Live from the Indy 500: IMS Productions Revamped HD5 Unit, with IP and HDR, All Systems Go for Race Day By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Friday, May 23, 2025 - 11:50 am
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The 109th Indy 500 is less than 48 hours away and while covering the race is old hat for IMS Productions having Fox Sports on board as a new rights holder is providing a new jolt of energy and excitement that has IMS Productions President Kevin Sublette and the team looking forward to a new era that will see the Indy 500 make the leap to HDR, AR graphics, IP, and much more.
Kevin Sublette (left) and Jason King of IMS Productions are ready for a next-level Indy 500 production.
The Fox team that is here has been working on NASCAR and now they're coming out to see Indy Car with the speed and the sexiness and when they see 350,000 people on Sunday, they'll see how amazing it is, says Sublette. And Fox Sports CEO and Executive Producer Eric Shanks [who is an Indiana native] wants this show to be it, and the Fox team has been very engaged as we try to figure out how to do what they want to do.
Sublette is especially excited to see how Fox Sports Director Mitch Riggin, who is from Indiana, does directing his firsts Indy 500 as he has a plethora of new toys to play with, including more than 110 camera signals from everything from drones to handhelds, hard cameras, and a plethora of specialty and in-car cameras.
Fox has definitely pushed us with things like drones and that's been good for IMS and Indy Car, adds Sublette. The pointers they've added are huge as is the Driver's Eye cameras [in six driver's helmets] and then Shanks also wanted to change the audio coming off the car and we've never had a broadcaster ask us to do that. And now we have microphones on each side of the cars, and it's made a huge difference. And then the Fox graphics have just been incredible as well.
Getting the production of the Indy 500 and the entire Indy Race Series has been a multi-prong effort that actually began with the decision to upgrade the IMS Productions HD5 truck from baseband to IP as well as from SDR to HDR.
Our trucks were 13 years old and technology and manufacturers supporting all that older technology, even though it was still working, it was time to upgrade, says Sublette. And when we first found out about Fox getting the rights we went back and forth with Roger Penske, chairman of the Penske Corporation, and were finally approved to upgrade our mobile unit. And our guys went to work with Paul Nijak, managing partner and general manager at BeckTV, and they came up with a plan to go to IP.
The front bench in IMS Productions' HD5 unit features a new Grass Valley switcher and Sony HDR monitoring.
At the center of the newly rebuilt truck are Cisco switches coupled with Imagine orchestration and multi-viewers. The router has spine-leaf design and features Cisco 9408 chassis with 400G capacity, chosen to meet bandwidth demands across HD-5 and its B and C units while conserving space and weight. Other highlights include a newly installed Grass Valley Kayenne SXP switcher with 9 M/Es (on most races 1.5 M/Es are split off to handle the track video show but this week they will be used for tape release), 32 Imagine SNP multiviewers, 13 EVS XT-VIA servers, Adder KVM, five Telestream Prism waveform monitors, and a Calrec audio board.
We are actually their first US broadcast truck to install Imagine, says Jason King, IMS Productions, senior director of engineering. Imagine has just been spectacular from the start as they really have listened to us when we talk about our needs from a live show perspective. They're being making changes, and they just have been a fantastic company to work with.
King says the move to IP gives the truck a lot more firepower without having to expand the footprint or weight.
We've almost doubled the amount of routing that we're doing, and IP gives the bandwidth and flexibility we need, adds King. We can just continue to expand and we're resolution independent.
The new router also made it easier to move to 1080p and King and Sublette say that the reaction both internally and externally was very positive to the improved resolution.
And then to go HDR we bought new Sony HDC-5500 cameras and even in SDR they look amazing, says King. But when we flip the switch to HDR the quality of the video has been exponentially through the roof. And with HDR you can see the cars better and also the sponsor's names.
The move to HDR has required a transition to HDR Sony monitoring in the control room, the video room, and engineering.
I have to thank Fox because they brought in a lot of support to help us with that transition because it isn't easy, says King. It's not the cameras but all the other video elements in the truck like SpotBox or replay or graphics or old archived footage that needs to be tone mapped.
Sublette says that IMS also upgraded their robotic cameras which they build and manage. IMS purchased 13 Sony P50A cameras and then 22 of the HDC-5500s (seven of those are high frame rate which two of the P50A have high frame rate). Also added into the mix were DreamChip Atom One cameras and then Cyan View controls those cameras and also interfaces with the Sony cameras.
We bought the Atom One cameras that have servo allowing them to do focus and iris, adds King.
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Live from the Indy 500: IMS Productions Revamped HD5 Unit, with IP and HDR, All Systems Go for Race Day By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
