America's Cup Event Authority Boosts Host Broadcast With Real-Time Biotmetric Data, Parrot Cam ACEA enhances AC LiveLine, first introduced in 2013, and gets creative with additional data and camera positions for the 2017 race. By Karen Hogan Ketchum, Senior Editor
Friday, June 23, 2017 - 11:11 am
Print This Story
Story Highlights
The 35th America's Cup is underway in Bermuda and, once again, the America's Cup Event Authority is manning the ACTV host broadcast duties for the prestigious match race.
With a history that dates back to 1851 - predating the modern Olympic Games - the America's Cup has seen many changes over its long life; most recently, the introduction of the much faster AC72 wing-sail catamarans in 2013 (50-ft. catamarans will be used in 2017). At that 2013 race, which was contested in San Francisco, ACEA looked to reflect the changing racing style with a fresh take on the ACTV television broadcast. Thus, AC LiveLine was born.
AC LiveLine, developed by Stan Honey and Sportvision (now a division of SMT), overlays geo-positioned virtual lines and data streams onto the live helicopter feed, which enables ACEA to show the boundary of the course and where the yachts are in relation to one another.
One of the things that's always been a challenge in yacht racing is to know where the boats are on the race course who's leading, who isn't leading, says Executive Producer Denis Harvey. You don't have a field of play like a stadium, you don't know where the boundaries are because your cameras aren't in fixed positions and moving around. It's very hard to tell who's ahead and who's behind.
For the 2017 race, ACEA has added commercial ad insertion opportunities around the course, creating a virtual billboard for sponsor logos. Real-time biometric data, like competitor heart rates, will also be collected for the first time and added to the television broadcast. And external factors that affect the race, like wind speed, will continue to be monitored and shown on screen. However, Harvey is careful not to overwhelm the viewer with too much information.
The key thing for me always is how does it tell the story? says Harvey. If we use a piece of data, what is it telling the viewer to enhance their understanding? My motto is always we only add a graphic or an element if it improves the storytelling. There's no point in putting up a graphic just for graphics' sake.
ACEA will deploy two helicopters with gyro-stabilized cameras, cameras on the chase boat and on a drone, and eight cameras on both of the competing yachts: four fully agile PTZ cameras, three super wide angle POV cameras (one under the dashboard and one on either side of the hull), and - new this year a parrot cam on the shoulder of the helmsman. ACEA is able to take four video paths off each boat at once, and an additional drone boat will communicate with a nanotransmitter on the drone and relay its signal back to shore.
Unlike in San Francisco, where ACEA built an entire control room and production infrastructure inside Pier 23, the host broadcaster opted to ship an NEP mobile unit from Sweden to Bermuda. The helicopters were shipped in from Chicago.
There's very limited broadcast infrastructure in Bermuda, explains Harvey. If you're in a city like San Francisco, you can [rely] on local facilities. Here, everything had to be brought in. We're using standard broadcast facilities [for the 2017 America's Cup], but we just have to ship them to Bermuda and ship them back afterwards.
Harvey's team began work on the 35th America's Cup approximately one year after the conclusion of the 34th, and Harvey himself has been on site in Bermuda since April to prepare for the race. The team is responsible for the production and distribution of the America's Cup television broadcast. While some broadcasters, like NBC Sports and BT Sport, opt to have their own on-site presence, others have the option of taking ACEA's feed, which includes optional commentary, and playing it as is on their respective networks.
We're particularly proud of how we are able to capture [the race] and turn that into a what is now a pretty attractive television program for the viewer, says Harvey. With the graphics, with the cameras, with the audio, we've made it a really exciting and enjoyable television-watching experience for people who probably aren't sailors. Now, you can sit down and put your feet up on the couch and you can know nothing about sailing and you can watch it, understand it, and enjoy it.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
America's Cup Event Authority Boosts Host Broadcast With Real-Time Biotmetric Data, Parrot Cam ACEA enhances AC LiveLine, first introduced in 2013, and gets creative with additional data and camera positions for the 2017 race. By Karen Hogan Ketchum, Senior Editor 
