Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

NBC Sports Adds High-Speed Handheld, Specialty Graphics for Marquee NHL Matchup on Wednesday

11/12/2019

NBC Sports Adds High-Speed Handheld, Specialty Graphics for Marquee NHL Matchup on Wednesday Bruins-Capitals showdown will be treated like a Stanley Cup Final show By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital

Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 3:12 pm

Print This Story

Story Highlights

It may still be early in the NHL season, but it's going to feel a lot like a night deep in the Stanley Cup Playoffs tonight: NBCSN will carry a doubleheader headlined by a showdown featuring the league's top two teams and top two individual scorers: David Pastrnak and the Boston Bruins vs. Alex Ovechkin and the league-leading Washington Capitals (7 p.m. ET, NBCSN).

NBC Sports is rising to this marquee matchup by boosting its production and operations complement to a level that resembles a Conference Finals show more than a regular-season one. The added resources include a super-high-speed camera for replay, a second hard camera focusing on iso shots (regular-season games typically have only one), and high-end specialty graphics typically reserved for NBC's touted Sunday Night Football crew.

We felt it was the right game to bring out a few tools that can help us better showcase this game from a production standpoint, says Charlie Dammeyer, who will direct tonight's Bruins-Caps game for NBCSN. The extra hard camera will allow us to constantly isolate both players on the ice at all times, highlighting their skill and how they are defended all night. The [super-slo-mo] hopefully will be able to showcase some of the intricacies of the game. It might come from a stick check, a deflection, a hit, or maybe a player's reaction - that's the best part. We don't know when and where it might happen, but we have enhanced our equipment to help us better capture and show these moments.

The super-high-speed camera is a Sony HDC-4800, which will be used as a handheld for the first time by this crew, according to Dammeyer. It will be positioned at the Inside the Glass position between the team benches. The camera, when used on an NHL game, typically shoots at 360 frames per second (fps), but, tonight, the crew will try to record at 960 fps.

This is a camera that NBC's Sunday Night Football crew uses in 4K mode for stellar images down the line of scrimmage, goal line, and high end zone. On Wednesday night, NBC is even bringing in one of its top-flight camera operators in Jack Hagen to handle the job in DC.

I'm a big fan of putting a handheld between the benches, because it's a great look when it's a live camera on a whistle and can be a great replay because it's unobstructed and low to the ice, says Dammeyer, who has directed numerous Stanley Cup Final games for NBC, in addition to working much of NBC's half of the NASCAR Cup Series. It's essentially the best seat in the house. Combine the best seat in the house and a great camera operator in Jack Hagen shooting at 16X super-slow-motion (960 fps), and, hopefully, you have a recipe for success.

In the lead-up to the game, Dammeyer noted that the NBC crew would spend Wednesday morning testing the lighting conditions within Capital One Arena to see whether they prefer the look of shooting at 8X or at 16X speed. In-venue lighting plays a key role in the success of super-high-speed cameras at extreme settings like this, because the production crew will want to minimize any light flicker or other ill effects that could result from slowing down the image at such a resolution in real time.

I've used the 4800 before in Conference Final games as well as the Stanley Cup Final but always as a hard camera and utilizing the 4K capabilities, says Dammeyer. For [tonight's] game, I'm going to have Jack shoot tight action during play and seriously hunt for those intimate player reactions. Alex Ovechkin is typically a player who will give you not only great effort and skill on the ice but also excellent reactions. We saw this in the 2018 Stanley Cup Final vs. Vegas as we had some great reactions when he was on the bench. Our producer Matt Marvin is excited to use these instantaneous replays during his show to help illustrate the stories of the two best players on the two best teams as the game unfolds.

In addition, the crew has added a second iso camera because the production team will look to spotlight both Ovechkin and Pastrnak throughout the night. They will also use high-end specialty graphics typically used on Sunday Night Football to offer detailed animations telling the story of Ovechkin's scoring prowess from all over the offensive zone.

Besides the Bruins-Capitals matchup, Wednesday night's twin bill on NBCSN includes a matchup between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Colorado Avalanche (9:30 p.m. ET).

It has been an outstanding season so far for the NHL on NBC property. According to NBC Sports, viewership on NBCSN is up 20% vs. 2018, and this year is the best start to the season since 2016. At a time when not too many ratings are increasing across linear platforms, that's a notable spike that both NBC and the NHL can relish.
LINK: https://www.sportsvideo.org/2019/12/11/nbc-sports-adds-high-speed-hand...
See more stories from svg

North America Stories

09/06/2026

Kiswe Expands Partnership With ONE Championship To LaunchGlobal Subscription Platform

Kiswe announces an expanded long-term partnership with ONE Championship (ONE), t...

09/06/2026

SiriusXM to Carry All 104 FIFA World Cup 2026 Matches via FOX Sports Commentary

SiriusXM will broadcast FOX Sports' English-language commentary for all 104 FIFA World Cup 2026 matches from June 11 through July 19, available to subscribe...

09/06/2026

EVS Broadcast Equipment Rebrands as EVS

EVS has announced it is changing its corporate name from EVS Broadcast Equipment to EVS, reflecting the company's expanded portfolio beyond broadcast equipm...

09/06/2026

FOX and NFL Announce Multi-Year Agreement for NFL Coverage in Mexico Starting in 2026

Fox Corporation and the NFL have announced a multi-year agreement to bring NFL c...

09/06/2026

FOX Sports and ReachTV to Carry All 104 FIFA World Cup 2026 Matches Across U.S. Airports

FOX Sports and ReachTV, an airport media network, have announced an agreement to...

09/06/2026

Cosm Atlanta Opens with Private Preview, Public Opening Set for June 10

Cosm Atlanta, a 70,000-square-foot, three-level immersive entertainment venue located within Centennial Yards adjacent to State Farm Arena and Mercedes-Benz Sta...

09/06/2026

NESN Wins Five New England Emmy Awards

NESN captured five awards at the 2026 Boston/New England Emmy Awards, including four program honors and one individual award. These awards reflect the passion...

09/06/2026

Ateme Referenced by Apple at WWDC26 for Apple Immersive Video Workflow Support

Ateme has announced that its support for Apple Immersive Video workflows was referenced by Apple during its 2026 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC26). Atem...

09/06/2026

Axel Springer Deploys Bitmovin Player Web X for WELT Audio News Experience

Bitmovin has announced that Axel Springer SE has deployed Player Web X, Bitmovin's web video player, to power audio readouts of news articles and an audio-o...

09/06/2026

Grass Valley and Lawo Announce Technology Collaboration on AMPP and HOME Integration

Grass Valley and Lawo have announced a technology collaboration to validate orch...

09/06/2026

LiveU Deploys Remote VAR for Oceania Football Confederation, First in Pacific Islands

LiveU has announced a deployment with the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) t...

09/06/2026

Globecast Launches Content Exchange Platform Powered by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

Globecast has announced the launch of its Content Exchange platform, powered by ...

09/06/2026

OT7 Championship Weekend to Air on NBC and Peacock for First Time

NBC Sports will present live coverage of Overtime's OT7 football league Championship Weekend from Sullivan Field at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angel...

09/06/2026

UFC Freedom 250: Inside the One-in-a-Lifetime Production Behind the White House Fight Card

We're in three different locations, three different production teams. Coveri...

09/06/2026

Murray States Brandon Banks on Firing Up Racers Basketball Fans Through Creative Video

The intro video for Men's Basketball won Outstanding In-Venue Video in the C...

09/06/2026

SVG Sit-Down, Part 2: FIFA's Oscar Sanchez, HBS's Paul King Dive Deep Into IBC Operations, Commentary, and Ref Cam

Today is match day minus two for FIFA and HBS. On Thursday, there will be two ma...

09/06/2026

Designing the Modern Scorebug: How Broadcast Graphics Teams Are Rethinking the Most Important Element On Screen

Since their debut, the clock-and-score graphic has drawn the affinity and ire of...

09/06/2026

Nielsen launches Four-Screen Ad Deduplication measurement on YouTube campaigns in Italy

Media buyers and sellers can now compare YouTube reach from computer, mobile, an...

09/06/2026

Andrew Beaudet Joins Brompton as Head of Sales, Americas

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

09/06/2026

Mediaset Italia Deploys Mediagenix Platform To Modernize Scheduling

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

09/06/2026

Mediaset Italia Modernizes Content Supply Chain and Chann...

A project aimed at modernizing scheduling operations across Mediaset's channel portfolio Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitab...

09/06/2026

ACT Entertainment Debuts tvONE 4RU CALICO PRO at InfoComm...

tvONE, an ACT Entertainment brand, debuts its most powerful video processor ever built: the 4RU CALICO PRO (C7-PRO-4200), at InfoComm 2026 (Booth N6813). Engine...

09/06/2026

Composer and Conductor Eric Whitacre to Receive Honorary Doctorate at Berklee Valencia's 2026 Commencement

Composer and Conductor Eric Whitacre to Receive Honorary Doctorate at Berklee Va...

09/06/2026

Comcast Advertising Adds Purchasing Data from Affinity Solutions

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

09/06/2026

Midwich to Distribute Miri Technologies in North America

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

09/06/2026

Nielsen: North American Soccer Fans Jump to More Than 136 Million

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

09/06/2026

Grass Valley and Lawo Collaborate to Advance Open Dynamic...

Technology collaboration to validate AMPP and Lawo HOME orchestration integration, showcasing Dynamic Media Facility principles in practice. Grass Valley and ...

09/06/2026

Bitmovin Player Web X Powers Axel Springer New Audio News...

Bitmovin, a leading provider of video streaming solutions, today announced that Axel Springer SE, international media and technology company, has deployed Playe...

09/06/2026

LiveU Delivers First Remote VAR Deployment Across the Pac...

LiveU, the global leader in live IP-video solutions, today announced a landmark deployment with the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) that has brought Video ...

09/06/2026

Sam Craig Joins Grass Valley as VP, Global Pre-Sales

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

09/06/2026

Arkansas TV Will Continue to Air PBS Programming

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

09/06/2026

Glensound to Show DARK22M Network Audio Interface at InfoComm 2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

09/06/2026

EVS Rebrands, Trims Its Name

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

09/06/2026

FCC Announces Tentative Agenda for June 25 Open Meeting

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

09/06/2026

Two Alumni Win Tony Awards

Two Alumni Win Tony Awards Mike Morris and Cedric Leiba Jr. won awards for Best Orchestrations and Best Play, respectively. June 8, 2026 By Tori Donahue ...

09/06/2026

Netflix Unveils First Images And Poster For Wrath, A New Brazilian Series Premiering July 29

Back to All News Netflix Unveils First Images And Poster For Wrath, A New Brazi...

08/06/2026

SVG Sit-Down: FIFA's Oscar Sanchez and HBS's Paul King on Deploying 16 Production Teams in 16 World Cup Venues

The two execs discuss the goals and the challenges of building a huge multi-cult...

08/06/2026

SVG All-Stars: Judi Weiss, Senior Manager, Remote Operations (Studio), ESPN

This industry legend has been a road warrior since the early '90s and is, today, a lynchpin on College GameDay The sports-production industry continues to ...

08/06/2026

DAZN Extends Combat Sports Portfolio with EFC Partnership

DAZN has agreed a multi-year rights partnership with Extreme Fighting Championship (EFC), expanding its global combat sports portfolio. DAZN will broadcast EFC...

08/06/2026

Whitepaper: TVU Networks Tackles the Future of Sports Production

As fans move across broadcast, streaming, social, mobile and creator-led platforms, and they expect every angle, in real time, TVU Networks has released a new e...

08/06/2026

Infront Strengthens Diamond League Global Broadcast Network Through Spate of New Agreements

Infront has further strengthened the 2026 Diamond League's international bro...

08/06/2026

Grass Valley Appoints Sam Craig as Vice President, Global Pre-Sales

Grass Valley has announced the appointment of Sam Craig as Vice President, Global Pre-Sales. Based in the United States, Craig will lead Grass Valley's glob...

08/06/2026

SMPTE Announces Summer 2026 IP Networking and ST 2110 Course Lineup

SMPTE has announced its summer 2026 education lineup covering IP networking and SMPTE ST 2110, including two standalone courses, a 13-week boot camp, and a hand...

08/06/2026

Sportradar and Kalshi Announce Multi-Year Data and Infrastructure Partnership for Prediction Markets

Sportradar Group AG has announced a multi-year global agreement with Kalshi, a p...

08/06/2026

FIFA and Gamefam Launch FIFA World Cup 2026 Event on Roblox

FIFA and Gamefam have announced the launch of a FIFA World Cup 2026 event on Roblox, running June 5 through July 31, 2026. The event centers on FIFA Super Socce...

08/06/2026

Stanley Pup 2026: Fun Is the Goal When the Rescue-Dog Competition Returns for Year 3

A collaboration of NHL Productions, Monumental Sports, and Michael Levitt Produc...

08/06/2026

Bryce Adair, CBS Production Assistant, Dies in Car Crash at 31

CBS Sports production staffer Bryce Adair has died at the age of 31 after sustaining injuries during a car accident on Wednesday while in Ohio working the the P...

08/06/2026

Behind the Mic: Russell Wilson and Kyle Long Join CBS Sports The NFL Today

Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, including new deals, departures, and assignments compiled from press releases and repo...

08/06/2026

WMT Digital Launches Sports Customer Data Platform Built to Turn Fan Intelligence into Revenue

WMT Digital today announced the launch of WMT Fan Intelligence, designed to unif...

08/06/2026

Miami Heat Ink New Deal With WPLG Local 10, Join NBAs Growing OTA Crowd

The Heat are the seventh NBA team to air their games over-the-air next season...