Dorna Sports Makes MotoGP Roar With Customized Workflows Productions include product development and testing with Audio-Technica, Grass Valley By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Monday, May 15, 2023 - 11:59 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Imagine a sport that attracts a six-figure crowd at every event, self-manages both its entire broadcast and live production all season, picks up and moves its sprawling tent thousands of miles, and does it all again in a matter of weeks - or even days.
MotoGP does just that: 20 races in 17 countries between March and November. In front of about 2.5 million fans, the two-wheeled racing scrimmage can hit 220 mph in the straightaways and an ear-splitting 109 dB on the curves.
Dorna Sports' race master-control room packs up into its own flight case.
On the 1,500-acre campus of the Circuit of the Americas (COTA), in Austin, TX last month, the track's broad curves and tight doglegs and the densely packed production compound of Dorna Sports, the Spain-based commercial-rights holder for Grand Prix motorcycle racing, suggests what it might be like if the Olympics' IBC were to deploy once every few weeks instead of every two years.
This past weekend, the Dorna show was in Le Mans for the SHARK Grand Prix de France.
Dorna has been pulling it off for three-plus decades, since acquiring the exclusive commercial and television rights of the FIM Grand Prix World Championship in 1991. Its MotoGP productions deploy more than 180 cameras and scores of microphones as host-broadcast provider, sending feeds to such distributors as BT Sport, DAZN, Sky Sports, Canal+, and Servus TV.
Dorna Sports' Sergi Sendra i Vives: For every MotoGP race, the riders have to adjust to the track. We do the same.
When Dorna acquired the rights to MotoGP in 1991, we realized there was more than one version of it: every country had its own vision of MotoGP, says Sergi Sendra i Vives, head of global technology, Dorna Sports. There was no standardization of the production that made the product unique. That would be Dorna's mission: to communicate the sport better from a production and rightsholder point of view.
In 30-plus years of fulfilling that mission, Dorna's MotoGP staff has grown from just over a dozen to more than 500 people. The production has considerable standardization at this point - of the 160-180 cameras per production, 26-28 are deployed at curves and straightaways on all courses - but, Sendra says, that evolved over time at each venue.
You need to see the bikes - MotoGP, Moto2, Moto3 - the behavior of the racing, he explains, noting that each year's fleets of bikes are prototypes, incorporating design and technical innovations their manufacturers are trying out. The first race [at each new venue] is going to be the first for the riders, too. In the second year, we learn from that - maybe there is a need to change camera positions - and the third is when the positions may be made permanent. I'd say that 70%-80% of the production is the same from place to place, but the other 20% we need to adapt to each venue. It's not like doing a football game in stadiums that are the same everywhere. That's why we had to develop our own processes. For every MotoGP race, the riders have to adjust to the track. We do the same.
Dorna Sports carries its own gear to set up the media compound- an estimated 80 tons of it - all loaded into custom flight cases. Certain cases - the modular, dual-expando production-control room, the audio-mix control room (ACR), the RF-management room - constitute their own package: unplugged, closed up, and ready to be loaded aboard a truck or an aircraft. The company contracts locally for certain services, such as the crane needed to place control units in the broadcast compound and cameras on their perches.
Besides bringing the production gear, Sendra notes, Dorna carries its own production culture. We're like the host broadcaster for the Olympics because our people do the same work no matter where the race takes place. We have to adapt for local conditions, like humidity in places like Malaysia or Indonesia, but the process is the same. It's important to bring the same people who have the knowledge and experience to every race.
Dorna Sports' Jose Pep Mendoza: We have to have a careful balance between confidentiality and access [in transmitting telemetry data]. )
The main broadcast cameras deployed around the track include Steadicams, a Jimmy Jib, airborne cams, super-slow-motion cameras, and an eight-gyroscope gyrocam. Some have an Audio-Technica BP28L mono or BP4027 stereo shotgun mic attached. Others are matched with a pair of mono shotguns placed in X-Y configuration of either 90 or 110 degrees of incidence, depending on the location, and attached to track fences to pick up Doppler-type sound effects as bikes approach and depart. Track audio is embedded in the video signal and de-embedded at the ACR.
The Dorna broadcast compound is laid out for workflow. For instance, the output from the ACR is folded into the international program feed next door. The production-monitor displays showing the feeds around the race are arranged in a circular configuration, with camera numbers running clockwise to follow the action. Everything is designed to follow the linear narrative of the race itself.
To keep up with the pace of racing annually, Dorna has developed workflows that allow a considerable amount of postproduction to be done in near real time. For instance, in 2020, Dorna replaced its local servers with Adobe's Creative Cloud SAAS, including Adobe Team Projects. To take advantage of the 1.4 PB of video content in its archives, the team created proxies for all the files by linking them directly to Premiere Pro via remote desktop.
Bike-Mounted Cams and Mics A custom assemb
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
13/05/2026
New Adobe Premiere Color Grading Mode Accelerated on NVIDIA GPUs
Joel Pennington May 13, 2026
0 Comments
New NVIDIA RTX-accelerated features streamlin...
13/05/2026
Grass Valley announced that dB Broadcast has delivered new IP-based outside broadcast (OB) trucks for Cloudbass, featuring Grass Valley LDX 100 Series cameras a...
13/05/2026
Ikegami will exhibit the latest additions to its wide range of broadcast production cameras, control units, viewfinders and monitors on stand 5D3-1 at Broadcast...
13/05/2026
FISE, working with the founding members of the XR Sports Alliance (XRSA), Accedo, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and HBS, have collaborated to develop an immersive...
13/05/2026
Canon Unveils New EOS R6 V Full-Frame EOS Camera and RF20-50mm F4 L IS USM PZ Bu...
13/05/2026
Boston Conservatory at Berklee Honors Beth Morrison and Moses Pendleton at Comme...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today announced the latest developments on Nuke Stage. A purpose-built application for end-to-end virtual production and in-...
13/05/2026
A definitive portrait of one of Ireland's most influential musicians
New TV documentary airs Monday 18 May on RT One and RT Player at 9.35pm
Watch the...
13/05/2026
Agentic AI is changing the way users get work done. Following the success of OpenClaw, the community is embracing new open source agentic frameworks. The latest...
13/05/2026
Reinforcement-learning agents - AI systems that learn by trial and error - can c...
12/05/2026
Beyond the Hype: A Strategic Post-Hoc Analysis of NAB 2026 If NAB Show 2026 had an underlying theme, it was a quiet, industry-wide pivot from the high-energy sp...
12/05/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D), a Panoptec Technologies Group company, and CT Square, led by Chandresh Shah, have announced a joint venture to distribute G&D and V...
12/05/2026
With 30 days until the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Telemundo, the exclusive Spanish-language home of the tournament in the United States, has announced th...
12/05/2026
The NHL has announced the return of Stanley Pup for its third consecutive year, a 90-minute special featuring adoptable rescue dogs competing on a miniature rin...
12/05/2026
NBCUniversal presented its 2026 Upfront to advertisers at Radio City Music Hall, detailing upcoming programming across NBC, Peacock, Bravo, and Versant properti...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced funding for the Fandom and Social Connection Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Publ...
12/05/2026
TNDV and Live Media, both divisions of Live Media Group, supported live broadcast coverage around NCAA Final Four weekend in Indianapolis, including the March M...
12/05/2026
The European Football Alliance (EFA) has announced a content distribution agreement with Fubo Sports Network, the free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel ...
12/05/2026
For the first time, Spanish-speaking fans in the U.S. will have two separate tel...
12/05/2026
CP Communications led a comprehensive spectrum management initiative on behalf of Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby week, coordinating RF assets across the ...
12/05/2026
LiveU has announced a strategic partnership with DRONERESPONDERS, a 501(c)3 non-...
12/05/2026
Open Broadcast Systems has announced that BMC TV, a specialist in IP transport of broadcast content, has selected the Open Broadcast Systems 5G Flyaway solution...
12/05/2026
NEP Europe, part of NEP Group, has announced it will deliver broadcast solutions...
12/05/2026
Grass Valley has announced continued collaboration with Ravensbourne University ...
12/05/2026
Stats Perform has announced the launch of Opta Pulse, an AI-assisted video creation and distribution platform for leagues, rights holders, and broadcasters. The...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced a collaboration with Sesame Workshop to integrate Sesame Street characters into FOX Sports' FIFA World Cup 2026 programming. Conten...
12/05/2026
To date, NHL Productions has produced 19 broadcasts with commentary in American Sign Language
NHL in ASL (American Sign Language) may be just one show, but the...
12/05/2026
Google's Brian Albert: creators, athletes, highlights, nostalgia, second-scr...
12/05/2026
A still from Past Lives by Celine Song, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | p...
12/05/2026
Spotify is where fans and artists come together, turning discovery into somethin...
12/05/2026
Features patented Marco-MMC clocking technology
Black Lion Audio's latest release combines the company's expertise in clocking with their renowned p...
12/05/2026
New Track Panel, sequencer upgrades & more
Following their recent public beta release, Reason Studios have announced the full release of Reason 14. With the...
12/05/2026
One month to go! SBS reveals expansive FIFA World Cup 2026 lineup beyond the pi...
12/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz presents its advanced solutions for power electronics testing at...
12/05/2026
aconnic AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Munich, has developed a modified fund raising p...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Tyrell Corporation, specialists in high-end live sports and entertainment broadcasts, was tasked with delivering compelling broadcast coverage of premier equest...
12/05/2026
Registration is now open for IBC2026 as the global media, entertainment and technology community prepares to converge on the RAI Amsterdam from 11 14 September ...
12/05/2026
Ross Video, a global leader in live video production technology, will present its latest innovations and integrated production workflows at BroadcastAsia 2026, ...
12/05/2026
500 selected leaders from around the world across start-ups, corporates, and venture capital. Over 50bn in assets under management among attending investors, a...
Dorna Sports Makes MotoGP Roar With Customized Workflows Productions include product development and testing with Audio-Technica, Grass Valley By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
