Live From the US Open: Sky Sports UK Delivers HDR to Viewers, Expands Presence Across the Grounds By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Wednesday, September 4, 2024 - 8:51 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
It's year two for the Sky Sports UK team at the US Open and James Thomas, Sky Sports tennis production manager, says the big changes are delivering the event in HDR as well as expanding the team's ability to roam the grounds.
We are on a more robust RF network so we can roam the Tennis Center and be in and amongst the event, says Thomas. We want to get close to the action and we have a bit more kit to help us do that this year. We are always looking to grow and innovate our production and next year we'll probably look to evolve even more.
Thomas says Sky UK has a large remote production crew of about 40 people on site, and a remote team back in the UK of about 20 people. At the center of the coverage is the main presentation stage on the Plaza, right next to ESPN. There is a three-camera set up, including a jib that is tied to a Hawkeye AR system and a PTZ camera which integrates AR graphics into the show. Sky UK also has two roaming RF Sony cameras (one an FX6 and the other an FX9) giving the production team the ability to have the presentation team at the Plaza to throw to other courts.
James Thomas of Sky Sports UK says operations have improved for year two, especially as coverage is in HDR for viewers back home in the UK.
Our Sky Sport tennis team very much wanted to be out and amongst the US Open, adds Thomas who says a phone on a gimble running the LiveU Central app is in use by Sky talent who are in the Whisper position in the lower bowl of Arthur Ashe Stadium.
We are connecting that to WiFi and that enables us to get as close to the action as possible as we can flip the phone between [the talent or guest] and the players on the court, he adds.
As for roaming the grounds, Thomas says the USTA has been great in letting the production team cover the event from numerous locations.
I don't think we've used the same location twice so far and it's really good that we're able to do so much, he explains. There are a lot of fans here as well, which is a little bit tricky at times but the areas that we can go to and the vast scale of it all is really good.
Commentary is done from two booths alongside each other at the top of Arthur Ashe stadium. There are also commentary cameras as well as the ability to have talk back with the core production team back in Sky Studios in Osterley. Five LiveU units send court and switchable feeds back to the team in Osterley.
We are sending all the feeds back and everything is cut from Sky Studios in a production gallery, says Thomas. We have two main channels showing tennis: Sky Sport Tennis and Sky Sport Plus with Plus offering all the court feeds on the red button.
The Sky Sports UK team is also working closely with Sky Sports Deutschland who is also on site. The team from Germany are working closely with Sky UK and share some onsite facilities.
They also get all of our feeds via Sky MCR London, adds Thomas.
Sky Sports UK also has a presence in the USTA Broadcast Center. It is there where all of the court feeds are monitored and this year the Hawkeye AR team is working onsite. There is also a local analysis paint system, an EVS IP director for clips, and more.
With respect to the HDR feed, Sky Sports Operational Technical Specialist Jonathan Craggs says the camera all arrive in London in HDR with the exception of the small commentary POV cameras. The RF cameras capture the color of the tournament in full rec. 2020 color space.
We use the BBC lut because we have been involved with them from an early stage and this year, we are also sticking to the native 1080p signal [the USTA provides], he adds. We do a lot of HDR back home for football, cricket, and F1, so this is a bit business usual for us.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
01/06/2026
Designed to solve a common problem in broadcasting, the automated workflow detects, identifies, removes, and documents copyrighted music
AudioShake has introdu...
01/06/2026
The sports-analytics company combines its data with proprietary AI to help leagu...
01/06/2026
Category line-up & sponsors announced
Photo: Paul Clarke
The Production Music Awards (PMA) have announced that submissions are now officially open ahead of...
01/06/2026
New hybrid sample/synthesis instrument revealed
Excite Audio have just released the latest instalment in their Evolve series, which has been developed in co...
01/06/2026
Latest TONEX expansion captures three rare vintage amps
The newest addition to IK Multimedia's ever-growing TONEX line-up introduces a set of three incr...
01/06/2026
Musically intelligent soft synth gets upgraded
Scaler Music will be probably be best known to many for their music theory tools, but their product range al...
01/06/2026
SBS confirms its broadcast sponsors for FIFA World Cup 2026
1 June, 2026
Media releases
SBS has secured Hyundai, Hisense, Macca's, Rexona, bet365, Com...
01/06/2026
Rohde & Schwarz Satellite Industry Days 2026 guided by the motto From Earth to ...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Marshall Electronics is showcasing a comprehensive lineup of next-generation POV cameras, purpose-built to power today's connected AV environments, at InfoC...
01/06/2026
Adobe Announces Concept to Vector
Deepa Subramaniam June 1, 2026
0 Comments
One of the biggest frustrations we hear from designers is how difficult it...
01/06/2026
Vampire Feature Night Patrol Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton June 1, 2026
0 Comments
Colorist shapes dark, gritty tone for horror thri...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
01/06/2026
Mardi 2 juin 14h00
FilmLight (ARRI), 10 rue Ren Boulanger, 75010 Paris
Rejoignez-nous pour d couvrir comment FLAPI (l'API FilmLight) peut transformer e...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
31/05/2026
Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...
31/05/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Wins 15 Awards at the Canadian Screen Awards - See Pho...
31/05/2026
Taiwan is home to more than 500 NVIDIA ecosystem partners. More than 1 million N...
31/05/2026
As factories move from isolated automation to plant-wide intelligence, manufacturers need AI systems that can connect live machine signals, quality systems, wor...
31/05/2026
The NVIDIA AI Cloud ecosystem is accelerating the global buildout of AI factory infrastructure. Partners are expanding capacity to meet growing demand from ente...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
Live From the US Open: Sky Sports UK Delivers HDR to Viewers, Expands Presence Across the Grounds By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
