30 TVBEurope Summer of Sports
Gearing up for the World Cup
Sony and HBS tweak live production plans for HD and 4K ahead of the greatest show on earth, writes Adrian Pennington
SONY IS PLAYING a hefty part in this summer’s World Cup to maximise its $305 million sponsorship of the sports organisation which began in 2007 and expires this year. As a production partner of host broadcaster HBS, it is responsible for delivering over 2,500 hours’ worth of live match footage over 32 days, with 64 matches across two time zones. What’s more, it will produce three matches in 4K Ultra HD, which will be broadcast live in a major test by consumers of the format’s suitability for live sports. HBS divided the work for 2014 between Technical Operations Centres (TOCs) which link all 12 venues with signals back to the IBC in Rio, and production facility areas. The TOCs are designed, tested and then assembled in Brazil by Gearhouse Broadcast with Sony responsible for the technical aspect of production and HBS taking care of editorial.
The production area at each venue consists of a large containerised kit room split
The production area at each venue consists of a large containerised kit room split into nine areas including main gallery, infotainment area and audio room
into nine areas including main gallery, infotainment area and audio room. The systems install was performed by SonoVTS in Munich to Sony’s specifi cations. Riedel is providing intercom, Lawo/ABS the audio mixing consoles and EVS the multimedia servers.
Eight mobile crews, variously supplied by Studio Berlin, CTV and AMP Visual TV, will travel between venues performing tasks like colour matching cameras so that the production crew are faced with the exact same set-up at every location.
Large scale operation The contract with Sony represents HBS’ biggest ever equipment provision. Due to the number of stadiums involved in the tournament, the quantity of multifeeds and the size of HBS’ HD production plan, the volume of equipment will be greater than at any previous FIFA World Cup, including, among
The HD camera plan will boast up to 34 positions with two new reverse-angle six metre cameras – mainly used for replays – bringing the number up from the 32 used in 2010
F55 cameras at the Maracanã, a signifi cantly smaller number than the 30-plus cameras arrayed for HD match production. Director Ben Miller will be able to draw on speciality camera feeds upconverted to 4K for helicopter aerial shots and POV action-cams such as one on the spider-rig criss-crossing the half- way line, as well as another RF camera in the tunnel. Footage will be instantly available on EVS for live turnaround but instead of recording to SR as per the Confederations Cup, it will be mastered onto Sony’s new PWS 4400 server in XAVC 600Mbps. “This creates one fi le not four making it easier to handle in an edit suite,” explains Grinyer. HBS teams building footage for FIFA Films will work from a Quantel Pablo Rio situated in the IBC. This will take the XAVC master fi le for immediate online in 4K without any need for transcoding. A number of HBS fi lm crews armed with F55s will also gather 4K footage in XAVC to feed into FIFA Films’ production of highlights packages which will be sent to point of sale retail outlets to promote Sony Ultra HD sets, and also to create a polished 4K fi lm of the fi nal.
Telling a story
others, 268 HD cameras, 72 Supermotions, 48 switchers and 816 monitors. The HD camera plan will boast up to 34 positions with two new reverse-angle 6m cameras — mainly used for replays — bringing the number up from the 32 used in 2010. There have been some changes to the 4K live plans since last summer’s test run at the Confederations Cup in Belo Horizonte, some of them concerning the Maracanã stadium, base for 4K coverage of the fi nal and two previous matches. Mark Grinyer, head of business development for 3D, 4K & Sports at Sony, commented: “The Maracanã is enormous and unlike a European stadium it is very wide and very fl at which does present a challenge around lenses which are working through with Fujinon,” he says. “When you see 85,000 fans in the stadium through the lens of an F55 though it will look amazing.”
Trucks at the ready When Telegenic’s T25 unit — out of which the Confed Cup 4K live was produced — was not available to travel to Brazil this summer, Sony opted to work with Brazilian outside broadcast and programming company Globosat (part of TV Globo Group). Telegenic technical crew, however, will be manning Globosat’s truck alongside local crew. “[Globosat] have a lot of experience in the Maracanã and were in the process of buiding a 4K truck (systems installed by Sony Brazil to a similar technical spec as T25),” says Grinyer. “We had to play truck availability against what we’d ideally like. Globosat made us a good offer around that truck and there’ll be a good mix of local knowledge and 4K expertise which should work well as both parties can learn from the other.” The camera plan for the 4K 59.94fps production includes 12
For super-slow-motions, Sony hopes to bring in a F65 camera shooting in dual speed although this is not fi nalised. “With fewer cameras than HD one of the things we are working on is to make sure the footage shows off 4K and does tell the story of the match rather than become a showreel for it,” he says. “It’s a delicate balance.” He adds, “We’re taking learnings from 3D by starting off using wider slightly lower down shots and then see where we can get to on close-ups without losing any of the central image.” There is no plan to capture 3D at the tournament while diffi culties in unravelling rights are blocking distribution to cinemas for the 4K feed (at time of writing), but this remains a possibility.
While Quad-4K SD-routed Ultra HD production is the most robust operational path for now, the industry is looking ahead to live production of video-over-IP. Grinyer himself is researching the subject for Sony. “There are broadly two models of live IP production,” he concludes. “Technologies used to bring IP feeds from cameras back to the truck remotely (Sony’s NXL-IP55 and BBC R&D-devised Stagebox fi t into that category) and then
www.tvbeurope.com June 2014
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