I think that UE4 has an immense power.
In a previous post I talked about Ventuz.
Ventuz is very similar to Viz RT.
Both software are used to create broadcast graphics and realtime presentations.
They support input from various professional videoboards and supports alpha key for live broadcasting.
The principle is the same of UE4, the graphic is generated connecting nodes or writing scripts in C#
They support multi output, midi-osc i/o, tcp, external data from sql database, txt, excel files.
TV studios need a powerful engine to generate realtime graphics and I think that UE4 has enough power to do this job.
Regarding the world of cinema UE4 could be interfaced with motion controllers and used as a realtime pre-viz tool on set.
The Infiltrator demo is not only a tech demo, it’s a movie!
I hope that Epic engineers will develop realtime tools specific for the broadcast world and creative directors.
We are working on a new version of Matinee, called Sequencer, that will make it even easier to create movies like the Infiltrator demo.
Support for additional APIs, such as Midi, Excel and SQL database interfaces may show up over time as part of other features that may depend on these technologies.
As far as the integration of broadcast specific hardware or software is concerned, that is very unlikely to happen from within Epic. The broadcast industry is a very niche market, and unless we have a need or funding for such specialized tools, we probably won’t integrate them ourselves. That being said, with the full source code of the Engine being available, I wouldn’t be surprised to see such projects from the community. If you are interested in integrating any particular hardware or software systems yourself we’d be more than happy to assist you in case you get stuck or have questions.
Part of our project is to hit our already established e-sport competitive community big time by adding shoutcasting tools and features that will make watching the game as fun to watch as it is to play so any real time additions as to spectating tools and features would be desirable.
To that end we already have “broadcasters” as members of our team to help develop the kinds of features that are useful to them as to usability.
Granted it’s just my opinion but based on my experiences the ability to broadcast a game/match in real time is not something to overlook as being niche market as it’s only been niched due to the inability do so in an easy to preform manner. Give a player the big “Broadcast” button and they will broadcast be it to Twitch, Youtube, or any other means of live streaming and the direction of e-sport in general is the desire on the part of the player to become the next Wayne Gretzky of video games.
Being able to share live game sessions over the internet is almost certainly something we will look into as part of our ongoing in-house game projects.