Just wanted to inform everyone that EBU will host an open and free webinar presenting the work of a group that have been working on getting a standard for HTML graphics in broadcast. The aim of the group is to generate a standard for HTML-graphics used in broadcast, both realtime and non-realtime. The graphics should be interchangeable and editable in all system through all the steps in the process of production.
EBU has generate a homepage for this project where you can find a lot of info and links
ograf.ebu.io
The webinar to present our work this far will be held on 28th of April and it is open to everyone interested.
Hope you find this interesting and have the time to participate.
Registration and more information
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The guys from Superfly.tv are already contributing to this project, so that our view as Caspar users are prominently represented. (I already registered myself for the webinar).
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To add some more info about the project status, we’re currently at a stage where we’ve published a first draft of the specification and we’re currently gathering feedback from the industry. Our next goal is to have a finalized “version 1” published in time for IBC.
I invite everyone to take the opportunity to try out the OGraf graphics at this early stage (while it is still possible to make changes to the specification) and share your thoughts and questions!
On the OGraf project home page, you’ll find links to DevTools, examples and a simple rendering system.
Oh, also FYI: I plan to add OGraf rendering support to CasparCG eventually, probably by adding a side-car application (possibly joining with the current media-scanner application?) that exposes an API for gfx upload and control.
Great news there is an open standart in the making!
I am positive, that this will guide a way for HTML graphic templates in an open world of endless possibilities for everyone.
I had a look at the first draft and at first glance it felt counterintuitive that an HTML gaphic standart does not directly rely on an html file. It feels a little more complex than just throwing some HTML, CSS, Javascript together. I think it creates an entrance barrier for someone who might be afraid of coding but wanting to develop a simple graphic. But in the end OGraf must be capable of covering all the different workflows and I hope the heightened entrance barrier will pay off as systems will have OGraf support implemented and graphic designers will more and more use powerful graphic design software instead of having to manually code each graphic by hand.
As I said, I am very positive OGraf will have a huge positive impact in graphics production. Thank you for creating this!
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There where a lot of discussions in the working group regarding whether it should be a plain html-file or a Webcomponent as the entry point for a graphic.
In the end, we decided to go with the WebComponent approach with the motivation that it allows for a nicer (in our opinion) interface to the renderer (plain javascript methods vs iframe-postMessage) and doesn’t require a Renderer to render the Graphic in an iframe (although it absolutely can, if it wishes).
Of course, it is perfectly legal to make an OGraf graphic that exposes a thin WebComponent that simply wraps a HTML-file in an iframe, so it should be possible to convert existing CasparCG html-templates pretty easily.
A lot of the discussions in the working group has been to figure out how to:
- Make the speficication generic enough so that this will be the “final” specification, with no need to make yet another (breaking) specification in the future.
- Put the least amount of requirements on the Rendering enviroment (to get as many vendors as possible to adopt the technology).
- Make it as easy as possible for developers of the graphics templates (simplify where possible, design for the common use cases first).
And anyone reading this that haven’t yet signed up for the presentation later today, be sure to do so 
!
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I have tried to make OGraf compatable graphics from ReactCasparClient https://vimlesh1975.github.io/ReactCasparClient/ Which is able to be played from https://ograf-devtool.superfly.tv/
Make some graphics on canvas , Go to OGraf tab and export.
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