The Tampa Bay Devil Rays has added the Sony XDCAM professional disc system to the RaysVision production unit's new SDI video control room and post-production facility at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla.
The MLB club said the optical disc technology was brought specifically on board to accomplish several functions, including feeding live video to the Ray's new 35-by-65-foot video scoreboard during games.
The XDCAM system uses Sony's blue laser-based professional disc media, which based on company testing can achieve a minimum of 1,000 write/read cycles, and up to 10,000 cycles under ideal conditions. The discs encode video as MPEG IMX files at a scaleable bit-rate from 30 to 50 Mbps, or a DVCAM file at 25 Mbps. Key features include in-camera editing, thumbnail previews via an LCD screen and high-speed content transfer to nonlinear editing systems.
"This type of optical workflow gives us the most flexibility for capturing vibrant live images for big-screen display during games," John Franzone, Rays senior director of creative services and entertainment, said. "Additionally, it is ideal for 'grab n' go' pregame production with talent around the stadium, as well as field production around the Tampa Bay area to capture our many community outreach initiatives."
Franzone said The XDCAM system allows his crews to capture high-quality game-day footage that they can go back to and easily pull content from to be used in a variety of purposes: creating highlight reels, promotional videos, ticket offers and player interviews, as well as commercials for TV broadcast.
