NBC Sports' Tour de France Coverage Adds Augmented Reality, Live On-Bike POV Cameras The studio is traveled to every day's finish line By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor
Friday, July 19, 2019 - 10:30 am
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As the peloton treks through brutal Pyrenees stages of the Tour de France this weekend, NBC Sports Group is providing U.S. cycling fans with a deeper look at the action than ever before. The Peacock has deployed several new production tools for its coverage of the 21-day race, including an AR-based virtual-graphics and telestrator system in the studio and, for the first time, live feeds from POV cameras mounted on several competitors' bicycles.
We definitely feel like we have more tools to work with this year than ever, says NBC Sports Coordinating Producer Joel Felicio, and we have an amazing team as always. It's 60 of us that are all in this together. Once a year, we gather together, and you get to see all your friends again. It's a long journey, but everybody absolutely loves to be here, which is great because this is one of those events where you cannot survive without everyone being positive.
On-board 4G cameras are fitted on up to eight bicycles per day transmitting live feeds for Tour de France coverage.
By the end of the final stage on July 28, NBC Sports will have presented more than 350 hours of live, primetime, and encore coverage of the 106th Tour de France, across NBC, NBCSN, and the NBC Sports Gold app. Although most of NBC's actual race coverage will be derived from the world feed produced by France T l visions and Euromedia, NBC will once again travel its studio show and commentators daily to the finish line of all 21 stages.
We're at the finish line every day, notes Felicio. That means we do a full set and strike every single day. We finish our show around 7:30 or 8:00, and our caravan of trucks pack up and drive to the next finish location overnight. Then, we do it all over again the next day.
Studio Operation Gets Virtual With New AR System
NBC Sports' studio production has a new tech toy in its arsenal this year: an augmented-reality graphics and telestrator system developed by Israel-based Morpheus, which produces virtual cyclist graphics. NBC commentators can virtually move and analyze up to 15 cyclists within a hologram-like 3D space in NBC's mobile studio set.
NBC's coverage features 3D animated maps that track in real time where the riders are on the route.
While AR tools like this are often used in a fixed-studio environment, NBC and Morpheus must deal with the added challenge of moving and recalibrating the highly complex system on a daily basis.
That's the ambitious challenge that we're facing here with this technology; I don't think it's ever been done before in this sort of mobile environment, says Felicio. [The system] is obviously more suited for a [fixed] studio, where you can set it and forget it and don't have to move it. But, in our case, we are moving our studio to a different location every day. We have someone dedicated to making sure everything is set up correctly each day, because the studio desk has to be put back and rebuilt in the exact same [configuration] every day in order to calibrate the system.
The AR system also has the ability to virtually represent elevations and wind currents, allowing NBC analysts to visually explain the concept of a pace line and how drafting can impact the race.
It's going to make it easier to explain some pretty advanced [cycling] concepts to people in a visual way, says Felicio. Once we start really playing with this tool, I think there is going to be an infinite amount of great things we can do with it.
NBC's coverage also features 3D animated maps that track where the riders are in real time on the route.
Live On-Board Cameras Take Viewers Inside the Peloton
For the first time, NBC Sports is integrating live feeds from cameras mounted on several competitors' bicycles. 4G cameras on up to eight bicycles per day transmit live to the world-feed control room (based on the strength of the signal). The cameras can be mounted under the rider's saddle and on under the front handlebar.
As always, Tour de France coverage relies heavily on RF cameras.
This is something that we've been talking to the ASO about for years now, and we're excited to finally be able to make it happen, says Felicio. We've had cameras on the bikes for years recording footage, but this year will be the first time we can put it up live. You get a lot more sense of how closely packed in they are and riding elbow to elbow.
As always, Tour de France coverage relies heavily on RF cameras (provided by Euromedia), with two helicopters covering the race and five motorcycles covering the action. One helicopter carries a gyro-stabilized camera system with a telephoto lens for taking close-ups; the other is outfitted with a wide-angle lens for capturing the sweeping landscapes and the peloton. Two airplanes relay the footage via RF to the world-feed control room.
In addition, two fixed cameras are located at the starting line (five in the case of race-against-the-clock time trials, five others at an intermediary point), and 10-12 cameras are at the finish line each day.
NBC Sports cycling analyst Christian Vande Velde rode several key stages of the Tour in advance, wearing special raptor sunglasses (the same technology used by U.S. fighter pilots in the visors of their helmets) to preview critical points on the course. On several of the previews, onscreen telemetry shows his speed, power, and cadence.
Plenty of Personalities on the Set, Throughout the Course
NBC's Tour de France production operates out of four trucks in the technical compound near the finish line: two production trucks, one sat
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NBC Sports' Tour de France Coverage Adds Augmented Reality, Live On-Bike POV Cameras The studio is traveled to every day's finish line By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor 
