CBS Sports Looks To Wrap a Season of Innovation With Epic AFC Championship Production Dual Skycam and new-this-season Field Eye top the tech complement By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor
Friday, January 17, 2020 - 1:10 pm
Print This Story
Story Highlights
When the CBS Sports closes out its NFL season with Sunday's Tennessee Titans-Kansas City Chiefs AFC Championship matchup, it will mark the conclusion of one the network's most technologically innovative campaigns. From the addition of Field Eye (Line-to-Gain camera technology) to an increase in high-speed cameras to more live aerial shots, the CBS Sports operations team has significantly boosted its NFL production complement this year and will lift equipment levels even higher for its largest production of the year on Sunday in Kansas City.
The goal in 2019-20 from Week 1 was to increase the A game with more facilities, including additional super-slo-mo technology, a dedicated weekly RF sideline camera, redundant power, more live aerials, and new technology such as Field Eye, says Patty Power, EVP, operations and engineering, CBS Sports. The playoffs, of course, ramp up week by week until we get to the AFC Championship, which features a significant increase to the tech.
Going All Out: 75 Cameras for Game, Studio Shows
CBS will deploy a whopping 75 cameras between the game production and remote studio shows at Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium, including two Skycam systems (high and low). The low will carry a weather instrument to measure wind and a decibel meter to monitor the loudest stadium in the NFL.
Lead Director Mike Arnold and Lead Producer Jim Rikhoff will have 15 high-speed cameras at their disposal, including four Sony HDC-4800's running at 4X slo-mo with high-level zoom capabilities and 11 Sony HDC-4300's running at 6X slo-mo. CBS will also have PylonCam systems in both end zones (totaling 16 cameras), four wireless RF cameras (including two Steadicams), a jib, two sideline carts, and live aerial shots from a fixed-wing plane.
Every week, our normal A game includes super-slo-mos, PylonCams, and a Skycam. In the game this weekend, we go way above those levels to capture as many angles as possible from a variety of camera technologies and innovations, says Jason Cohen, VP, remote technical operations, CBS Sports.
In terms of new technology, the biggest difference-maker this season has been CBS's Field Eye, which is created by the two wireless robotic pylons carried up and down the sideline to give fans a line-to-gain perspective.
Increase of the super-slow-motion cameras and a significant increase in live aerials have been great, says Cohen, but the Field Eye technology was our greatest new add: two wireless pylon-shaped objects have a robotic head, allowing full 360 pan and tilt with RF transmitters capturing incredible POV angles from the sidelines during game play.
CBS Sports will also have access to the Intel True View 360-degree replay system installed at Arrowhead Stadium. It leverages dozens of 5K cameras and Intel-based servers (processing up to 1 TB of data) for volumetric capture. Replays in the CBS broadcast will feature 360-degree reconstructions of plays that can be viewed from any angle (for example, the perspective of the quarterback reading the defense).
A total of 21 replay devices - 18 EVS replay servers, three Sony 4500 zoom-capable replay servers - will be on hand for CBS's largest NFL production of the season, along with five ChyronHego Mosaic graphic systems.
On Set, Inside the Compound: NEP SS CBS, F&F GTX 17 Team Up
The NFL Today studio show will be onsite for the AFC Championship Game with its full talent roster (James Brown, Boomer Esiason, Bill Cowher, Phil Simms, Nate Burleson, and Jason La Canfora) and production team (led by producer Drew Kaliski and director Bob Matina).
CBS has erected two sets, one outside the stadium and one right on the field. The NFL Today production features its own dedicated RF cameras and a jib and will tap into the array of game-production facilities for its two-hour pregame show (beginning at 1 p.m. ET). The NFL Today will also handle halftime and postgame duties.
Inside the compound, NEP's SSCBS (A, B, C, and D units), home to CBS's A game throughout the season, will be deployed for game production. In addition, CBS has rolled out F&F's GTX 17A for the NFL Today studio show (pre/postgame and halftime) and GTX 17B to house studio graphics and four robotic-pan-bar operators.
CBS also has an army of technology vendors onsite to support the show. Filmwerks is supplying the power with two fully redundant twin-pack generators and three UPS systems. SMT is providing onsite 1st-and-Ten Line technology on four hard cameras, the All-22 camera, and the Skycam, as well as handling clock-and-score functions. Bexel is onsite with the audio sideline cart and is supporting RF communications, while BSI handles RF video, including the Field Eye cameras.
A Look Back: A Year of Innovation and Expansion
It has been quite a season for the NFL on CBS production and ops teams, which were coming off an epic production at Super Bowl LII last year. CBS Sports used the Big Game as a springboard to boost equipment levels and integrate cutting-edge technologies into its regular-season A-game production, and, according to Power, the moves have paid off.
The year has been very smooth thus far from both technical and operations standpoints, she says. Being able to grow the regular-season show as much as we did afforded the production team the ability to operate at a regular-season level that more closely matches the postseason, so the ramp-up isn't as significant and gives the viewers more during the regular season.
North America Stories
23/07/2026
Evergent (5.A86) will showcase its Agentic Revenue Orchestration Platform for streaming services, sports leagues, pay-TV operators at IBC2026 (RAI Amsterdam, 11...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
David Dvir, 2D founder (left), Sundeep Reddy (center), and Jean-Marc Bouchut (right), both of Zeiss...
23/07/2026
Lock in and load up the cloud. GFN Thursday brings fresh updates and new adventu...
22/07/2026
Among other tweaks to coverage, the broadcaster added announce positions in the ...
22/07/2026
The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) has reported a sharp acceleration in Australia's sportstech sector, with revenue growth rising from 10% in...
22/07/2026
From a retrofitted broadcast bus to packed Match Day Live! events, Bennett detai...
22/07/2026
TMRW Sports has named Brendan Donohue as President, Flag Football, where he will lead the company's professional flag football business in partnership with ...
22/07/2026
Stephen Arnold Music (SAM) designed and produced soundtracks for nine projection...
22/07/2026
Harmonic has announced a $25,000 donation to Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) fo...
22/07/2026
Telemundo has announced it has acquired from UC3 exclusive U.S. Spanish-language...
22/07/2026
The Rest Is Football, hosted by Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards, ...
22/07/2026
Sports Studio has announced a partnership with TheSoul Group to distribute Free ...
22/07/2026
Daktronics has concluded its 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day hybrid event combining virtual sessions with hands-on host school visits across the countr...
22/07/2026
FOR-A America will exhibit at the MMCA Show in Pensacola, Florida (July 21-24), marking the company's first appearance at the house of worship AV event. FOR...
22/07/2026
The New York Yankees have selected Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) to connect Ya...
22/07/2026
Calrec will exhibit at IBC 2026 (Stand 8.C47) with demonstrations of its IP-native audio ecosystem built around the Argo console range, and will announce two ne...
22/07/2026
Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Algam EKO as its distributor for SSL large format consoles in Italy, covering the Live, Broadcast, and Studio...
22/07/2026
FloSports has announced the launch of the FloSports Channel, a free ad-supported streaming channel premiering on Prime Video in the U.S. on July 21. The channel...
22/07/2026
Banana Ball TV (BTV), the broadcast operation of the Savannah Bananas, has insta...
22/07/2026
SiriusXM and Audacy have announced an agreement bringing 42 Audacy sports, news, and talk stations from 29 U.S. markets to SiriusXM. Twenty-three Audacy sports ...
22/07/2026
The collaboration produced more than 500 short-form videos across four cities th...
22/07/2026
At 2,600 sq. ft., the new home of digital content houses a main studio, podcast space, and an auxiliary control room
NFL franchises are accelerating their prod...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Proven managed IP solution helps broadcasters confidently navigate the future of broadcast distribution
LTN announces it has completed successful satellite-to-...
22/07/2026
Today, Chaos announced V-Ray 7, update 4, eliminating the need for asset conversions and tool switching, which slow down media and entertainment pipelines. Arti...
22/07/2026
An AI playground for the Project Indigo camera app
Marc Levoy July 22, 2026
0 Comments
At left is the user interface of our Playground, running on an ...
22/07/2026
Custom Consoles announces the completion of a large technical furniture project for Radio T l vision Suisse (RTS) at the networks recently inaugurated productio...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Culver City, CA, July 21, 2026 3D streaming infrastructure provider Miris today announced glTF intake, including the binary .glb form, to its spatial streamin...
22/07/2026
Documentary Lo Invisible Captured with Blackmagic PYXIS 6K
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
Camera's versatile design allowed filmmakers to c...
22/07/2026
AAF Bridge converts AAF and XML Timelines to Ableton Live - and back
Jerome Gardier July 21, 2026
0 Comments
A two-way converter for macOS and Windows...
22/07/2026
From Class to Concert: Explore a Student-Led Production of David Bowies Work Thr...
22/07/2026
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang today visited the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, to commission an NVIDIA DGX GB300 system - bringing one...
22/07/2026
Before a healthcare robot can be useful in the real world, it has to learn how the physical world pushes back. Anatomy varies. Instruments bend, press, slip and...
21/07/2026
With winners Spain having already paraded the World Cup trophy through Madrid in front of millions of fans and the dust now settling on an epic tournament of th...
21/07/2026
In a time of disarray in regional sports broadcasting, the league will provide c...
21/07/2026
When NEP designed one of its largest recurring mobile production unit fleets for PGA TOUR
coverage, the leading media services provider faced a familiar challe...
21/07/2026
Warner Bros. Discovery's unbroken lead is interrupted as sports and live mus...
21/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/07/2026
Across the TV and streaming ecosystem, industry players face mounting pressure to do more with less. They must simplify operations, protect premium content and ...
21/07/2026
Tuxera, a leading prover of quality-assured file systems and networking technologies, is bringing its latest advances in connectivity performance to the media w...
21/07/2026
COW Jobs: Apple Motion Expert for Custom FCP Rigged Graphics Package
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
HIRING: Apple Motion Expert for Custom FCP ...
21/07/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, will use its presence at IBC2026 (stand 7.A01, Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September) to...
21/07/2026
Calrec will be located in Hall 8, on Stand C47
Beyond bigger
For years, broadcast facilities were built around one assumption: provision for the biggest pro...
CBS Sports Looks To Wrap a Season of Innovation With Epic AFC Championship Production Dual Skycam and new-this-season Field Eye top the tech complement By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor 
