Ski World Cup 2020: Infront prepares for UHD HDR coverage of the women's Super G and Giant Slalom in La Thuile By Roberto Landini, Italian Correspondent
Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - 15:19
Print This Story
From 29 February to 1 March, one of the last stages of the FIS Ski World Cup 2020 will take place in La Thuile in Italy and Infront will be there to capture the action in UHD and HDR.
The event in the Aosta Valley will feature three women's races on the Franco Berthod slope: two Super G and a combined alpine downhill slalom.
Infront's host coverage of the two-day event will include various feeds including one, for Eurosport, that will be in 4K UHD HDR BT.2020 with 10-bit colour coding.
In addition, the producers will provide a clean feed and a dirty feed in 1080i for international worldwide distribution.
Pretty much every major European network with an interest in skiing and winter sports will be there including RAI. The Italian broadcaster will have a massive presence for its unilateral coverage while Eurosport will distribute the white circus in UHD for those who have a suitable TV set at home.
The first problem raised by such a 4K UHD television production is related to the large number of UHD sources that are used.
The Euro Media Group has been chosen as global technological partner for the event working hand-in-hand with two affiliate companies that have huge expertise on snow: Belgium's Videohouse is providing shooting facilities and mobile vehicles in UHD and Italy's Global Production will be responsible for the production and technical crew and the connection and distribution of UHD signals.
Chris Demeulemeester, VideoHouse head of international projects and sales acknowledges that the UHD element provides several challenges.
The first problem raised by such a 4K UHD television production is related to the large number of UHD sources that are used, he told SVG Europe.
21 cameras are scattered along the slope, all Grass Valley Group LDX86N models, and also including speciality cameras such as a Polecam, two radio cameras with VisLink bridges and two super slow-motion 3X.
The Polecam uses a pico Antelope camera while the two radio cameras and the super slow motion shoot 1080p images which are then upscaled in 4K thanks to the Sony video mixer onboard the Unit 2 mobile vehicle.
All downhill from here
Unit 2 is a double expanding mobile unit that Videohouse has decided to use as the technological heart of this 2020 Ski World Cup event.
Three days are necessary to rig the impressive fibre cabling, extending up to 15 km of hybrid and non-fibres with a capacity of 120 monomodal single streams. As many days again will be necessary for the set-up of the cameras and special devices for signal transport involved.
To guarantee quality, Global Production will field a 10-person strong specialist tech crew with a 20 years expertise in shooting mountain World Cup skiing. They will be responsible for complying with any safety request and ensuring even last-minute extreme interventions can be responded to quickly.
These skills are the essence of such teams operating in extreme conditions which guarantee that advanced technologies function perfectly when shooting the spectacular images of skiing.
While the athletes test the slopes ahead of the main competition, the production team carry out the technical tests which are also distributed to some of the broadcasters in order to clear up any doubts about camera positioning.
Facts and figures
For the two-day event that is broadcast live on television, there will be 48 technicians involved.
Of the 21 cameras, two operate with RF radio links, freeing them up to move anywhere, along the slopes and among the crowd at the start and finish lines. The Polecam is located in front of the start house.
For recordings and replays, Unit 2 uses four EVS XT3 servers.
The graphics and the timekeeping of this event, and all of the other Ski World Cup events, is managed directly by the FIS using Swiss Timing.
Netco Sports, co-producer together with Global Production, is supporting the technical management of filming and production.
All staff are coordinated by Global Production and Videohouse.
The production of the event also relies on a helicopter, used not so much for aerial shots, but above all to bring the necessary equipment, such as cameras and scaffolding, lenses, tripods, cables, along the slope.
The slope in La Thuile is very demanding for the athletes and for all the technical staff who must install the system because it winds through a forest and has constantly iced slopes.
Although there are fixed camera positions, the director Sandro De Manicor, assisted by Franco Scotton, always prefer a storytelling style of coverage based as much as possible on images captured by shoulder cameras.
The camera operators, in this case, practically move on skis on the track and work on iced areas with harpoons. They work as close as possible to the athletes passing in order to give the spectator the maximum view, the sensation of the slope and the difficulty of the downhill.
The shoulder operated cameras include lenses with shorter optics, 22x, which do not fog up and have a good focal ratio.
This allows the production to produce images with a more realistic depth of field and greater dynamics, unlike the cameras on the scaffolding which, having to operate from a greater distance, must use greater focal length lenses with consequent flattening of the perspective planes.
The FIS Ski World Cup 2020 continues in the Aosta Valley 29 February 1 March
Picture credits: Giuseppe Di Mauro
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
07/08/2025
July 8 2025, 22:30 (PDT) Tata Motors & Dolby Bring Dolby Atmos to Harrier.ev, R...
14/07/2025
The Royal Moroccan Air Force hosted a C-130 award ceremony with L3Harris Technologies President of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Jason Lambert a...
14/07/2025
UK launch set for September, following on from recent US and Germany releases
London - UK, July 14, 2025 - Nielsen, a global leader in audience measurement, da...
14/07/2025
SHENZHEN, China Telycam has added control options for its portfolio of pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras with a new plug-in for Elgato's Stream Deck family of con...
14/07/2025
The awards are open to IBC2025 show exhibitors and offer a valuable platform for companies to raise awareness for the new products and solutions they will be la...
14/07/2025
Clear-Com is excited to announce a significant expansion of the award-winning Arcadia Central Station with new software updates. Together, these releases dram...
14/07/2025
Grass Valley and Daktronics today announced a strategic technology partnership that unites Grass Valley's live production expertise with Daktronics' lea...
14/07/2025
Cloud playout solutions provider, Veset, and swXtch.io, provider of cloud-based multicast and reliable networking solutions, are partnering to deliver multicast...
14/07/2025
Tintri , a DDN subsidiary and leader in AI-powered data management solutions, today announces a game-changing and award-winning refresh to its global Partner P...
14/07/2025
HighField AI, the broadcast industry's first agentic and multimodal AI platform for automating graphics production, is now commercially available. Developed...
14/07/2025
Encompass Digital Media has today announced that it has been delivering a complex global services project for DAZN, the world s leading sports entertainment pla...
14/07/2025
MASV (massive.io), the fastest, most reliable large file transfer platform trusted by over 10,000 global organizations, announced today it will showcase its nex...
14/07/2025
Calrec is introducing a series of usability, customisation and system enhancements across the entire range of Argo consoles at IBC 2025, on Stand 8.C47. Look ou...
14/07/2025
Fincons Group, IT business consultancy and systems integrator company with more than 40 years of experience in the market, is proud to announce a new engagement...
14/07/2025
Stand 5.F45, IBC2025, Amsterdam, 12 15 September 2025 Intinor returns to IBC to present the latest updates to its Direkt series. A key development on show is ...
14/07/2025
Sony's New Coach's Headset Was Designed in Collaboration With the NFL Featuring a custom dynamic boom mic, the headset will debut in the fall By Dan Da...
14/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network's Marc Caiafa and Tom Guidice on th...
14/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix ISP Speed Index for June 2025
Product
14 July 2025
Global
Link copied to clipboard
One percent of Internet Service Providers (ISP...
14/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Begins Filming The Map of Longing With Al cia Falc , P...
14/07/2025
This July marks 100 days since I officially stepped into the role of CEO at Grass Valley, a milestone not of abrupt change, but of confident continuity.
Unlike...
14/07/2025
Enhancing Public Service Broadcasting with
Innovation, Accuracy & Sustainability
New regional detail and local towns featured...
13/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Expands B&B Universe' with Yu Jae Seok's B&B ...
13/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network Marks Five Straight Years of Onsite MLB...
12/07/2025
Ryan Coogler accepting the 2013 Vanguard Award. Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez.
Editor's Note: In honor of Fruitvale Station s 12th anniversary, we're d...
12/07/2025
Key Code Education, the professional training division of Key Code Media, proudly announces a major update to its Adobe Premiere Pro Engineering and Advanced Op...
12/07/2025
Key Code Education, a leader in instructor-led post production training for over...
12/07/2025
As the death toll continues to mount, with at least 120 killed and more than 170 people still missing on July 10 from devastating Texas floods, a number of broa...
12/07/2025
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., and MIAMI -DirecTV and TelevisaUnivision have signed a deal that will make the ad-supported premium subscription tier of ViX, ViX Premium wi...
11/07/2025
PARK CITY, UTAH, July 11, 2025 - The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the 11 producers chosen for its annual Producers Labs, returning to Ucross Fou...
11/07/2025
If you've ever wondered what might be playing in Clark Kent's headphones...
11/07/2025
L3Harris Technologies President of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Jason Lambert and General Manager of L3Harris Waco facility Sean Ling held a ce...
11/07/2025
ARLINGTON, Va. WETA, the flagship public media station in the national capital area, has launched WETA+, a new streaming service tailored for the local Washingt...
11/07/2025
The Federal Communications Commission has emerged as one of the central players in the broadcast TV landscape in 2025, with its deregulatory policies sparking h...
11/07/2025
Calrec will introduce usability, customization and system enhancements across its entire range of Argo consoles during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Amsterda...
11/07/2025
LONDON Encompass Digital Media said it will support live and on-demand viewing of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup across multiple global regions for sports enterta...
11/07/2025
Two-thirds of broadcast engineers reaped the benefits of a pay raise within the last year....
11/07/2025
CARY, N.C. SmallHD has launched the Quantum 27, a new 26.5-inch Quantum-Dot OLED monitor designed to deliver postproduction image quality in a compact, set-frie...
11/07/2025
The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau and Tegna have entered into a consent decree that will settle an investigation into the accidenta...
11/07/2025
WASHINGTON Following news in early July that Paramount had settled President Donald Trump's lawsuit, Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Ben Ray Luj n (D-N...
11/07/2025
Model/Actriz Performs Lead Single Cinderella on The Late Show with Stephen Colbe...
11/07/2025
Behind the Mic: Amazon Prime Preps for First Season of NBA Action; MSG Networks ...
11/07/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Suite Studios' Craig Hering on Adapting to Client...
11/07/2025
2025 SVG Content Management Forum Breaks Down AI's Impact, Continued Transit...
11/07/2025
A Journey HOME: University of Nebraska's HuskerVision Goes IP Leaders from the HuskerVision and Lawo share their IP learnings By SVG Staff
Friday, July 1...
11/07/2025
CMSI, Remote Picture Labs, Ace ESPN's Cloud-Based Editing Efforts for Wimble...
11/07/2025
Netflix Enters the Live-Boxing-Production Ring for Round 2 With Historic Taylor-...
11/07/2025
Back to All News
Too Hot to Handle: Italy Is Coming on July 18 Only on Netflix
Entertainment
11 July 2025
GlobalItaly
Link copied to clipboard
July 11, 20...
Ski World Cup 2020: Infront prepares for UHD HDR coverage of the women's Super G and Giant Slalom in La Thuile By Roberto Landini, Italian Correspondent 
