Live from the U.S. Open: Fox Sports and Partners Make an Innovative Difference By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director Sunday, June 17, 2018 - 8:23 am
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Story Highlights
The 2018 U.S. Open from Shinnecock Hills gave the Fox Sports team challenges in production planning that led to new innovations, the opportunity to refresh old workflows and core infrastructure pieces, and a chance to chart some new directions for golf coverage.
The front bench area in Game Creek Video's Encore truck is at the center of U.S. Open coverage.
Game Creek Video's Encore production unit is at the center of the coverage for Fox and FS1 with Game Creek Pride handling RF video control, submix, and providing a backup emergency control room. Pride's B unit is handling production control for one of the featured groups, Edit 4 handling all iso audio mixes, and Edit 2 is home to five edit bays with equipment and support provided by CMSI. And there is also the 4K HDR show which is being produced out of Game Creek Maverick
Sarita Meinking and Brad Cheney are tasked with keeping the U.S. Open production for Fox Sports running smoothly.
All the Sony 4300 cameras on the seventh through 18th greens are 4K HDR native with a secondary output at 720p SDR, says Brad Cheney, Fox Sports, VP, field operations and engineering. There are also six Sony PXW-Z450s for the featured holes and featured group with two of those having their output delivered via 5G wireless.
We are producing two 4K HDR shows out of one mobile unit with four RF-based 4K cameras and that is another big step forward, adds Cheney.
In terms of numbers, Fox Sports has 474 technicians onsite, making use of 38 miles of 24-strand fiber-optic cable to produce the event captured by 106 cameras (including 21 wireless 1080p, 21 4K HDR units, six 4K HDR wireless, three Inertia Unlimited X-Mo cameras shooting at 8,000 fps, a Sony HDC-4800 at 960 fps, and three Sony HDC-4300 at 360 fps) and 218 microphones. Tons of data will be passed around: 3 Gbps of internet data will be managed, along with 83 Gbps of broadcast data, 144 TB of real-time storage, and 512 TB of nearline storage.
A second Compound
Each course provides its own unique challenges and at Shinnecock Hills one of them is the presence of roads running through the course and of course the hilly terrain which also has plenty of deep fescue. But from a planning standpoint the biggest issue was the small size of space that was available for the compound.
We came out here 18 months ago and when we placed all of our trucks in the compound map it didn't fit, and that is without the world feed, Sky, TV Asahi, and others, says Cheney. At Erin Hills last year we had a support tent and that gave our camera crew more space, dry storage, and a place to work.
The decision was then made to expand on what was done at Erin Hills and move the production operations that benefit most from being close to the course to a large field tent located along the third hole. The field tent is about a half mile from the main compound and is home to the technology area (shot tracing technologies, etc.), the camera, audio and RF areas, along with robotic cameras provided by Fletcher. Inertia Unlimited's Jeff Silverman, president, is also located in the tent controlling xMo cameras as well as robotic cameras that can be moved around the course to provide different looks.
Cheney says the team took the field tent to a new level by providing an integrated source of distribution and monitoring so that it could effectively be an island to itself.
It has worked out well, he says. People are comfortable there, it's dry, and offers direct access to the course.
Michael Davies, Fox Sports, SVP, technical and field operations, says that some of the operations in the field tent, like those related to enhancements like shot tracing and the Visual Eye, could ultimately move even further from the main compound.
Typically, they would be in the main compound but once we figured out how to connect the two compounds via fiber for a half mile it begets how far away you can put things [like the shot tracking production], says Davies. It gets the mind going, especially for events like this that can be hard to get to.
Brad Boob (left) and John Gonzalez inside the fiber cabin.
Also located closer to the course is the fiber cabin, a move that allows the team to more quickly deal with any connectivity issues on the course. The 37 miles of fiber cable that is used across the course is monitored in the cabin and Carlos Gonzalez, Fox Sports, technical producer, and the team troubleshoot and solve any issues.
We're isolated from the compound which can make it a challenge, but we are actually liking it, says Gonzalez.
Cheney says that placing the cabin closer to the course means a reduction in the amount of outbound fiber and also makes the operation a true head end.
It's something that we will continue to do at Pebble next year [the site of the 2019 U.S. Open] because of the set up there so this has been another good learning experience for us, says Cheney.
Steps Forward
One big step that was taken in preparation for the 2018 events was that the IP router in Encore was rebuilt from scratch.
All of the programming in the router was there since day one [in 2015] and we have found new ways to do things, says Cheney. And to strategically try and pull things out of it just wasn't worth it. So, we started from zero and it paid off in terms of how quickly we could get up and running.
Also playing an important part in enhancing the workflows was CMSI and Beagle Networks who made sure networks and editing systems were all ready to go.
The team from CMSI and Beagle Networks has been phenomenal in wiring up our networks and making sure its robust and all encompassing, says Cheney. A
