we started this project, this was a studio occupied by a physical set, which were only used for two hours. The main goal was to make the studio more efficient. We came up with the idea of putting a LED wall inside the studio to make it more multi-functional.”

Martijn Rymen, Product Owner Virtual Production Technology, VRT

The brief that followed was clear: VRT was looking for a graphics system that could drive a large-format LED volume and deliver augmented reality on tracked cameras in an environment built for daily live broadcast workflows.

A Hybrid Studio Built Around a 33-Meter LED Wall

VRT selected Zero Density as the real-time graphics backbone of the new studio. One of the key advantages highlighted by VRT was Reality 5’s ability to keep pace with new Unreal Engine releases, while making real-time workflows more accessible for broadcast operators.

The build ran in parallel: the physical LED wall and the Zero Density virtual production installation came online on the same timeline, with on-site implementation support from Zero Density and DigiNet, who joined the team at VRT to help embed the new workflows directly into the broadcaster’s day-to-day environment.

The result is a tightly integrated technical ecosystem:

• A 33-meter-wide, 4-meter-high LED wall with a 1.8mm pixel pitch, driven by five EVO engine hardware.
• Two tracked cameras for augmented reality, fed by dedicated Reality engines for AR composites layered on top of the LED-driven set.
• Reality Hub orchestrating the multi-engine setup as a single, web-managed environment.

“We use Zero Density to bridge the gap between the gaming world and the broadcast world. It makes it easier for broadcasters and operators to work in an environment they know and they’re used to. That’s the added value of Zero Density.”

Steven Candries, Head of Operations and Technology, VRT CRW

For the teams working with the system, one of the most practical wins was Reality Hub’s nodegraph — a visual logic layer that sits between full code and pure UI, making complex real-time behaviors accessible to designers who aren’t developers.

The Studio That Runs Every Day

Since launch, the studio has become a daily home for VRT’s current affairs programming and major productions. Two daily news shows run from the space every day of the week, including programs such as Terzake. The team has also delivered an election show with results displayed on the big screen, and produced their Paris 2024 Olympic Games coverage from the same studio.

To match the intensity of the workload, VRT stood up a dedicated five-person virtual production team — spanning virtual set designers, technical artists and game developers — working alongside directors, physical set designers and motion graphics teams to design new sets project by project.

The new workflow also unlocked a more agile production model. Content makers can now step into the studio, get live feedback on the look, and iterate on the design week to week. And because sets can be pre-visualized before the studio is physically booked, the team designs and tests new productions in parallel with ongoing broadcasts.

“What’s different right now is you can use this kind of technology also when the studio is being used for other productions. You can still design your studio, have a pre-visualization of it, and that makes you more efficient in building new projects.”

Martijn Rymen, Product Owner Virtual Production Technology, VRT

A New Storytelling Language — and a Partnership Built for What’s Next

For VRT, the real long-term value isn’t only operational. The combination of an LED-driven environment, AR on tracked cameras and traditional broadcast graphics has opened a new storytelling vocabulary that didn’t exist in the old studio.

“In the past, you had the overlay graphics, full-screen graphics, in-screen graphics. Now you have a new kind of graphics — augmented reality — and that makes you way more flexible in your storytelling. With the LED wall, you can go all the way. We are only at the start of what we can do, and the best is yet to come.”

Martijn Rymen, Product Owner Virtual Production Technology, VRT

That sense of “we’re just getting started” is reinforced by Zero Density’s continued investment in the partnership. Even with the studio live, the teams are jointly testing a new evolution of the EVO Engine Hardware that will drive the entire LED wall from a single engine with five synchronized 4K outputs — replacing the current five-engine setup. VRT is also exploring a unified, broadcast-grade motion design workflow on top of the Reality 5 platform.

“When customers come to us with virtual production needs, we always know that Zero Density is going to solve their problem. The product is really cutting-edge, and they are really on top of new developments. Even now, when the project is live, Zero Density is still invested in helping us find new ways of doing things.”

Dries Tastenhoye, Product Manager, DigiNet

Tech That Made All Possible

Reality 5 — Real-time graphics platform for AR, virtual studio, XR, broadcast graphics, and video wall productions

VRT’s daily current affairs, sports and election coverage all run on Reality 5, which composites tracked-camera AR with the LED-driven environment in real time. Native Unreal Engine support means VRT gets every new Epic Games release in its production toolchain as soon as it ships.

Reality Hub — One control plane for a multi-engine studio

With the five EVO engine hardware driving the LED wall and additional engines handling AR, Reality Hub gives VRT’s operators a single web-based environment to configure, launch and run the studio — including the data-driven graphics behind election night and sports coverage.

EVO Engine Hardware — Engine hardware crafted for 24/7 high-demanding real-time graphics productions

EVO is the powerhouse behind the entire studio, engineered to run continuously and meet the performance, reliability and security demands of public broadcasting. VRT is also early-testing the EVO III series, which is set to drive the full 33-meter LED wall from a single engine.

VRT is the public broadcaster of the Flemish Community in Belgium. It is a media organisation oriented towards all Flemish citizens, with a special focus on the diversity and uniqueness of the Flemish audience. VRT mainly presents high-quality and distinctive content in the areas of information, culture, education, entertainment, and sports. With its three television channels, five radio stations and various digital channels, VRT reaches 90% of all Flemish people, every single week. Consequently, VRT can be seen as a relevant player that has a major societal impact and can contribute to a pluralistic debate, thus strengthening democracy.

In addition, VRT stimulates people to experience culture and language, while propagating the Flemish identity throughout its functioning. VRT is also a very future-oriented organization and focuses heavily on innovation and digitization. The broadcaster plays an important role in the Flemish media ecosystem and cooperates with numerous national and international partners from various fields.

Zero Density develops virtual production and broadcast graphics solutions trusted by the world’s leading broadcasters — including ABC, CBS, Charter Communications, FOX, The Weather Channel and Univision. Its flagship platform, Reality 5, powers real-time virtual studios, augmented and extended reality productions, and on-air graphics. Complemented by the Traxis tracking platform and EVO engine hardware, Zero Density’s end-to-end ecosystem gives production teams the tools to realize their most ambitious creative visions in real time, without compromise.