May 2013 www.tvbeurope.com


TVBEurope 15 News & Analysis


Jumping RF hurdles at the Grand National


Channel 4 Racing broadcast the Grand National from Aintree recently, its first time covering the iconic horseracing event — with more wireless cameras than ever before. David Fox takes a look at the challenges faced by the new team


AINTREE MEANT a lot of work for wireless camera specialists Broadcast RF. “It’s a new venue for us, so we had to start from scratch,” said Technical Project manager Nick Fuller, who looked after the RF implementation for the Grand National. Broadcast RF is the exclusive RF supplier to NEP Visions for the Channel 4 horseracing coverage, which, since the new deal was established in 2013, now includes The Grand National, The Epsom Derby and Royal Ascot — ‘Crown Jewel’ events that have been broadcast on the BBC for more than 50 years. “Generally, at race courses,


we use a fibre network [to link receive points to a central control point to feed the receiver/decoders], so we had to determine what fibre cables had to be put in as part of a permanent installation [by NEP Visions], even though we only go there, at most, twice a year, it’s a good basis for us to build a receive infrastructure on,” said Fuller. There were also some temporary cables installed. Visions also installed some fibre for its own use, such as from the Channel 4 studio to the OB compound.


“The other big challenge is


the physical size of the race course. It is more than 1km from the Grandstand to the far side, which is bigger than other race courses we regularly cover.” There are two commentary positions on the course (one on the straight just after the Grand National start line and the other on the far side), large scaffold structures ideal for positioning antennae, and linked into the permanent fibre by temporary cables. Further antennae were positioned on the roof of the Grandstand, the C4 studio roof (which was ideal for the handheld camera in the Grandstand), on the back of the stands (for the parade ring) and on the weighing room


Question time: Channel 4 Racing anchor Clare Balding interviews owner connections at Aintree


roof (for parade ring and Winner’s Enclosure). It was also able to provide


coverage of the stables, an area that hadn’t previously been covered by live links. In all, it had 26 antennae at six points, with the RF signals sent back via fibre to an array of Vislink 2134 and newer 2174 HD receivers. “Both the racecourse and the


freelancers who have worked the Grand National in previous years were quick to offer words of advice regarding issues with radio camera coverage and so- called known ‘dead spots’ at Aintree,” said Jon Harris, NEP Visions’ unit manager. “I was pleased that this wasn’t an issue for us, especially as this is the first year that C4 have covered possibly the most watched horse race,” which the racecourse claims gets a worldwide audience of 600m. Broadcast RF provided 13


wireless camera systems. These included units for the Twin Squirrel helicopter with Cineflex camera, a Camcat tracking wire cam, two tracking vehicles with gyro-stabilised cameras (one of which was a Servicevision


And they’re off: Camera tracking at the huge Aintree course, more than 1km from Grandstand to far side


Scorpio crane arm fitted with an HD Cineflex V14 for high tracking shots, the other a new tracking vehicle, which debuted at Cheltenham, with an HD Gyron 935 Plus mount), and a roving Superloupe ultra slo-mo camera. All these were supplied by Aerial Camera Systems, which also supplied a SmartHead remote head fitted with a Sony P1 Camera for shots in the weighing room, and various minicams that were used on some of the fences, including the infamous Beechers Brook. The rest of the wireless systems were on two Steadicams and five roving reporter cameras.


They hadn’t used Digital


Video Sud’s Superloupe before, but “Channel 4 loved it,” said Fuller. To ensure the EVS operators in the truck had the control they required to play back the replays, Broadcast RF created a bespoke remote control system using a combination of wireless IP technology and its own data systems. The DVS camera can shoot


at up to 2,500fps, and offers instant replay and a speed- break effect via the EVS Hypermotion controller. It has a 12-bit CMOS 1920 x 1080 sensor, and, at 500fps has high sensitivity of 2000lux at F7.


It weighs 7kg including Sony viewfinder. The Superloupe is also being used on the Champions League Final in May.


The CamCat was set up infield of the home straight, rigged parallel to the Grandstand, to track the horses over the last few jumps and past the finishing line. It ran 750m along the course and was suspended from cranes at either end, so if anything went wrong, or batteries needed to be changed, they had to go up in a cherry picker.


Although the Grand National is the big race (the UK’s biggest), they were there to cover the three days of racing (with several races each day), which gave them plenty of time to fine-tune the systems before the main event. Broadcast RF had previously


worked with Channel 4, IMG (the production company) and NEP Visions on the Cheltenham Festival and other racing events, but this year is the first of a C4’s four-year contract to broadcast Aintree – previously the BBC had broadcast the Grand National. “It was an excellent three-day meeting at Aintree, where everything worked outstandingly,” said Denise Large, IMG’s programme director, Channel 4 Racing. “Technically it was brilliant and was organised with great precision. The wireless cameras went into areas never covered by the BBC, namely the stables. The performance of the tracking cameras, helicopter [and] hand helds were a credit to Broadcast RF both at the Cheltenham Festival and Aintree.” Viewer numbers for the UK’s biggest race warranted the comprehensive coverage, with an audience of about 8.9 million, representing 61% of UK viewers at 4.15pm for the Grand National. Judging from social media networks, the audience were more than happy with the Channel 4 coverage.


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