Live From the Indy 500: For IMS Productions and HD-5 Truck Revamped With IP and HDR, It's All Systems Are Go New Indy 500 rightsholder FOX helped the transition to IP, HDR 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, although covering the race is old hat for IMS Productions, having FOX Sports on board as a new rightsholder 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 when Indy 500 coverage makes the leap to HDR, AR graphics, IP, and much more.
IMS Productions' Kevin Sublette (left) and Jason King are ready for a next-level Indy 500 production.
The FOX team that is here has been working on NASCAR, says Sublette, and now they're coming out to see Indy Car with the speed and the sexiness. When they see 350,000 people on Sunday, they'll see how amazing it is. FOX Sports CEO/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 figure out how to do what [FOX] wants to do.
Sublette is especially excited to see FOX Sports Director Mitch Riggin, who also is from Indiana, direct his first Indy 500. Riggin has a wealth of toys to play with, including more than 110 signals from cameras ranging from drones to handhelds, hard cameras, and specialty and in-car cameras.
FOX has definitely pushed us with things like drones, adds Sublette. That has been good for IMS and Indy Car. The pointers they've added are huge, as is the Driver's Eye cameras [on six driver's helmets]. Shanks also wanted to change the audio coming off the car; we've never had a broadcaster ask us to do that. Now we have microphones on each side of the cars, and it has made a huge difference. And the FOX graphics have been incredible as well.
Producing the Indy 500 and the entire Indy Race Series has been a multi-prong effort that began with the decision to upgrade IMS Productions HD5 truck from baseband to IP and from SDR to HDR.
Our trucks were 13 years old, Sublette explains, noting that, although the technology was still working and manufacturers were supporting the older technology, it was time to upgrade. When we first found out about FOX getting the rights, we went back and forth with [Penske Chairman] Roger Penske and were finally approved to upgrade our mobile unit. Our guys went to work with Paul Nijak, managing partner/GM, 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 multiviewers. The router features spine-leaf design and a Cisco 9408 chassis with 400-G 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/E (on most races, 1.5 M/E are split off to handle the track video show but, this week, 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 the first U.S. broadcast truck to install Imagine, says Jason King, senior director, engineering, IMS Productions. Imagine has been spectacular from the start. They have listened to us when we talk about our needs from a live-show perspective and are making changes. They have been a fantastic company to work with.
The Indy 500 TV compound features production units from IMS, NEP Specialty Cameras, and Game Creek Video.
The move to IP gives the truck a lot more firepower without having to expand the footprint or weight, he says. We've almost doubled the amount of routing that we're doing, and IP gives the bandwidth and flexibility we need. 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 to the improved resolution was very positive both internally and externally. To go HDR, says King, we bought new Sony HDC-5500 cameras. Even in SDR, they look amazing, but, when we flip the switch to HDR, the quality of the video has been through the roof. 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.
IMS also upgraded its robotic cameras, Sublette says, which it builds and manages. The company purchased 13 Sony P50A cameras and 22 of the HDC-5500's (seven of those are high frame rate; two of the P50A's have high frame rate). Also added into the mix were DreamChip Atom One cameras; Cyan View controls those cameras and also interfaces with the Sony cameras.
Says King, We bought the Atom One cameras that have servo, allowing them to do focus and iris.
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