This week’s Broadcast magazine has a double-page spread on something very close to my heart – those fancy camera techniques that are used in sport.
Since Broadcast’s website is totally subscription only, here are their top ten:
1. Virtual Spectator – Basically all the graphics tricks used in coverage of the WRC. It all involves GPS, computer graphics and minicams.
2. Crash Recording – For use in yachting. The cameras are recording to memory all the time. Then if something exciting happens, a crewmember hits a button and everything that has just happened is committed to a more permament storage.
3. Super Slow-Mo – As used superbly by C4 in the cricket. Sky have their own version too. 2000 frames a second.
4. Hawkeye – First cricket, now tennis. Where next for the ball-tracking technology?
5. Skycam – A camera mounted high on a pair of wires. You do get some very involving views. The French Open employ one as well as the Beeb for the FA Cup Final.
6. Epsis – The tricks now widely employed in football and many other sports for projecting graphics onto the pitch while the players walk all over them.
7. Streaming – Er. This is more a delivery mechanism isn’t it? Move along please.
8. High Definition – Another delivery mechanism. Sky are looking to be first in the UK with this. But we’ll all need new TVs.
9. Post Cam – The BBC used it during the Six Nations. Strap a remote controlled camera around the foot of a rugby post just above the padding. You get close-up views without getting in the way. Limited potential in other sports though.
10. I-Ball – Still in development, but basically seems to involve putting 12 cameras inside a ball (say a football), transmitting the images back and combining them to produce a single image “ball’s eye” view, with computers doing the hard work since balls spin a lot etc.