Aerial Camera Systems has its busiest week ever at the 2016 Open Championship which is being held at Royal Troon in Troon, Scotland this weekend. Not only has the company been a key part of a golf broadcast first, the use of a CAMCAT Colibri point-to-point cabled camera system for on-course coverage of the course's signature eighth hole, but it also developed a new railcam system specifically for this event that is being used on eight holes.
Five bunker cameras make sure viewers don't miss a swing at the eighth hole.
The showpiece hole for ACS is also the signature hole of the golf course: the par-three eight hole known for its green which is nicknamed the postage stamp for its small size. But the hole is noteworthy not only for the small size of the green but for the fact that it is surrounded by five nasty bunkers, bunkers that are the perfect place for ACS to install five bunker cameras. Two of the bunkers feature cameras that can be panned and tilted by an operator located in an OB unit in the TV compound.
But the big news on the eight hole is the installation of a CAMCAT cable camera system alongside the hole. The unique geographical layout of the short hole nestled alongside the seventh hole allowed for cable camera towers to be installed without impacting play and patrons. The result? A cable camera that can hover about 35 feet above the tee box and then move alongside the fairway and capture shots from above the green.
The CAMCAT system can follow alongside players from the tee to the green.
We've been working with CAMCAT systems for 20 years and they are very reliable and knowledgeable, says Whitlock. We've worked with them on events like Royal Ascot and the Olympics and for something like a horse race you want it to be fast and stabilized to cope with the induced role. But here we wanted something that was quiet and low profile as it needs to make no noise. But it could also be lighter weight as it doesn't need a big lens. We want to be slow, steady, smooth, and quiet.
Whitlock says getting the system in place required a few trips ahead of the event to make sure the towers were the right height and also did not interfere with the grandstands.
It's the shortest hole in Open Championship golf and it really lends itself to a tee-to-green system, says Whitlock. We don't have to go very high with the towers or far with the ropes.
The combination of camera shots from the bunker cameras and the overhead CAMCAT system gives the production team a solid one-to-punch to deliver viewers compelling coverage of dramatic bunker shots from all angles.
You're not limited by the length of a jib arm and you can follow the players as they walk down off the tee box and follow them as they walk up the green and you can cover the whole hole with one camera, says Whitlock.
The railcam on the fifth hole features a Cineflex gyrostabilized system.
The other big news for ACS at the Open are the deployment of nine railcam systems across the course. One system, located along the side of the green on the fifth hole, features a HD Cineflex V14 gyrostabilized pan-and-tilt head to capture great shots looking out across the green to the Atlantic Ocean and the Scottish coastline.
The images are quite stunning and it's quite a short track that is only about eight meters long, says Whitlock. We were worried it wouldn't be long enough but it is as you have the foreground, the bunker, the fairway, and the sea. And having just a little bit of movement makes all the difference. It's slow and subtle and the director loves it.
The eight other railcams are at the back of the tee boxes to capture compelling images from behind the players as they tee off without the need for a cameraman. On the 10th and 11th holes the railcams are fitted with SMARThead remotes and integrated with the Pro Tracer system to make it easier to ensure the Pro Tracer system is in the perfect spot to allow for tee shots to be tracked as they leave the tee box.
What Pro Tracer wants is to be on the side of the player at a bit of an angle and then the ability to move to the other side of the tee box for a lefty golfer and then be able to frame it for slap graphics to slide into the frame, says Whitlock. The railcams are subtle and unobtrusive.
Other holes that feature the railcam include the first, sixth, eighth, 13th, and 17th.
David Whitlock oversees ACS operations at the Open Championship.
Whitlock says the development of the new railcam systems shows the strong Design and Build capabilities that ACS has particularly given that they had to be developed in a pretty short timeframe in parallel with other projects.
We had to build them from scratch as the features were purely client led and we may not have another application beyond golf for the cameras, he explains. They are much more simple than the kind of railcam kit we normally come up with and we were able to get them built in a couple of months.
The rain and wind on Friday put the new cameras to the test and Whitlock says they performed great.
It was impressive and the railcams are low profile and designed to carry a Sony P1 camera and an ENG lens with the ability to hold a Protracer fixed head and move behind the player, he explains.
Earlier this week ACS was also operating a second point-to-point camera system (not a CAMCAT system) at the driving range to capture players warming up on the driving range as well as the putting range. The system had a range of 270 meters and was on air for the Golf Channel and Sky beginning on Monday. Like the CAMCAT system that was on the eighth hole the goal was to have a lightweight system that was quiet and could easily move up and down the long cable run. But early on Friday afternoon one of the four lithium batteries located inside the buggy that rides along the cable
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Aerial Camera Systems has its busiest week ever at the 2016 Open Championship which is being held at Royal Troon in Troon, Scotland this weekend. Not only has the company been a key part of a golf broadcast first, the use of a CAMCAT Colibri point-to-point cabled camera system for on-course coverage of the course's signature eighth hole, but it also developed a new railcam system specifically for this event that is being used on eight holes.
