
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.
North America Stories
10/09/2026
Duff Foreman is an AI-generated announcer who will add color to this month's New Mexico Open...
10/09/2026
Bitmovin is rolling out Encoder Version 3, the next major release of the technology behind its VOD and Live Encoders. Version 3 is built on a premise every stre...
10/09/2026
At IBC2026, on booth 1.B47, Net Insight will showcase Open Live Media, its architecture for delivering resilient live media services across networks, partners, ...
10/09/2026
The Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) and Scripps Sports have announced a national broadcast rights agreement for the 2026-27 season, a landmark par...
10/09/2026
The Trusted Partner Network (TPN), the global content security initiative powere...
10/09/2026
The NFL is launching its most expansive creator programming yet, bringing togeth...
10/09/2026
Sportsnet is set to deliver its biggest hockey season ever with a national sched...
10/09/2026
LiveU is now a Clarus Integrated Reseller, bringing Starlink's fast, reliabl...
10/09/2026
Mimir is the cloud-native media production platform built for teams that need to move media fast across live, archive, web, social, and broadcast workflows. At ...
10/09/2026
ATSC is being honored with a 2026 Technology & Engineering Emmy Award by the Nat...
10/09/2026
Audio-Technica has introduced the BP880R Contact Transducer, a specialized micro...
10/09/2026
TMRW Sports in partnership with the LPGA, today announced multiyear U.S. media rights agreements with ESPN and Scripps Sports/ION to bring WTGL, the new women...
10/09/2026
SportsNet Pittsburgh (SNP) in partnership with Major League Baseball and the Pit...
10/09/2026
Tennis Channel announced today its launch as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel.
Tennis Channel offers viewers a single home for Tennis Channel and Ten...
10/09/2026
Dolby has announced major updates to Dolby OptiView, its live sports platform, ahead of IBC 2026. The updates include new AI-powered intelligence to better unde...
10/09/2026
Dalet has appointed Brian Doheny as CEO. Doheny joined Dalet as President and Chief Revenue Officer in April 2026. Since joining Dalet, Doheny has led the compa...
10/09/2026
Sony, as well as its partner company Nevion, is starting IBC 2026 with a handful of announcements for attendees to see on the show floor.
Sony Announces the 4t...
10/09/2026
The six-year-old venue is expanding capabilities for NFL action, Super Bowl LXI, 2028 Summer Olympics
SoFi Stadium, as well as the surrounding area known as Ho...
10/09/2026
France launch follows UK and Germany as Nielsen expands product across EMEA
Paris, France, September 10, 2026 - Nielsen, a global leader in audience measuremen...
10/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
10/09/2026
Leading professional audio manufacturers NUGEN Audio, RTW, Steinberg and Telos Alliance have joined forces with Fraunhofer IDMT to establish a common approach t...
10/09/2026
Built Into Setplex's Zapflex Platform, AI Insider Turns Video Service Data Into Actionable Insights
Setplex today introduced AI Insider, a breakthrough new...
10/09/2026
Managed service changes dialogue without actor-specific training or facial rigging while preserving the original performance and fitting established post-produc...
10/09/2026
The ACT Entertainment tvONE and Green Hippo Pixel Academy has released its autumn course schedule, with hands-on training dates in September, October and Novemb...
10/09/2026
Orange Polska continues to Rely on Viaccess-Orca for Secure TV Services and the Next Phase of its Technology Evolution
Viaccess-Orca (VO), a global leader in T...
10/09/2026
Generate and create directly in your timeline with new AI-powered innovations in...
10/09/2026
Tedial is introducing Media Business Hub (MBH) at IBC 2026, a new business enablement platform designed to help media organizations unlock the full value of the...
10/09/2026
Globecast, a leading provider of broadcast, media and entertainment managed services, will unveil the next phase of its transformation at IBC2026 with a preview...
10/09/2026
Fabric Data and TMT Insights today announced that the two companies are combining to create Fabric Insights, uniting authoritative data, purpose-built software,...
10/09/2026
Operative, the preferred advertising and broadcast management provider for the world's leading media brands, today announced a comprehensive slate of new pr...
10/09/2026
Test & measurement innovator, Leader Electronics of Europe, has announced the launch of its latest range of handheld signal generation, analysis and monitoring ...
10/09/2026
The partnership begins with native Zixi protocol support on the Kiloview D350 and will extend to deeper product integration and joint go-to-market initiatives
...
10/09/2026
Avid and FilmLight announce strategic partnership to reimagine the color pipelin...
10/09/2026
Maxon Brings Exclusive Preview of Fall Innovations to IBC2026
Brie Clayton September 10, 2026
0 Comments
IBC attendees will get the first look at new ...
10/09/2026
Puget Systems Launches Built Different by Puget Systems, A New Podcast That Go...
10/09/2026
Three Boston Conservatory Dance Alums Honored for Their Early-Career Promise India Hobbs and Demetrius Lee received Princess Grace Awards, while Lilly David t...
10/09/2026
MonoNeon Returns to Berklee to Kick Off Signature Series The Grammy-winning bassist and alumnus performs with students and faculty from the Planet MicroJam In...
10/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
10/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
10/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
10/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
10/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
10/09/2026
Gear up: The latest PC games and major updates are ready to play on GeForce NOW ...
10/09/2026
AI inference chipmaker d-Matrix today announced it will use NVIDIA NVLink Fusion to connect its next-generation Raptor XPUs to NVIDIA's AI infrastructure pl...
09/09/2026
Sony Electronics has announced the SEL814G, the company's first fisheye zoom G Lens for full-frame Alpha E-mount cameras. The lens will be available in Octo...
09/09/2026
Telestream has announced an expansion of its Practical AI capabilities across th...
09/09/2026
Haivision and Chyron have announced a technology partnership integrating Haivisi...
09/09/2026
Omaha Productions has released ManningCast: Heist, a short film featuring Peyton and Eli Manning attempting to break into NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's o...
09/09/2026
Imagine Communications will demonstrate the next evolution of XVR at IBC2026 (Stand 1.B73, RAI Amsterdam, September 11-14).
XVR is Imagine's channel-in-a-b...
09/09/2026
swXtch.io has announced abbe, an AI-based orchestration layer for live media workflows, making its world premiere at IBC2026 (Meeting Room 5.MR13, Hall 5, Septe...