MLB Network, DirecTV Blaze 4K-Production Trail with Weekly Showcase Series

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In these early, bleeding-edge days of live 4K production, only a handful of broadcasters are producing sports events live in 4K/UHD on a regular basis. BT Sport UHD kicked it off last summer with high-profile European soccer matches and was followed by Rogers Sportsnet and Bell Media's TSN in Canada, which have produced dozens of NBA, NHL, and Toronto Blue Jays home games. And now the latest addition to the live-4K sports landscape, MLB Network and DirecTV's slate of weekly MLB Network Showcase games, is off and running.

MLB Network's Susan Stone and Tom Guidice on hand for the 4K production at Yankee Stadium on May 6

Every week, we discover something new, but there are less and less surprises every week, says Susan Stone, SVP, operations and engineering, MLB Network. The thing with baseball is, it's not like you can come in the day before and set your cameras, because we're the third [broadcaster] in [after the teams' RSNs]. So, until batting practice starts, you really don't have a chance to see how everything looks. We certainly have all learned a lot in four weeks, and now we feel like we're in a groove. As technology advances, our show can be even more robust.

A False Start But Now in Full Swing

DirecTV, MLB Network, and remote-facilities provider Game Creek Video began plotting out the 4K-production model for MLB Showcase early this year. The 4K-production effort began quietly in Toronto on April 8, when MLB Network produced the Blue Jays home opener against the Red Sox as a test that was not transmitted. Days later, DirecTV officially announced that it will carry the full slate of 25 MLB Network Showcase games this season.

However, because of technical issues prior to the first game (Giants at Dodgers), on April 15, the 4K/UHD telecast was not delivered to DirecTV viewers. A 4K test production without DirecTV carriage in St. Louis for Cubs-Cardinals on April 19 was successful. On April 29, the Yankees at Red Sox game from Fenway Park became the first successful MLB Network Showcase 4K telecast on DirecTV and was followed by another Yanks-Sox 4K telecast from Yankee Stadium on May 6. The MLB Network-DirecTV 4K production returns to the Bronx on Thursday for Yankees-Royals.

Out of issues we had [during the first game] at Dodgers Stadium, it became clear that we needed to take more time to vet all facets of the production and of transmission, says John Ward, SVP, content operations, DirecTV. And that's essentially what we did in St. Louis following Dodgers Stadium. The truth is, we're learning exponentially every time we do this. This is all bleeding-edge technology right now, and it takes very, very strong attention to detail and testing. Everyone is committed to this, and we feel like we're really homed in now and have a product we can be proud of.

Inside the 4K/HD Workflow: Achieving a One-Truck Model

MLB Network's key to sustaining a repeatable, financially viable 4K-production model for baseball has been to deploy a single truck that can serve both the 4K and HD shows, rather than two trucks side-by-side. Not only would the use of two trucks for every game be pricey, but, for the third broadcaster into the compound, there simply would not be room for another mobile unit at most ballparks. In the end, Game Creek and MLBN were able to come up with a workflow that produces the entire show in 4K and then downconverts to 1080p for MLB Network's HD telecast.

The key question for MLB Network was, how can we do our normal HD show with all the bells and whistles without any compromises and also service 4K for DirecTV - all out of the same truck? says Jason Taubman, VP, design and new technology, Game Creek Video.

To serve both shows, Game Creek set up the Grass Valley Kayenne K-Frame switcher inside its Riverhawk mobile unit in dual-suite mode (the provider's B2 truck serves as the B unit). Riverhawk's existing Evertz EQX router was not at capacity, allowing Game Creek to add additional router I/O and use Evertz's new up/down/crossconverter to blend the signals. Riverhawk's existing 3G infrastructure allows the quad-split 3G-SDI streams that make up each 4K camera feed to be routed throughout the truck without any additional infrastructure.

The four 3G-SDI signals per 4K camera feed are displayed in the top-left monitor seen here on Riverhawk's monitor wall.

MLB Network is deploying 10 Sony HDC-4300 cameras licensed for 4K resolution; two HD cameras dedicated to Statcast, the league's statistics system; and a robotic booth camera upconverted to 4K. Six outputs come from each HDC-4300: four 4K 3G streams, a 1080p stream, and a utility HD path for the video room.

Since Sony HDC-4300s can be licensed only for 4K or high-speed - not both - replays are being created in 1080p in the EVS environment and upconverted to 4K. As a result, the HD/4K production has the same number of replay channels at its disposal as it would on its typical Showcase HD production.

The fly in the ointment is, we didn't have a vendor who could deliver 4K replay in a compact or affordable way. So we concluded we could do live cameras in 4K but all of the replay is upconverted to 4K, says Taubman. For the 1080p60 replay, we upconvert an entire M/E into 4K, which gets reentered into the switcher and used in 4K. So the whole show is switched in 4K, and then, at t

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