Keeping Pace with the Race

How IMS Productions and FOX Sports scaled coverage of the 109th Indianapolis 500.

The last lap of this year's Indianapolis 500 delivered the kind of ending broadcasters pray for and viewers remember for a lifetime. A dramatic final straightaway pass settled the closest race finish ever, record-breaking 0.0233 seconds and most competitive races in recent memory, capping another exhilarating month of May at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

For IMS Productions and FOX Sports, the race also represented one of the largest and most technically demanding productions of the year, with more than 100 cameras, 32 onboard feeds, extensive replay resources and an expanding graphics package feeding into the live programme.

The race itself is one of the marquee events in motorsport and enjoys an iconic status in America. It is a spectacular event, says Jason King, Director of Engineering for IMS Productions. There's a lot of history and storytelling that goes behind it. It's still, in large part, capturing the spirit of Memorial Day weekend. I can't usually express to people how intense it is to hear 350,000 people when that Taps horn is playing through the facility and echoing across the grounds.

The speedway's grounds sit at a vast 559 acres, with the action taking place on a 2.5-mile rectangular oval racetrack featuring shallow banked turns and massive straights. This year, we were just tipping just over 100 cameras for the show, explains King. Then you have all the replay channels and all of the onboards. We had 16 onboard cameras with dual paths simultaneously pulling two video signals. That gives us 32 feeds before you even start looking at clean and dirty versions.

Managing all of those cameras and feeds, plus replay systems, graphics, telemetry and dozens of race-specific feeds is an expansive team operation; and a successful one, which King apportions to the burgeoning relationship between IMS and Fox Sports.

The last two years with FOX being our partner, it really has felt different than any other network relationship I've ever had, he says. You can see their passion in what we're doing.

LINK:	https://www.grassvalley.com/keeping-pace-with-the-race/...
	See more stories from grassvalley

North America Stories