Road Warriors 2017: The Top Remote Production Highlights of the Year

Road Warriors 2017: The Top Remote Production Highlights of the Year In this year in review, SVG takes a look at some of the biggest events on the annual sports-production calendar. By SVG Staff

Wednesday, December 27, 2017 - 10:08 am

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2017 was an eventful year for sports production, with marquee events like the College Football Playoff National Championship Game, Super Bowl, and NBA and MLB All-Star Games test-driving new technologies and production workflows and annual tournaments like NCAA's March Madness, U.S. Open golf, and US Open tennis using the best tools that sports broadcasting has to offer to spotlight the best in their respective sports. Add in the FIFA Confederations Cup in Moscow as well as the Daytona 500, Stanley Cup Final, and X Games Minneapolis - not to mention, a wide range of European sports productions - and 2017 certainly shaped up as quite the year for the live sports production. And, with the 2018 Winter Olympics and FIFA World Cup on the horizon, it's only the beginning. Here's a look at some of the highlights from the past year.

College Football Playoff National Championship Game

Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, FL

January 9

The College Football Playoff National Championship Game is the first truly big day on the sports-production calendar, and ESPN again treated the game like the crown jewel that it is, with a production stunning in both scope and scale.

Inside Game Creek Video's Spirit, home to the main game production of the CFP National Championship on ESPN

There were 111 cameras inside the stadium supporting the network's efforts in producing the main game telecast, the 13 additional MegaCast options, and three studio sets around the building. Ninety-five of those cameras were pointed at the game between Clemson and Alabama (the Tigers defeated the Crimson Tide 35-31), with nine super-slow-motion cameras and five 4K-capable cameras accompanying.

Pylon cameras were on the four corners of each end zone, and cameras were strategically placed to capture each important boundary from the sidelines to the goal lines. We've got every line covered, said Ed Placey, senior coordinating producer, ESPN, prior to the game. We just hope we have a great game where we can show it all off.

Among the camera highlights was a collection of Sony's HDC-4800's, which debuted at the 2016 NAB Show. The camera is capable of 8X super-slo-mo in 4K and 16X when shooting in HD. A few Canon DIGISUPER 95 telephoto lenses were deployed on some of the cameras at valuable positions.

Standing outside Game Creek Video's Spirit prior to kickoff, ESPN Director, Remote Operations, John LaChance struggled to find the adjectives to describe the sheer magnitude of the event. It's mammoth, he said, indicating the sprawling compound sitting in the shadows of Raymond James Stadium.

In addition, Clemson's video production team of 10 flooded various channels via an array of video-production tools in advance of the big game. - Brandon Costa

CLICK HERE for full coverage of the CFP National Championship Game.

Super Bowl LI

NRG Stadium, Houston

February 5

At Super Bowl LI, Fox Sports introduced several technical innovations that will not fade from memory any time soon. It's a showcase, a stage, noted Mike Davies, SVP, technical and field operations, Fox Sports, and, the way technology is going, it will always feature some new things.

The Fox Sports pre-game set was nestled into the corner of NRG Stadium behind the Patriots end zone.

The technical advance that had the biggest impact on the production was the use of more super-slo-mo systems and high-resolution cameras than had ever been used at a Super Bowl. Sony HDC-4300 and P43 cameras were operating in 4K mode in key locations - goal line, end line, sidelines - so that the production team could zoom in for high-resolution close-ups. And two Sony HDC-4800 cameras were on hand for super-slo-mo coverage.

Fox Sports also took pylon cameras to the next level with a simple change: the cameras were angled at 45 degrees rather than perpendicular to the lines. What we like about it is that you can see more of the field. We can potentially do a replay that goes from one camera in the pylon to the next, said Davies. And, now that the cameras are HD, it's shocking how good they are.

Game Creek Video's Encore production unit made its Super Bowl debut, and Cleatus, which is normally deployed by another network under a different name, was used for pregame coverage. Also on hand at the stadium was Game Creek's Chesapeake, which was used for the red-carpet show.

NEP, meanwhile, handled Fox production needs at Discovery Green with ND1 on hand for the full week of programming. The shows were cut in the ND1 unit and delivered to Pico, Fox's Los Angeles facility, for graphics insertion. - Ken Kerschbaumer

CLICK HERE for full coverage of Super Bowl LI.

NBA All-Star Game

Smoothie King Center, New Orleans

February 19

New Orleans hosted the NBA All-Star Weekend only three years after hosting the 2014 festivities. Typically, when a sports event returns to the same city that quickly, the production philosophy remains the same. That was not the case for Turner Sports.

NEP had a big presence in the Big Easy in support of Turner Sports.

This is a very different show than it was three years ago, said Chris Brown, senior director, technical operations, Turner Sports. The big difference is the deliverables and a compelling basketball game that uses as much technology as we can cram.

Among the biggest changes? Turner's NBA on TNT road show, a 70,000-sq.-ft. fan-activation effort that includes a set for the Inside the NBA studio show, concerts, the final of the Dew NBA 3X three-on-three tournament, interactive fan experiences, basketball clini

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2017/12/27/road-warriors-the-top-remote-pr...
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