Robotic studio production

RTL Hrvatska is the first television broadcaster in Croatia to move its main studio to robotic production. We supplied and installed the system in July 2026, as the representative of Shotoku Broadcast Systems for the Croatian market.

The system is built around Shotoku SmartPed robotic pedestals. These are self-driving camera pedestals that move around the studio on their own, with no track and no operator behind the camera, finding and repeating preset positions with millimetre precision. They carry Shotoku robotic heads that take over pan, tilt, zoom, and focus.

In daily use this changes how the studio is run. Shots are prepared in advance and recalled with a single click, so a scene change takes only as long as pressing a button. Complex moves are executed identically every time, with no drift between broadcasts, which considerably reduces the room for error in a live programme. The system performs just as reliably across a full day of programming.

Automation does not remove the operator. Manual control can be taken over at any moment and the camera driven in the traditional way, so robotics are used where they bring an advantage while manual operation remains available whenever production calls for it.

The same technology is used in the studios of leading broadcasters worldwide, among them NHK in Japan, NRK in Norway, SRF in Switzerland, the BBC and Sky News in the United Kingdom, and CNBC in the United States. With this delivery, the main RTL Hrvatska studio now operates to the same standard.