In Broadcast - June 2019 - 55

55

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 9 - Issue 6 | June 2019

The Art of Live Production
Fujinon UA46×9.5 portable 4K zoom

Lenses For UHD Sports
Fujifilm's
Fujinon
UA46×9.5
portable 4K zoom lens is equipped
with a 46× zoom, "the world's highest
magnification broadcast portable
lens for 4K video." The firm recently
claimed the world's highest zoom ratio
of 125x with the UA125×8 covering
focal lengths from 8mm at wide angle
to 1000mm at telephoto but this is still
in development.
Until then Canon's flagship 4K
sports zoom UHD DIGISUPER 122
boasts the highest zoom ratio (122x)
as well as longest focal length, and the
widest angle on the market enabling
broadcasters to save money by having
fewer lenses in the field.
Canon is also testing an 8K camera
chain from lens and camera to
monitor. It markets an 8K lens for
Sony's UHC-8300 systems camera
and could have a solution ready for
the Tokyo Olympics in a year's time
months. Fan zones around stadia are
being lined up as one application for
8K content.
Home Run
Remote production, which also
goes by the terms 'REMI', '@home' or
'home run' is the future of live event
broadcast. The shift is evident among
vendors as they adapt their gear to
connect to IP, virtualised and cloudbased centralised workflows.
"The main problem that is still
affecting progress toward wider
scale adoption of remote production
is connectivity," says Currie. "While
improvements are being made,
there is a vicious circle of short-term
rights holding and facilities contracts
that result in lack of investment in
infrastructure. If the connectivity was
there, more investment to the 'home'
locations would be made and the
benefits of remote operation in terms
of equipment and personnel utilisation
would be realised."
Given the current prevalent remote
production models the primary
trade off over longer distances will
be bandwidth costs versus latency.

According to Grass Valley's
Hilton, for high-bandwidth
applications it makes more sense to
localise all of the equipment (except
the cameras) in the central studio.
For applications with constrained
bandwidth, having the control
interfaces in a remote location
provides an attractive alternative
model but comes with increased
latency issues experienced by the
operators.
"The further the distance between
the venue and the control room
creates a bigger challenge between
latency and bandwidth costs. In
response to this, Grass Valley's unique
DirectIP solution aims to address these
constraints," he says.
Automated Production
Automated production systems are
also driving remote production, which
in turn is driven by an overwhelming
need to wring more footage out of an
event but at less cost.
Panasonic has a couple of new
options to derive HD or UHD workflows
from the extra pixels in a 4K or an
8K image. Its Smart Studio solution
demoed at NAB has a Panasonic UE150
4K camera operating so that the 4K
resolution could be used to provide
two HD views. The UE150 might be
mounted on a Technopoint dolly built
around PTZ cameras which is also
compatible with BlackTrax real-time
tracking. The Technopoint can drive
PTZ data to a Brainstorm AR system to
provide AR graphics in the studio.
The second system from Panasonic
is its 8K ROI (Region of Interest) multicamera system released in July. Four
HD feeds can be cropped from the
single wide-angle 8K image of an AKSHB800GJ box cam, and each image
can be panned, tilted and zoomed
individually. Up to eight of these
units can be connected and operated,
in theory making a 32 x HD camera
set-up operable as one integrated
system. Feeds from the 8K ROI can
be driven by BlackTrax for automatic
tracking and fed into Panasonic's live
production switching system.
For those on the hunt for production
tools that leverage automation and

InMedia
cont'd...

artificial intelligence, there is the EVS
Motorsports is taking a lead. Formula
X-ONE unified production One owners Liberty Media has more
system
with
automated than doubled the prize money for this
camera steering and artificial year's esports world championship
intelligence.
and will include more races and live
EVS has a team writing its events on the calendar. Last year's
own neural networks to steer competition, which was fronted by
robotic cameras around a F1 teams, was watched by 5.5 million
field of play and has tested this viewers.
on football. A six-camera production
"The first two seasons of esports for
could be achieved with three robotic F1 have been so successful," F1's Head
self-steering cameras and three of Marketing, Ellie Norman, told ESPN.
manned cameras. It's not only a cost- "It will be a matter of time before we
saver but also allows for cameras to see the convergence of these worlds
be placed in space-constrained areas getting an absolute overlap. I think
where a camera person might not fit.
that's a really exciting apex that's
However, the market is a little going to come."
slower to adopt such new kit because
Upstart motosport G1, run by Israeli
broadcasters and OB companies need car manufacturer Griip, has already
to pay off investments made a few put virtual races on par with the track.
years ago.
Using simulations of some actual G1
"Traditional broadcast systems and race venues drivers are competing
equipment has a considerably longer head to head in simulator games and
life span to that of, say, IT equipment," will score points toward this year's
says Currie. "Where IT equipment is Championship. Further plans include
often replaced between
fast tracking an esports
three and five years, a
competitor into a seat
lot of legacy broadcast
in a G1 car for future
infrastructure
is
still
series.
relevant 10 years down the
Introduced
into
line, so it is a very difficult
all
electric
series
task to convince people to
Formula-E
is
an
replace working systems,
e-sports game allowing
which slows adoption.
mobile gamers to
And once again, there
race in real-time
is a lack of engineers to
against drivers on
support contemporary
the grid. Developed
systems."
with Virtually Live,
Grass Valley's LiveTouch
highlights system
'Ghost Racing' uses oneSports, Games & Coverage
track telemetry to mirror the speed,
Nearly every vendor cites esports positioning and movement of the
as the biggest growth vertical in the real action in a game environment - a
industry right now. With countless claimed world's first.
more esports arenas and studios
Key to this is an AI recognition
sure to launch in the next few month, software developed by Virtually Live
esports are likely to continue to be the that is able to identify cars (therefore
industry's biggest bull market.
drivers) in real-time around the track.
Grass Valley, for example, partnered Host broadcast producer Aurora Media
with esports-production company is using the same technology to display
FACEIT at NAB, to demo kit more graphics of car location on screen
commonly seen at premier sports in real-time. It is developing this
environments including LDX 86 series further to incorporate virtual action of
cameras, Korona production switchers incidents perhaps missed by one of its
and the LiveTouch highlights system.
cameras into the broadcast.
Intel predicts esports
revenues
are
on
track to hit US$1.6bn
annually
by
2021.
It's these impressive
numbers and the firstparty data opportunity
that is driving many
governing bodies to
explore gaming and
esports.
Formula-E has real-time race game
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