Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

FA Cup Final 2019: BBC Sport To Use Single Production Workflow for Both SDR Broadcast, UHD HDR Stream

18/05/2019

FA Cup Final 2019: BBC Sport to use single production workflow for both SDR broadcast and UHD HDR stream By Will Strauss, Editor

Friday, May 17, 2019 - 09:43

Print This Story

This weekend's FA Cup Final at Wembley between Manchester City and Watford is going to be a one-sided affair, if the bookies are to be believed. And if they're right (Watford are currently 14/1 to lift the trophy), the result of the match won't be the only thing that can only go one way on Saturday.

BBC Sport's coverage of the showpiece final will, for the first time, be produced for both HD standard dynamic range (SDR) broadcast on BBC1 and in UHD with high dynamic range (HDR) as a BBC iPlayer trial using a single production workflow.

Until recently, all of the BBC's live UHD trials including Wimbledon 2018 and the 2018 World Cup in Russia have required a separate, experimental production process that has seen a UHD with HDR production run parallel to the HD with SDR production.

But for the Cup Final, the UHD coverage with HDR will be the master feed from which both the BBC's UHD online test stream and its HD broadcast will be derived. A UHD SDR feed will also be provided for BT Sport.

Devising this single workflow and testing it has been led by BBC R&D working closely with OB firm Arena Television.

Part of what we are trying to do is make this an effective business as usual' process within the BBC for distribution and for production. And having a dual workflow is not sustainable.

Andrew Cotton (pictured below, second right), a principal technologist within BBC R&D's Broadcast & Connected Systems section, believes that HDR to SDR conversion has improved sufficiently well in the last year to allow the BBC to confidently make the programme in UHD-HDR and still provide a great SDR signal to feed the main BBC1 transmission chain.

This will make a huge difference, he says, making it both cheaper and less complicated.

We've got to protect the HD SDR viewers because there are the most eyeballs in front of those screens, he told SVG Europe on the eve of the Cup Final.

High Dynamic Range discussion: (L/R) Will Strauss, SVG Europe; Shane Warden, ATP Media; Andrew Cotton, BBC R&D; and Andy Beale, BT Sport

But clearly we want to deliver a great UHD HDR experience for those watching that signal as well. Most UHD cameras have both an HDR and an SDR output and those two outputs have been effectively been passed through parallel production workflows. It has worked but it's an extremely complicated and costly workflow because you need twice as much equipment and timing up the different signals is more complicated. It's a complete nightmare.

For this to take off at scale we need to have a single production workflow and we need to be able to generate an HD-SDR output from a primary UHD-HDR signal. We now feel that we've reached that stage.

Phil Layton, the head of broadcast and connected systems at BBC R&D, is of the opinion that the previously used dual workflow was not sustainable.

Unless we can simplify the UHD production workflow, then it is very difficult for us to justify these trials, he says.

Part of what we are trying to do is make this an effective business as usual' process within the BBC for distribution and for production. And having a dual workflow is not sustainable. We were having to fund both productions through different means.

Royal approval

Down-conversion work completed for coverage of the Royal Wedding in 2018, which saw UHD-HDR signals down-converted to UHD-SDR for the benefit of Sky News, helped to inform the workflow and proved that the single workflow would be possible, acknowledges Cotton.

For the Cup Final, most of the cameras will be Grass Valley LDX-86Ns running in HDR mode with additional LDX-C86N compact HDR cameras on Steadicam rigs and one housed in a Shotover F1 gyro stabilised system on a helicopter.

HDR up-mapping for non-HDR sources and mixer feed down-mapping will be handled by Grass Valley UHD-3901 processing cards and AJA FS4-HDR units. Phabrix QXs will be used to monitor and analyse the signals.

All of the equipment will be housed in two of Arena's IP-based OB units - one dedicated to creating the match feed, the other being utilised for the BBC's domestic output.

More efficient and elegant: Daf Rees in the audio area of Arena's new OBZ

Daf Rees, Arena Television's deputy director of operations (pictured, right), reveals that this single HDR to SDR production workflow has been in the works for a while.

Our minds have been focused on developing and delivering a single HDR/SDR workflow since late 2015, alongside the development work for our IP OB fleet, he says.

In the same way as we saw quad SDI as an unsatisfactory way of delivering UHD, we recognised that a parallel HDR/SDR workflow was a similarly unsatisfactory, and in many cases, unrealistic way of delivering an HDR master with SDR deliverables.

His company started testing different options back in 2016, initially with single cameras across sport and entertainment events, evaluating HDR camera and monitor performance.

Step by step we introduced various up-map and down-map processes to evaluate their effect on the picture in the real world. It's been vitally important to us to create a format-agnostic platform for our clients so developed a very good rapport with R&D teams at several key vendors to improve the results iteration by iteration.

Mixing camera formats

Being format agnostic is a crucial part of this workflow, as Cotton explains.

For football coverage, it is simply not possible today [to have everything in one format] because we rely on a number of specialist cameras that can only operate in SDR BT.709 such as the super slo-mo camera, the roving cameras and the cameras behind the goals. We need to
LINK: https://www.svgeurope.org/blog/headlines/fa-cup-final-2019-bbc-sport-t...
See more stories from svg

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

04/07/2026

Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in Dolby Cinemas Across Japan, Presented in Dolby Atmos and Dolby ...

April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...

02/06/2026

Case Study: Tennis Channel Transitions From Satellite to IP Distribution With LTN

Tennis Channel has completed a transition from satellite-based distribution to a...

02/06/2026

Daktronics Announces 2026 High School Video Summit for June 23-24

Daktronics has announced the 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day educational event for high school educators and student production teams, taking place Jun...

02/06/2026

Fandango to Screen Telemundos FIFA World Cup 2026 Coverage at 160 Theaters Nationwide

Fandango will bring Telemundo's live Spanish-language coverage of the FIFA W...

02/06/2026

AWSN Announces Broadcast Schedule for Inaugural Professional Softball League Season

All Women's Sports Network (AWSN) has announced the live television schedule...

02/06/2026

Spalk Announces Partnerships with Ligue 1, Euroleague, and LNB

Spalk, a cloud-based multilingual commentary and production platform, has announced three new partnerships: Ligue 1 (English and Portuguese highlights), Eurolea...

02/06/2026

NHL Network Announces Stanley Cup Final Programming Schedule

NHL Network's 2026 Stanley Cup Final coverage began June 1 with NHL Tonight: Stanley Cup Final Media Day from the Carolina Hurricanes' Lenovo Center at ...

02/06/2026

Matrox Video Launches Maevex MGX Series IPMX-Ready AV-over-IP Encoders and Decoders

Matrox Video has announced the Maevex MGX Series, a lineup of IPMX-ready video e...

02/06/2026

Marshall Electronics to Exhibit IP Camera Lineup at InfoComm 2026

Marshall Electronics will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7521), showcasing a lineup of 4K and HD compact POV cameras for corporate, education, hospitality, wo...

02/06/2026

PAMA and Shure Extend Deadline for Mark Brunner Professional Audio Scholarship to June 15

The Professional Audio Manufacturers Alliance (PAMA) and Shure Incorporated have...

02/06/2026

MultiDyne To Debut FiberSaver-10G and New VersaBrix Frame Options at InfoComm 2026

MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C50...

02/06/2026

Advanced Systems Group Promotes Joe Marchitto to Western Regional CTO

Advanced Systems Group (ASG) has announced the promotion of Joe Marchitto to Western Regional CTO. In his new role, Marchitto will oversee system design across ...

02/06/2026

Brothers Osborne To Perform Free Concert Outside Lenovo Center Before Stanley Cup Final Game 1

The NHL has announced that Brothers Osborne will headline a free outdoor concert...

02/06/2026

CP Communications Names First Female Executives in Company History

CP Communications has announced the appointment of its first two female executives in the company's 40-year history. Tabitha Coleman has been named Vice Pre...

02/06/2026

Lighting Design Group Designs Broadcast Studio for Yahoo at 770 Broadway

The Lighting Design Group (LDG) has announced the completion of Studio C at Yahoo's headquarters at 770 Broadway in Manhattan. The studio launched April 24 ...

02/06/2026

Zee Entertainment Acquires FIFA Media Rights for India Through 2034

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. (Z) has announced a partnership with FIFA to broadcast FIFA World Cup 2026, FIFA World Cup 2030, FIFA Women's World Cup 2...

02/06/2026

Behind The Mic: Prime Sports UK Shares On Air Roster for NBA Finals; and More

Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, including new deals, departures, and assignments compiled from press releases and repo...

02/06/2026

Auburn Universitys Parker Leppien on the Nonstop Growth of War Eagle Productions

The department is broadcasting NCAA Baseball Super Regionals at Plainsman Park this weekend Broadcast and production crews at Division I institutions are busy ...

02/06/2026

With Stanley Cup Final Set To Begin, NHL and Honeywell Lay Foundation for Energy-Efficient Venues

The initiative is extends beyond the league's arenas to team training rinks,...

02/06/2026

Release Rundown: What to Watch in June, From Leviticus to The Invite

Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogen, Pen lope Cruz, and Edward Norton appear in The Invite by Olivia Wilde, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. (Co...

02/06/2026

Scaler Music launch Carbon Electra 2

Musically intelligent soft synth gets upgraded Scaler Music will be probably be best known to many for their music theory tools, but their product range al...

02/06/2026

Klevgrand introduce Altitude

Powerful new vocal-production tool announced Described as a vocal performance station , Klevgrand's latest plug-in combines pitch-correction with harmo...

02/06/2026

McDSP introduce DC-2 Dual Compressor for APB

Launched alongside Go Green sale extension McDSP have just released the latest addition to their APB line-up, DC-2 Dual Compressor, and have also announced ...

02/06/2026

Ableton announce Extensions SDK

Create custom tools for Ableton Live 12 Suite Ableton have just introduced a new open JavaScript toolkit that allows anyone to create their own custom tools...

02/06/2026

Eventide unveil the H9 Harmonizer Gen 2

Now features full H90 algorithm library Eventide have announced the upcoming launch of the H9 Harmonizer Gen 2, a new and improved version of their hugely p...

02/06/2026

Universal Audio release UAD Topline Vocal Tune

Plus UAD Half Yearly Sale now live The latest arrival to the Universal Audio range delivers a new native pitch-correction plug-in that's capable of deli...

02/06/2026

BTL Laboratory becomes Taiwan's first test house with a CTIA Certification compliant OTA test system by Rohde & Schwarz

BTL Laboratory becomes Taiwan's first test house with a CTIA Certification c...

02/06/2026

Cobalt Digital to Showcase End-to-End IPMX Ecosystem at InfoComm 2026, Making ST 2110 Easy for Pro AV

blueCORE standalone processors headline solutions designed to simplify the trans...

02/06/2026

Monetizing the Archive: How Cantemo's JIT Playback Eliminates the Proxy Bottleneck

If you've kept up with this article series, you know by now where to start w...

02/06/2026

Calrec Scales ImPulseV for Greater Choice in Virtualised Workflows

With new DSP configurations and flexible licensing options, Calrec is removing the barriers to virtualised audio, giving broadcasters the freedom to scale produ...

02/06/2026

Marketing Architects Expands Relationship With Nielsen To Include Integration of Media Data Engine on a National Level

The TV agency was one of the earliest adopters of Nielsen's local television...

02/06/2026

Riedel Networks Taps Gudrun Scharler as CEO

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/06/2026

Grass Valley Enables Sky News Australia s Cloud-First New...

Grass Valley today announced that Australian News Channel (ANC), operator of Sky News Australia, has deployed Grass Valley AMPP to transform its newsroom produc...

02/06/2026

STUDIO TECHNOLOGIES INTRODUCES NEW MODEL 385 MIC INTERCOM...

Studio Technologies, a leading manufacturer of high-quality audio, video, and fiber-optic solutions, announces its new Model 385 Mic/Intercom Beltpack. The Mode...

02/06/2026

Gudrun Scharler Appointed CEO of Riedel Networks

The Riedel Group today announced the appointment of Gudrun Scharler as CEO of Riedel Networks. She succeeds Michael Martens, who has led Riedel Networks since 2...

02/06/2026

Magewell Levels-Up All-in-One Content Production with Lau...

More signals, higher quality, and outstanding ingest and streaming flexibility deliver professional results in a small, all-in-one footprint...

02/06/2026

Modena Showcases farmerswife at Mediatech 2026

farmerswife will be featured on the Modena Media & Entertainment stand at this year's Mediatech Africa 2026, giving visitors an opportunity to explore the l...

02/06/2026

PTZOptics showcases intelligent video ecosystem at InfoCo...

PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17 19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...

02/06/2026

Roku Launches the Roku Soccer Zone

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/06/2026

FCC Sets Deadlines for Comments in ABC License Renewals

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/06/2026

Studio Technologies Introduces Model 385 Beltpack

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/06/2026

Gerald Jerry Pierce, Architect of Modern Digital Cinema, Dies at 73

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/06/2026

VEON Closes USD 1.4 Billion Bond Offering, Refinancing 2027 Notes Ahead of Schedule

02 Jun 2026 VEON Closes USD 1.4 Billion Bond Offering, Refinancing 2027 Notes A...

02/06/2026

The Marlow Murder Club returns for a fourth series on U

Praise for series three: The Times - sun-dappled pleasure The Daily Mail - The Homes Counties' Charlie's Angels The Sun - 4* this [is an] enjoya...

02/06/2026

Gudrun Scharler Appointed CEO of Riedel Networks

Wuppertal June 2, 2026 Gudrun Scharler Appointed CEO of Riedel Networks The Riedel Group today announced the appointment of Gudrun Scharler as CEO of Riedel N...

02/06/2026

Discover Your Next Book-to-Screen Obsession With Our New Dedicated Hub

Back to All News Discover Your Next Book-to-Screen Obsession With Our New Dedicated Hub Product 02 June 2026 Global Link copied to clipboard Dear most vor...

02/06/2026

New LinkedIn Data: 90% of C-Suite Leaders are Continuously ...

New LinkedIn Data: 90% of C-Suite Leaders are Continuously Building Skills to Lead in the AI Era Published on Jun 2, 2026 Categories: Data and insights Lin...