The broadcast-engineering team overcomes wind, speed, and salt water - and distance- to deliver races to sailing fans around the globeThe SailGP flotilla descended on New York Harbor this past weekend for the Mubadala New York Sail Grand Prix. It was a windy weekend - wind gusts on Saturday caused schedule and races to be altered - but it provided a great opportunity to see how the massive traveling circus that is SailGP descends on a location, gets boats, in the water, and, more important for broadcast-technology fans, makes use of a wide array of Riedel communications, camera, and switching gear to deliver images to sailing fans around the world.
The Statue of Liberty was part of the dramatic backdrop for SailGP's race in New York Harbor. We have three days of setup and one day of dismantle, says Florian Reider, programme director, maritime competition, Riedel Communications, who is with SailGP week in and week out. The very special thing which makes us completely different to most other TV production is. we have only one wire camera. All the rest are wireless.
The production itself is a global effort, with a local team working closely with the main production crew of about 120 people at Timeline production gallery and facility in London, where final production takes place. That crew comprises directors, editors, multi-language commentary teams, graphics professionals, audio mixing, shading, and even operators of the PTZ cameras.
At the core of the production are, of course, the cameras on and around the water. Audio and video feeds captured from the F50 boats (via two permanent Riedel cameras: a fixed camera and a PTZ) are sent via a quad-split (leaving space for additional cameras in the future), along with cameras on chase boats, helicopters, and a cherry picker on the shore. Each boat has a small flight case of equipment that features Riedel's Bolero Bridge Solution, which is connected over an IP link to a server on shore, allowing the F50's to talk to the chase boats as well as the rescue boats.
A small ruggedized flight case of equipment handles transmission of wireless audio and video signals from the SailGP boats. We're running 36 cameras on the F50's and the helicopters and the trace pads, says Joaquin Aparicio Staubach, senior operations officer/executive producer, Riedel. At any one time, we've about 800 Mb worth of bandwidth coming off the boats and the helicopters.
A wireless COFDM mesh network plays a key role in getting signals from the boats to the operations team on shore as each boat has its own Bolero antenna and transmission pack. All told, the Artist intercom system is handling 42 individual Riedel Bolero wireless units and seven Artist frames, with the core frame alone running nearly 980 ports. Safety communications for sailors and rescue crews are routed through the same infrastructure, which means redundancy isn't optional.
A lot of comms, especially on this, is safety-critical, says Aparicio Staubach. It's got to be bulletproof. So it's N plus one plus one.
The shore presence is connected to the team at Timeline in the UK via fiber (for the New York race, Tata handled getting those signals across the pond).
The onsite technical gear is, in effect, a plug-and-play broadcast facility in a shipping container, and, the moment it's forked off a flatbed and connected to power and internet, it's essentially live. That container of gear is connected to the onsite master-control facility (typically, a tented compound) as well as to race-team operations and race-official operations. The Bolero headsets and transmission packs have been ruggedized and water-proofed, allowing them to be used by everyone on the boats as well as by personnel on shore.
An Artist 1024 intercom system with more than 980 ports kept everyone connected via the Bolero Bridge, ensuring reliable communications between the folks racing the boats, their teams, and safety personnel.
Riedel 1200 series SmartPanels were also in use. A SmartPanel DSP (Desktop SmartPanel) was used in the commentary area, along with ARRI lighting. Virtual Smart Panels could be found on phones of key personnel.
The PTZ cameras on the SailGP boats are ruggedized to withstand challenging ocean water conditions.Among other Riedel gear deployed were MediorNet FusioNs (converting signals between baseband and IP); MediorNet MicroNs and MicroNs UHD (routing video signals); MediorNet Horizon gateways; MediorNet Horizon IP multiviewer; and MediorNet multiviewer. The SimplyLive RefBox was used by the coaches for live review during races, analysis, and post-race debriefs.
We run a pure-IP backbone, Aparicio Staubach explains. We're going into inner-city sites, we're going into harbors, so direct fiber connectivity is limited.
SimplyLive plays a big role on the shoreside of team operations. Each team has a coaches area (located next to each other) housing the SimplyLive RefBox.
This implementation was a game-changer both for team racing strategy and for sustainability of the race series and fan experiences in the hospitality suite, says Phil Stein, VP, key accounts/manager, LVP sales, Riedel Communications. It assists in the racing strategy for the teams because coaches now get a comprehensive view of everyone on the boat in a multiview screen that even includes stats and graphics of the course. This allows teams, through Artist intercom, to communicate in real time on tactical actions to take during the race and even rewind actions to correct mistakes on the fly. Strategy coaches can also make clips to review with the athletes after the races.
With respect to sustainability, adds Stein, before SimplyLive coaches would follow their race boats in power boats with 500 hp outboard motors using hundreds of gallons of fossil fuels.
Now they are on shore and
