Live From the 151st Open Championship: EMG's Hamish Greig Highlights Group-Wide Effort

Live From the 151st Open Championship: EMG's Hamish Greig Highlights Group-Wide Effort Operation comprises about 700 staffers, large compound to serve global rightsholders By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director

Friday, July 21, 2023 - 10:15 am

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EMG is once again at the center of the Open Championship, and this weekend's Open at Royal Liverpool Golf Club caps off a busy two-week period for the company. Last week, the broadcast-services provider was at the center of another big golf show: the Scottish Open. The two events are the largest golf productions the company does, and, according to EMG Director, Golf Operations, Hamish Greig, about 90% of the team that worked last weekend are hard at work this weekend as well.

They've done very well and have been absolutely brilliant, he says. Some of the people did the setup for the Scottish Open and then came down here while others worked through that event and are now here.

EMG's Hamish Greig: We're like a big golf family. NBC, Sky, and ETP all work across the same events.

The Scottish Open production was based on EMG's Nova 112A and TSV12 for the main golf coverage and Nova 112B, Nova 132, and Nova 121 for unilateral coverage by Sky Sports, CBS Sports, and PGA TOUR. On Sunday night, the trucks were packed up and driven to within two hour's drive of Royal Liverpool so that they could be onsite Monday morning. They were folded into a fleet of EMG mobile production units that work closely with the Open's main broadcast building, which is home to OSCAR (Outside Source Central Apparatus Room) and to main production facilities for the Open world feed and NBC Sports coverage.

All told, there are around 700 people roaming the course and compounds for the various rightsholders. Many of them also tend to work on the same major events as well as plenty of smaller ones. We're like a big golf family, says Greig. NBC, Sky, and ETP all work across the same events.

For the Open Championship, EMG has provided some 160 cameras, spread across the world feed, Sky Sports, NBC, Golf Channel, and TV Asahi. Thirty-five of those cameras are RF (two in UHD HDR for coverage of Holes 13 and 17) operating in the 2G, 5G, and 7G bands, and 22 receive sites are scattered throughout the course. There is also a Sony shallow-depth-of-field camera with a Ronin gimbal.

We're amazed that we've actually managed to tweak it so it actually matches the other cameras, says Greig. Sometimes, when you see it on other shows, it can be a bit jarring.

The Compound The heart of the production for the Open Championship is the large IBC building comprising production-control rooms, replay areas, and audio rooms (and equipment racks) that allow the NBC Sports team and the world-feed-production teams to work at maximum efficiency. The building is part of a large compound housing EMG mobile units and portable cabins and facilities.

The main production gallery for the world feed inside the Open IBC

Greig says getting the compound built is a bit like playing Jenga but with massive OB units, smaller portable cabins and trucks, and the large broadcast center in the middle.

On one side of the compound is the world-feed operation; on the other are the unilaterals. Greig says Nova 125 is the first truck to turn up for the host-feed buildup, serving as the main communications hub for the ETP and world-feed team. On the unilateral side of the compound are two trucks: one for NBC Sports, one for Sky Sports.

Nova 125 handles all the comms panels and is the interface to the IBC for the rest of the compound, says Greig. When the other trucks arrive, they are all trunked together and become one big comms system with audio, video, the whole lot. And then we do the same thing for NBC when OB9 comes in. When NBC's Newbert flypack comes in, it gets connected to Stamford and away we go. Then Nova 119 comes in and is home to Sky Sports comms and Sky facilities. When those three are up, you have the host, NBC/Golf Channel, and Sky in early and working on their infrastructure.

The other trucks handle various aspects of Marquee Group coverage, Featured Hole coverage, and more. Nova 303 does sound, graphics, and commentary for Marquee Group 1 (which also gives it the firepower to be a backup facility for OSCAR). Top Tracer cameras are also in that truck. A third redundancy is via OB12B, which houses Marquee Group 2's main production area, an EVS area, main sound mix, and commentators.

OB 12B is a third redundancy [in case] anything happens, notes Greig.

UHD HDR coverage for Holes 13 and 17 is produced in Nova 118. The holes are both par-3s and are covered by a green camera with a big lens and a radio camera plus access to all other feeds. The UHD HDR camera signals pass into Nova 118, are shaded using SDR monitors, and are then available in UHD HDR as well as in 1080p SDR for the regular shows.

Nova 54 runs on hydrogen fuel.

Also on that side of the compound is Nova 54, which represents an innovation in truck design and is being used to rack 20 world-feed cameras. Says Greig, Nova 54 is a new remote-truck concept, which includes running on HVO (Hydrotreated vegetable oil) as we want more sustainable trucks.

The unilateral side of the compound includes Nova 131, which handles the Live at the Range show for IMG, which is on-air at 9 a.m.-noon and 2-6 p.m. every day. That truck also did a celebrity challenge last Sunday with six RF cameras, mics, and three on-course commentators.

Japan's TV Asahi is onsite with a new workflow this year.

We are giving TV Asahi all router panels and multiviewers so they can see and access every camera, says Greig. They have a mixer here, [who selects] which 12 feeds to send back, and a couple of EVS units so they can iso some other feeds and

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