NEW ORLEANS—Each broadcast network responsible for the production personnel, technologies and distribution deployed to present the Super Bowl takes the opportunity to tell the game’s story in its own unique way.

Job one for this year’s steward, Fox Sports, is to bring its personalities, such as former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady, to the table with the best tools available to tell that story, Fox Sports Executive Vice President of Technical and Field Operations Michael Davies said.

(Kickoff coverage of the Feb. 9 Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles begins at 6:30 p.m. EST. Fox Sports’ pregame starts at 1 p.m. EST. The game will air on Fox Television Stations and affiliates, as well as Fox Deportes and Telemundo. Streamers can watch the game via Tubi or FuboTV, with a free trial.)

Brady, who will be calling his first Super Bowl as an analyst, will have at his disposal an elaborate high SkyCam setup based on the new Sony HDC-P50A, a 4K box camera running at 240 frames per second. Equipped with both optical and digital zooms, the camera becomes what Davies describes as “a variety of cameras all in one.”

“One is an aerial All 22 [referring to a camera that captures all offensive and defensive players in the same shot],” Davies said. “You’ll see Tom [Brady] Telestrate on this thing all of the time because it’s what analysts want to see. They want to see everything in terms of how the plays are unfolding so they can explain what’s happening from an X’s and O’s point of view.”

“High SkyCams have been done for years,” Davies said. “Frankly, I don’t really know if we even knew why we were using them. But the one thing that the high SkyCam did was it sometimes really got in the way of how we use the low SkyCam.”

To avoid that, Fox Sports will position its high SkyCam between 55 feet and 90 feet above the field and its low SkyCam, a Sony HDC-P50, 12 feet to 35 feet off the surface. Equipped with both optical and high-resolution digital zoom, the high SkyCam can be zoomed into areas of interest and prevent “everything from looking like ants,” he said.

“Putting that [zoom capability] on the high SkyCam has been immeasurably valuable, and we tested this all the way back in the pre-season in Santa Clara with a prototype from Sony,” said Davies, adding the broadcaster brought it back for the end of the season.

Fox Sports will complement the SkyCam setup with the Sony Hawk-Eye system to do zoom-cropping. Hawk-Eye will give the Fox Sports analysts the visuals needed to discuss and explain what’s happened on the field, he added.

Camera Totals and More
Fox Sports will cover the pregame and game with 149 cameras, including 27 super slow-motion cameras, 24 robotic cameras, 23 high-resolution cameras, 12 wireless cameras and others. But that number can be a bit misleading, Davies said.

“When you get to these crazy camera totals, there are some cameras that just won’t get a tally. It just won’t happen,” he said. “They’re there just in case. Just in case that specific play—that specific little occurrence like whether the ball hit the ground or a toe crossed the line—happens.”

Fox Sports will produce the game in 1080p high dynamic range (HDR) and broadcast it in 4K HDR. Several Fox Sports distributors such as Charter Communications’ Spectrum, Comcast’s Xfinity TV, Sling TV, Verizon FiOS, YouTube TV and others, will carry the entire broadcast, including pregame, halftime and postgame, in 4K.

As with other live events, Fox Sports will produce in HDR using Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG). “That’s basically what’s available now,” Davies said. “Somewhere downstream there is a conversion to PQ [Perceptual Quantizer].”

Dolby and Comcast issued a joint press release earlier this week saying that Xfinity TV customers and Xfinity Stream App users will be able to watch in both Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio as part of Comcast’s new Enhanced 4K offering on X1.

Regardless of what happens downstream, Davies said the important thing HDR production must account for is that most viewers continue to watch in standard dynamic range. “It’s a matter of being able to shade in HDR but also make sure the SDR is preserved,” he said.

Fox Sports is also working with panamorphic cameras from COSM, a company specializing in immersive fan viewing experiences at its Dallas and Los Angeles venues. (COSM Los Angeles will present the Super Bowl.)

“What we do with these cameras is region of interest,” he said. Two COSM cameras will be placed on carts for shots of the sidelines and benches—a great application for the specialty cameras.

“Increasingly there are things you might want to see on the benches, but you don’t have dedicated cameras, because the cameras are all interested in what’s happening on the field,” he said.

Fox Sports will de-warp the fish-eye lens effect from the COSM cameras and pan around the video to find 16x9 areas of interest for air.

COSM cameras will also be used in all of the pylons that mark off the corners of both end zones. While the resolution of those cameras is not quite high enough for use at the COSM dome venues, the 60 fps cameras have the ability to interpolate frames to make replays smooth enough to be used, he said

“It’s really bleeding-edge stuff that we’re doing with these COSM cameras,” he said. “But the result is there’s not one square inch of the field that isn’t covered with a camera—not only that but covered well.”

Augmented Reality Graphics and Drones
For the Super Bowl, Fox Sports will use a newly developed solution for Augmented Reality graphics.

Combining a LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) system from Kudan, SkyTrax graphics tracking and some Fox Sports-developed software, the solution solves a problem that has plagued AR graphics that are smaller than full screen, Davies said.

“The LIDAR informs a system that is engaged with the [low] SkyCam telemetry system,” said Davies, adding that doing so increases the accuracy of positioning data—a crucial element to rock-solid augmented graphics.

“The problems in the past with reduced tracking accuracy gave rise to the possibility of shaking or mistracking,“ he said. ”The illusion of having a three-dimensional graphic on the field was completely broken when it starts not tracking accurately with the camera.”

As a result, the only safe use of augmented reality graphics was to go full-screen. “What this translates into is more confidence in being able to pop these graphics on and getting away from the full-screen graphics that take viewers out of the game,“ Davies said. “This allows us to put three-dimensional graphics in the game so viewers never actually leave the stadium and, in that way, stay more engaged.”

The broadcaster will also deploy drones as part of its coverage of the event. Given the close proximity of landmarks like Bourbon Street and the French Quarter to the stadium, drone footage will be used to give viewers the feeling of being in New Orleans.

Fox Sports is tapping the airborne expertise of Beverly Hills Aerials as it has in the past for the Daytona 500, the World Series and its last Super Bowl, to fly the drones and ensure their operation complies with league rules and local law enforcement, he said.

Shots from the drones will be used “for everything from features to added color in support of interviews and events,” Davies said.

While broadcasters have often deployed the television production equivalent of a secret weapon to cover the Super Bowl, Davies said that approach doesn’t fit in with his orientation to covering the game.

“If you bring some esoteric thing out there and that is only used once for the Super Bowl and the production team has never had a chance to use it, it’s difficult to wedge it in,” he said. “Frankly, it’s unfair to give that to a production team and just say, ‘OK, now you’ve got this thing, and you’ve got to use it and make it part of the story.’ ”

Davies is confident that whether it’s the addition of the new LIDAR technology, the COSM cameras, the high SkyCam or any of the other tech that will go into game coverage, the production team is familiar with it and ready to make it a part of the Fox Sports telling of the Super Bowl story.

NFL broadcast teams have long utilized SkyCam to capture unique angles for replays of game action, but during an Oct. 20 game between the Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints the specialty camera was able to capture an electric 102-yard kickoff return for a touchdown by Chicago Bears’ Cordarrelle Patterson that was used live during the broadcast.

Slate.com interviewed SkyCam operator Darin Haggard, one half of the SkyCam team that captured the shot, about how they brought this unique perspective to fans.

Here is the video of the touchdown:

The full article is available here.

STAMFORD, Conn.—When the Premier Lacrosse League’s inaugural season kicks off on June 1, NBC Sports will bring the sport to audiences with a number of new production features aimed at showcasing the game and its athletes.

One of the elements that will be highlighted is player communication. This will be done with player-to-commentator communication, which will have two players on the field able to communicate with the NBC Sports PLL broadcast team throughout the game to provide an inside perspective of the action. This will be done with Gubser & Schnakenberg LLC communication applications installed in the players’ helmets.

In an effort to provide more insight into the strategy of the game, NBC Sports will feature a player from one of the six PLL players not playing in the game being broadcast to help call the game from the field. Also, various players and coaches will be mic’d up each week so fans can hear their on-field commentary.

To emphasize the speed of the game, the broadcasts will have sensors from SMT on each end of the field to track shot speed from various angles. Using SMT’s lacrosse intelligence engine, the sensors will be able to provide real-time speed tracking.

A familiar element for sports fans, but now set to be more common for the PLL, NBC Sports will feature a Skycam for multiple games throughout the season. The computer-controlled, cable-suspended camera system can be maneuvered over the field to provide different angles to home viewers.

The first game for the inaugural PLL season will take place on June 1 at 1 p.m. ET at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. NBC Sports will broadcast it exclusively on NBC Sports Gold’s Premier Lacrosse League Pass. The first televised game will be on June 2 at 1:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN.

The network will carry games throughout the summer, with three games on NBC and 16 on NBCSN. All 39 games will be available for live streaming on NBC Sports Gold’s Premier Lacrosse League Pass.

ATLANTA—For the first time in its history, CBS Sports will deploy multiple 4K and 8K cameras at the Super Bowl to provide close-ups and alternative viewing angles for NFL fans.

CBS will use a total of 115 cameras including 16 cameras with 4K capabilities as well as nine Sony 4800 camera systems strategically placed around the stadium. The cameras will provide additional live game camera angles, and give the production the ability to replay key moments of the game in a super slo-motion and an HD cut-out with zoomed-in perspectives with minimal resolution loss.

This is not the first time 4K has been used in the Super Bowl; NBC deployed a number of 4K cameras for its coverage of Super Bowl LII in 2018. 

[Read: Falcons Debut ‘Halo Board’]

For the first time in a live network broadcast, multiple 8K cameras will be deployed in the endzone to cover the game (in what the network calls a “highly-constructed engineering solution”).

To provide virtual coverage, CBS will use a live, wireless handheld camera showing augmented reality graphics and up-close camera tracking on the field. This will allow the camera to get closer to these virtual graphics in a way that gives viewers different perspectives and angles including “never–before-seen” field level views of these graphics.

CBS will utilize four cameras (including the SkyCam) with live augmented reality graphics, plus an additional 10 cameras with trackable first-down-line technology. In all, 14 cameras creating virtual graphic elements that are completely manufactured will seamlessly blend in to the real environment of the broadcast.

Over 25 cameras will flank each endzone including HD cameras with super slo-motion capabilities, six 4K cameras, three goal post super slo-motion cameras shooting the backlines and 14 cameras embedded in pylons per each side of the field. A total of 28 pylon cameras will be a part of the 50-plus camera feeds from the endzones.

Super Bowl LIII will take place Feb. 3 at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta. 

NEW ORLEANS—New Orleans Saints and Carolina Panther receivers and quarterbacks weren’t the only ones concerned about what was in and out of bounds Sunday (Jan. 7) in New Orleans during the NFC Wildcard game.

Fox Sports, which telecast the game, walked a different sort of line with its playoff coverage—one that delineates between delivering the great shots needed to present game action and some new tech implementation that actually gets in the way of coverage.

“We don’t want to make things all that different for the production team and give them a whole bunch of stuff that they haven’t had before for the big games,” says Mike Davies, SVP of Field and Technical Operations at Fox Sports. Rather, the strategy is to start with a “base layer” of production technology used throughout the 17 weeks of the regular season and then deploy choice pieces of technology that will have the biggest impact on game production and allow Fox Sports to tell the best story, he says.

“A lot of this stuff we’ve used before and some just this year,” says Davies. “We just pick the best of the best to represent us.”

For example, for the three NFL playoff games Fox Sports is covering the broadcaster will add a second, higher SkyCam to deliver a drone’s-eye view of plays that captures all 22 players on the field. “Although you think of how over the top two SkyCams might sound, it turns out to be very useful,” says Davies. Fox Sports first used the dual SkyCam setup during the preseason and then again in Week 5 for the Packers vs. Cowboys game. “I think that camera angle is new enough that we are still learning what it can do,” he says.

The broadcaster recognized the upper SkyCam “was something special” in Week 5 during a play involving Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliot. “He jumped over that pile and no camera, including the lower SkyCam, saw that he had reached out over the first down line [except for the new upper SkyCam],” he says. “At least for that moment, we were sold that this is something special and something we wanted to offer.”

However, camera enhancements—both in terms of numbers and applications—aren’t limited to the second SkyCam. For its NFL playoff coverage, Fox Sports will deploy seven 8x Super Mo cameras, rather than the typical five. Fox also will use 6x Super Mo for its SkyCams, which it first did for its Super Bowl LI coverage in February 2017.

“There are so many replay opportunities in football, and the Super Mo gives this crisp—almost cinematic—look at the action,” says Davies.

The sports broadcaster also will take advantage of work it has done this year with Sports Media Technologies (SMT), SkyCam and Vizrt “to cobble together a recipe” to do augmented reality with the SkyCam, he says. Not only does the setup allow Fox Sports to put a live yellow line on the field of play with its SkyCam shots, but also to put graphic billboards and other 2-D graphics on the field and to fly around them with the SkyCam as if they were real objects.

“It’s a bit of an orchestration because the pilot of the SkyCam needs to be flying around the object as if it were an object on the field. If you break through it, it’s not going to look real,” says Davies.

Another enhancement is how Fox Sports will use its pylon cameras, says Davies. Rather than pointing the pylon cams positioned at the front of the end zone down the field, Fox will rotate them so they look down the field at a 45 degree angle, says Davies.

“That gives you a way to cover a play where the camera is actually looking. Yes, you have the goal line, but you also have the out-of-bounds line as well,” he says. As a result, there are more game situations in which the pylon cameras can contribute to coverage. “The pylon cameras are a lot like catching lightning in a bottle. They are great, but you don’t want to use them unless you’ve got something that is really compelling,” says Davies.

While it is too soon to tell if the drop in viewership plaguing the league this season will carry over to the playoffs, Davies is confident that the right technology and production techniques have the potential to help fans reconnect with the game.

“I feel that what we are able to do using all of this incredible technology—the dual SkyCams, the Super Mo’s and the pylons—is that we are able to deliver that kind of experience in replay right after the play that also shows the emotions of players, not just what happens between the whistles,” he says.

Harkening back to his stint at HBO, Davies recalls the connection the cinematic style used for “Inside the NFL”created as “you watched a game that happened three or four days prior.” Today’s production tools give broadcasters that same opportunity to create that connection, he says. “I can’t help but think that these kind of storytelling tools, honestly, can only help,” says Davies.

ALEXANDRIA, VA.—NBC Sports probably isn’t doing any endzone dances after its first full football broadcast using its SkyCam technology as the primary camera received mixed reviews.

After peaking fan’s curiosity during a game earlier this season between the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons—and briefly again during a game between the Oakland Raiders and Miami Dolphins—due to necessity, the SkyCam view was put to the test during this past week’s “Thursday Night Football” game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tennessee Titans. The view provides a north-south orientation of the field, presenting a more video-game like look than the traditional east-west camera set-up.

Fans were enthusiastic about the opportunity to see more of the SkyCam following these past instances, and NBC Sports obliged. However, once given a full look, fans were much more divided about whether or not this would indeed be the future of football.

Those who loved it praised its ability to show a play develop, providing a better understanding of scheme and players abilities.

“Why all networks don’t use the sky cam more often is beyond me. It’s the best view to watch plays develop, or play Madden,” wrote one Twitter user.

“I don’t understand why anyone would hate this angle. Every game should be skycam. This is EDUCATIONAL FOOTBAW. I have read zero concrete reasons to suppress the skycam other than small-minded fear,” another tweet proclaimed.

Others professed varying forms of undying love for the SkyCam, including one Twitter user comparing it to his surprising enjoyment of anchovies.

Those who disliked the new angle were just as vocal in their disapproval as well. A fan tweeted that SkyCam would “get me to stop watching football. Make camera angels great again!”

Even legendary sports anchors got in on the debate, as Brett Musburger had some not so cordial thoughts toward SkyCam. “Yo NBC Sports. Great job on intimate portrait of a Steelers game. Causal fans don’t give a s--- where safeties are positioned. Ratings are tied to fans, not future coaches.” (Edited for profanity)

Perhaps one of the more objective looks came from ESPN Senior Writer Mina Kimes, who tweeted that the view “Makes it easier to appreciate players’ talent and harder to gauge the outcome of every play.”

“We enjoyed the challenge of presenting last night's game with much of the live action covered by SkyCam,” an NBC Sports spokesperson said in a statement released to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review after the broadcast. “As we expected, there was a range of reaction as some fans have become accustomed to the traditional camera angles, while many others were excited to watch the game from a perspective that they've grown up with, but was new to television. We look forward to evaluating the telecast further in the coming days.”

There has been no word as to whether or not NBC Sports will do another game with SkyCam as its primary camera.

Ratings for the game, per NBC Sports, were 13.8 million in Total Audience Delivery across all platforms, which topped the previous week and the same timeframe last season. Viewership peaked at 15.2 million.

Oh, by the way, the Steelers won the football game 40-17.

STAMFORD, CONN.—The people have spoken and NBC Sports has listened. What at first was a necessary improvise during a fog-heavy game between the Atlanta Falcons and New England Patriots on Oct. 22, the use of NBC’s SkyCam as the primary play-by-play camera quickly became something of a revolution for NFL viewers. Now, NBC has announced that the upcoming “Thursday Night Football” game between the Tennessee Titans and the Pittsburgh Steelers on Nov. 16 will feature the SkyCam as the primary viewing camera for the entire game.

Fans reacted positively to the SkyCam camera from the Super Bowl LI rematch in New England and many expressed interest that it would become the new normal for NFL broadcasts; a USA Today poll had 82 percent of fans say they would want it as the main angle for games. The angle was also used early in the third quarter of the “Sunday Night Football” game between the Oakland Raiders and Miami Dolphins on Nov. 5 because of remaining smoke from halftime fireworks.

Following the game in New England, Fred Guadelli, executive producer of NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” and “Thursday Night Football,” told ESPN that fans should not expect to see a full NFL broadcast from SkyCam “anytime soon” because of logistical problems for the production. Gaudelli did say in the article that NBC had previously explored SkyCam options, but reaction would seemed to have dictated an accelerated development for broadcast.

“After pivoting out of necessity to SkyCam in the New England fog, we’ve been aggressively planning and testing with the intent of utilizing the system for a full game,” said Gaudelli. Gaudelli mentions that many younger viewers have grown up playing video games like “Madden NFL Football” and that the SkyCam provides an experience akin to that.

According to Gaudelli, NBC will still have its full complement of cameras for the Titans-Steelers game and will revert to the traditional camera angles if/when the situation dictates.

NBC is producing five more “Thursday Night Football” games during the 2017 season, however no word was provided if any of those games would also utilize the SkyCam angle as the primary play-by-play coverage.

HAUPPAUGE, N.Y.—With so many fans turning in to watch the NFL playoffs, MultiDyne is helping provide unique coverage of the games for CBS and Fox with its fiber-optic signal transport technology combined with the SkyCam robotic camera rig. SkyCam units will be part of the upcoming coverage of the NFC and AFC Championship games on Sunday, Jan. 24, and for Super Bowl 50 on Sunday, Feb. 7.

SkyCam "WildCat" system

The SkyCam “WildCat” system is made up of a Sony HDC-P1 box style camera tethered to a gryo-stabilized, weatherproof housing that includes an HD-3500 multi-rate HD fiber-optic transport link from MultiDyne Video & Fiber Optic Systems. HD-3500 link converts the SDI video signal from the camera to optical so it can travel across a fiber-optic suspension cable. The MultiDyne HD-3500 RX unit is then located in the control room to receive the optical signal and convert it back to SDI to be used in the live broadcast. Another pair of HD-3500 units is used to send the signal from the control room to the production truck.

The HD-3500 provides a multi-rate HD fiber-optic transport link that supports HD-SDI video signals up to 1080p at 3G/s. It also supports two channels of outbound digital AES Audio or four analog audio channels with two bidirectional auxiliary audio channels for four-wire intercom, as well as two bidirectional RS-232 or RS 422 data channels, 4 GPI, and one tally.

The SkyCam system will be used by CBS for Super Bowl 50 at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.

DENVER – SkyCam will help to bring new perspectives to soccer broadcasts during the 2015 AT&T MLS All-Star Game as the aerial camera system provider will unveil its new Wildcat system. SkyCam’s camera systems center around computer-controlled cable suspension platforms for three dimensional movement. The new Wildcast camera system features four-axis stabilization, an open architecture for different payload options, and can move at speeds more than 25 miles per hour.

Fox Sports 1 is broadcasting the MLS All-Star game on Wednesday, July 29 at 9 p.m. ET from Dick Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colo. On Tuesday, July 28, SkyCam will have a special showcase of the Wildcat system for other broadcasters.

The Wildcat system will be featured at a number of sporting events for the rest of the year; NFL games, including Super Bowl 50, the NHL Winter Classic, and college football games on ESPN, NBC, CBS and Fox.

SkyCam is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas.