
NFL Playoffs 2022: Fox Sports Begins Postseason Push With 1080p HDR Production for NFC Wild Card Additional technologies will be introduced each round By Kristian Hern ndez, Associate Editor
Thursday, January 13, 2022 - 2:04 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
After one of the more unpredictable NFL regular seasons in recent memory, the calendar has flipped to 2022, and the remaining 14 franchises will compete to play in Super Bowl LVI on Feb. 13. Despite the surprise victories and shocking upsets seen over the past four months, Fox Sports' unrelenting commitment to technological ingenuity will most certainly continue throughout the postseason.
The best way to describe what our playoff coverage will look like is taking everything from Thursday Night Football, everything from A game on Sunday, and putting it into one package, says Kevin Callahan, VP, field operations and engineering, Fox Sports. We're working on some things behind the scenes to enhance the viewing experience.
Sunny Sunday in Tampa: Bucs-Eagles Wild-Card Matchup To Get UHD HDR Production Not wasting any time, Fox Sports will kick off its playoff slate with a full 1080p HDR production of the first NFC Wild Card Game of Sunday's doubleheader. The decision was influenced by Fox Sports' continued support of widespread 1080p HDR and 4K HDR presentations of some of sport's most high-profile games: last season's NFL Playoffs, the 2021 MLB All-Star Game in July, the 2021 MLB at Field of Dreams game in early August, the 2021 MLS All-Star Game in late August, MLB on 9/11 in September, to name a few. To accentuate the effort, the crew will be improving the camera complement normally deployed for its main NFL games and TNF, including two additional high-frame-rate cameras and a total of 12 pylon cameras with six in each end zone. The added technology will also provide views of each back line for coverage of all boundaries.
Game Creek Video's Encore (A,B, and C units), the main Thursday Night Football production unit, will be positioned outside Raymond James Stadium and drive the Wild Card production. Given its sheer size and capability of housing a large number of technologies, the crew will have additional EVS operators onsite and won't have to worry about using another truck to accommodate for the increase.
As the playoffs progress toward the NFC Championship on Sunday, Jan. 30, the broadcaster will upgrade its arsenal for enhanced angles. One Megalodon system will be deployed for the first two rounds, but the penultimate round will get a second. One rig will follow the action on the field, interactions on the sideline, and end-zone celebrations after touchdowns; the other will be responsible of capturing the energy of the venue.
That's going to be focused primarily on the atmosphere and will be up in the crowd for shots of the fans, says Callahan. We want to get [those scenes] in order to translate the game-day environment for the fans watching at home.
In addition, the Line to Gain 2.0 - a pylon camera developed with C360 and 3G Wireless - will be situated at the line of scrimmage.
Workflows in the Vault: Travel Delays Call for More Remote Operators As in the regular season, the Vault in Los Angeles will be a vital source for remote workflows used throughout the playoffs. The first game in Tampa, FL, for example, will rely on six EVS operators and one of three graphics operators located at the Vault. Although the offsite effort has been essential all season long, the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the most recent Omicron surge have impacted workflows. More specifically, nationwide travel disruptions have made the Vault an even more valuable asset.
We've had some people who couldn't get to games, notes Callahan. We'd cover them by adding positions in the Vault. We've been COVID-safe within the mobile units in terms of social distancing, masks, and testing, and we haven't had to make significant changes. But we're always prepared to add [more health and safety restrictions] if we need to.
If flight cancellations and other forms of delay continue over the next month, the Vault will be the broadcaster's saving grace. As another logistical challenge, the nature of the playoffs generates countless permutations. Based on the NFC side of the bracket and the results of the first round, the production crew could be working in a wide variety of stadiums for the NFC Championship: the freezing temperatures of Green Bay, a cozier setting in Dallas, the warm climate of Los Angeles, in the Bay Area of San Francisco, subtropical Tampa. If the road leads to Inglewood's SoFi Stadium, it'll be a quick turnaround to get out of the compound and let NBC Sports set up its infrastructure for the final game of the NFL calendar.
It would be a very interesting scenario if it played out that way, adds Callahan. It has gotten very close a couple of times over the past 10 years.
Remaining Focused: Fox Sports To Maximize Playoff Coverage With an Eye Toward Super Bowl LVII 2021-22 can be considered an improvement over the 2020-21 campaign, but it was drastically different than from the years before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Travel issues, game postponements, and rescheduling contests to weekdays, Fox Sports overcame its share of hurdles. Despite the obstacles, a lot of positives came out of all of these productions.
It wasn't the COVID-free season that everyone was hoping for, but everyone did a fantastic job bringing these games to air, Callahan says. At the start of the season, one of the key drivers [of our broadcasts] was highlighting, hearing, and making the fans back in the stands a part of the experience. I think we really did deliver on that.
These small victories have come together to create one large-scal
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Catgut Sound Owner and Production Sound Mixer Chris Welcker, CAS, has built a career at the intersection of music and film. A former musician and composer, Welc...
07/04/2026
SDVI Corporation today announced the next generation of its Rally media supply chain management platform, introducing a redesigned orchestration engine that rep...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's leading streaming television channels, at NAB 2026 will be launching new Studio services to help content ow...
07/04/2026
Ikegami USA has chosen NAB 2026 in Las Vegas as the launch platform for new additions to its range of broadcast-quality television production equipment. These w...
07/04/2026
April 19, 2026, Las Vegas Kiloview, an innovative provider of AV-over-IP technologies, will showcase its latest broadcast IP solutions at NAB 2026, presenting...
07/04/2026
Bitmovin has announced support for Server-Guided Ad Insertion (SGAI) across its playback products using HLS interstitials, enabling more advanced ad-supported s...
07/04/2026
Synamedia is unveiling AI by Quortex at The NAB show, a just-in-time AI plugin framework that applies intelligence only when needed across video processing, dis...
07/04/2026
Cuez will showcase four additions to its cloud-based newsroom, rundown and automation platform at NAB Show 2026 (April 18 22, Las Vegas, Booth N1867):
Cuez ...
07/04/2026
CueScript to Showcase Innovations at NAB that Add Mobility Options, Ease Editing...
07/04/2026
Barix Extends Transport Options for Multi-Engine IP Encoder
Brie Clayton April 7, 2026
0 Comments
New for NAB, Barix adds SRT and RIST support to Mult...
07/04/2026
Elite Media Technologies Selects Interra Systems' BATON File-Based QC Soluti...
07/04/2026
Tightrope Media Systems to Debut Cablecast LiveBridge for Simultaneous Streaming...
07/04/2026
Cuez Brings Four New Innovations to NAB 2026: From Story-Centric Newsroom to Ope...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Designed for synchronized multi-stream playback, low-latency delivery, and real-time analytics, MATCH introduces a unified viewing experience for sports broadca...
07/04/2026
Berklee Students to Honor George Martin with Performance of Original Scores The orchestra, led by associate professor Xander Rovang, will perform several work...
07/04/2026
THE GAA CHAMPIONSHIPS ARE BACK WITH A BANG
LIVE AND FREE TO AIR ACROSS ALL RT PLATFORMS
The Sunday Game and The Sunday Game Live return on Sunday 12 April
L...
06/04/2026
Michigan legends bring a new voice to the broadcast as TNT Sports and CBS Sports...
06/04/2026
From high school sports all the way up to the major leagues, building high-quali...
06/04/2026
Quickplay, an AI company for the media and entertainment industry, has been accepted into the Advanced tier of the TwelveLabs Ecosystem Partner Program. Quickpl...
06/04/2026
Grass Valley has announced the Future Playmakers Program, a global initiative to...
06/04/2026
El l der de operaciones impulsa la producci n en estudio mientras encuentra insp...
06/04/2026
The ops leader helps lead the charge in studio for the Spanish-language broadcas...
06/04/2026
Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...
06/04/2026
The National Hockey League (NHL), in partnership with Verizon and the New Jersey Devils, today announced the opening of the NHL Innovation Lab powered by Verizo...
06/04/2026
Rock League, a new professional curling league, has announced that ESPN+ will stream its inaugural 2026 season for fans in the United States. The first Rock Lea...
06/04/2026
Advanced Systems Group has announced the appointment of Andrea (Andy) Cummis as Vice President of Systems Design and Engineering. In this role, she will lead de...
06/04/2026
Backed by Bolt Ventures, the venture brings Bryson DeChambeau, Grant Horvat, and...
06/04/2026
With this environment we can start that collaboration even earlier because we ca...
06/04/2026
Like the immortal lives of vampires, some stories never really end. That's t...
06/04/2026
As podcasting continues to evolve, growth increasingly means building beyond aud...
06/04/2026
Multiband dynamics plug-in enhanced
California-based developer FSK Audio have released a significant update for their innovative multiband dynamics processo...
06/04/2026
Share official & user-created full-rig presets
IK Multimedia's latest TONEX update makes it possible for users of the popular amp and effects modelling ...
06/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/04/2026
Dalet Showcases Dalia Agentic AI and End-to-End Media Workflows at NAB Show 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Dalet, a leading technology and...
06/04/2026
OpenDrives Shows Off Sports Expertise in Sports Business Hub located in NAB Show...
06/04/2026
Proton to Demonstrate 3D Application at NAB 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Yet further creative potential unleashed through innovation in ...
06/04/2026
Autoscript Highlights Voice-Driven Prompting and PTZ Solutions at NAB 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Experience Autoscript Voice, PTZ prom...
06/04/2026
Mediaproxy Highlights Significant Enhancements to its LogServer suite at NAB Sho...