Camera Corps Streamlines Live HDR Sports Production with...

High dynamic range (HDR) has transformed the sports fan experience, enabling broadcasters and OTT providers to deliver live events with remarkably lifelike colors. Despite the popularity of HDR, many production chains still use standard dynamic range (SDR) equipment, even for events captured in HDR. This mix of technologies can create color management complexities throughout the production process. Camera Corps, a UK-based specialty camera solutions provider, addresses these challenges for major broadcasters with its camera expertise and innovative workflows. Central to many of these solutions are tools like AJA ColorBox for color management and conversion and 12G-AMA and 12GM Mini-Converters for high-quality audio embedding and signal format conversions.

Camera Corps: A proven track record with high-profile sporting events

Camera Corps has worked on several prestigious international sporting productions, providing camera equipment rentals, camera customization services, crew, wireless and cabled connectivity products, and comprehensive on-site and remote support services. The company takes pride in delivering unique camera experiences that enhance live broadcasts; its many achievements include two of the world's biggest sporting events of 2024, among countless others.

When servicing live sports productions, the Camera Corps team deploys hundreds of cameras and must adapt each to the client's unique broadcast requirements. Ensuring seamless signal compatibility and quality across different formats and venues is also part of the job. Planning for large-scale projects typically starts two years prior to the event. This past summer, we supplied approximately 450 equipment pallets and 150 crew across multiple sporting venues in Paris, Camera Corps Technical Director Andy Sanders explained. The level of detail required to ensure that every item of equipment was seamlessly integrated into the broadcast infrastructure took an incredible number of resources, from planning logistics to crew training, building, testing, on-site delivery and deployment, and more.

Establishing a workflow for HDR and SDR conversions for landmark events

Considering all the SDR and HDR equipment involved in modern sports workflows, it is crucial for Camera Corps to convert signals between both ranges while maintaining signal integrity. Similarly, the ability to handle multiple LUTs for these conversions with low latency and high-quality processing is essential. This past summer in Paris, Sanders and his team deployed ColorBox to enable HDR conversion of high-speed cameras, which offer dual outputs for live and replay and are designed to capture slow-motion shots of dynamic sporting events, such as pole vault and high jump. The lightweight design of the cameras and AJA gear made it easy to integrate into their setups without being intrusive.

Our goal was to capture the highest possible quality images and ensure smooth transmission from the cameras to the vision mixer in the correct HDR format. We started with camera signal acquisition and used AJA 12G-AMA and 12GM Mini-Converters to convert the signals. We then tapped ColorBox for SDR and HDR LUT processing requirements and our converters to handle various other technical requirements, Sanders explained. The high-quality signal conversion that our AJA gear provided fit seamlessly into our workflow, enabling us to support specialty camera deployments across multiple event venues.

Addressing color management demands across projects

Camera Corps' use of ColorBox continues to expand, especially with increasing client demand for HDR formats. We work on a lot of projects where we have to convert SDR signals from certain small-form cameras, maintain signal integrity with 10-bit processing, and correct SMPTE 352 payload IDs. ColorBox is hugely helpful with this, ensuring format consistency and compatibility for necessary video processing downstream; it's something you won't find in other solutions, shared Sanders. With ColorBox's onboard storage library and preset management, our team can also handle multiple 3D LUTs efficiently, with exceptionally low latency and high-quality output, which is crucial for maintaining broadcast standards without technical disruptions.

ColorBox enables the Camera Corps team to pre-load multiple LUTs, so when on-site, the team can simply select the desired LUT in the ColorBox pipeline and apply it to each job, which streamlines setup. The device's RGB color correction and proc amp functionalities also support the team in color matching cameras that lack data telemetry control. Sanders concluded, ColorBox is such a versatile device. We can use it to modify the output of our existing stock of high-speed cameras that do not natively support HDR and integrate them into modern workflows without the need to write off cameras, saving money while also improving sustainability. It's been a huge asset to our work across the board.

About AJA ColorBox

AJA ColorBox is a powerful video processing device designed to perform algorithmic and LUT-based color transformations and offers advanced-level color management with AJA Color Pipeline, as well as several color transform approaches including Colorfront, ORION-CONVERT, BBC HLG LUTs, NBCU LUTs, and ACES. Featuring 12G-SDI in/out and HDMI 2.0 out and ultra-low latency, ColorBox is capable of up to 4K/UltraHD 60p 10-bit YCbCr 4:2:2 and 30p 12-bit RGB 4:4:4 output, perfect for live production, on-set production, and post-production. ColorBox's browser-based user interface makes it simple to adjust color processing settings, whether connecting directly via Ethernet or via a third-party Wi-Fi adapter.

About AJA 12G-AMA and 12GM

AJA 12G-AMA is a four-channel analog audio embedder/disembedder with support for 12G-SDI input and output, up to 4K/Ultra HD. Fib

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