4K Live Production of The 48th Super Bowl
Posted by Amy Whitfield on 10th Feb 2014
4K Live Production @ MetLife Stadium in New York for the 48th Super Bowl
You cannot watch it yet, none of the major broadcasters even have plans to transmit it yet, so why did Fox have six 4K cameras at the MetLife Stadium in New York for the 48th Super Bowl?
4K (a.k.a Ultra HD) allows productions to carry out an electronic zoom whilst maintaining resolution. Fox’s six 4K cameras, five F55’s and one F65, were located down each side-line and in each end zone, with another high, wide position to capture overall field shots. The ultra-high resolution images are used in Fox’s "Super Zoom" technology, giving television viewers a crisp, clear look at close plays.
Jerry Steinberg, senior vice president, technical operations stated. "It’s all about the clarity of the replay and giving viewers the best possible look at a play, and that’s what we can do with these cameras. Since we’re starting with such a high-resolution image, we can zoom in multiple times on a shot and still get a completely clear picture with zero pixel degradation. You see everything in extreme detail, in fact with an extra amount of detail you wouldn’t see in a traditional replay."
FOX first started using Sony 4K for Super Zoom in 2012, with one F65 camera at its weekly NFL on FOX broadcasts. FOX continued using Sony 4K (the F55) at the 2013 World Series and last weekend’s game is the first major event to deploy multiple 4K cameras for Super Zoom.
Similar to the World Series application in October 2013, the Sony 4K camera signals are sent over fiber to the game production truck and put through Sony’s BPU-4000 baseband processor unit, allowing FOX Sports to do multiple cut-outs and zooms of 4K images and extract sharp HD images with no pixel degradation.
"We’re starting with a much bigger canvas, with so much more flexibility in 4K," said Steinberg. "Our cut-outs and zooms give viewers a completely clear image." The Sony cameras and BPU-4000 unit combine with Sony’s CA-4000 camera control unit to create an intuitive system that’s also very familiar.
With this easy-to-use combination of technologies, an operator can electronically zoom in on an image many times to provide a conclusive image for replays. This system’s operation is very similar to HD cameras. For example, operators can shade the 4K camera the same way they would an HD camera."
Another advantage of recording the event in 4K, is that when it comes to re-editing a highlights package, firstly you have a higher than HD resolution original to work from and we all remember that SD programming that were shot in HD looked sharper and secondly, with post-production platforms ability to create an HD Cut out, the content can be re-edited to have a complete difference look to the original live broadcast.
Interestingly, the FOX production of the 48th Super Bowl was a 720p production, which meant that the HD cut-out from the 4K cameras didn’t need any standards conversion, as 4K in only available as a progressively scanned image. However, if you were watching game on an international feed, that was standards converted to 1080i.
In Europe, were 1080/50i is the dominate format, the issue of cutting interlaced and progressively scanned images together needs to be considered. Sony’s BPU-4000’s HD Cut software can be configured to produce a 1080P, 1080i or 720P HD-Cut out via it’s the BPU-4000’s two down-converted outputs
You obviously still have the option of producing an end –to-end 1080/50P and then converting to the required 1080/50i at the end, if you so desire.
The only way to watch the 38th Super Bowl in 4K was to up convert Fox’s 720P broadcast inside your 4K TV. Fox doesn’t believe that a broadcast standard for 4K will emerge for years and sending an entire broadcast in 4K would require a tremendous investment. FOX uses 50 cameras for the Super Bowl broadcast. Even ESPN, which recently stepped up its production workflow to better accommodate 4K (and even 8K) doesn’t see 4K broadcasts in the near future.
However, prices for consumer 4K products are dropping (both a $2,000 Sony 4K camcorder and a $999 Vizio 4K TV were revealed at CES 2014), and software leaders like YouTube and Netflix are figuring out new streaming standards that won't demand Internet-choking bandwidth. The barriers preventing 4K from going mainstream are quickly being broken, and it's just a matter of time before the big game and other events get the 4K treatment.
If you are interested in investigating 4K Live Production in more detail Top-Teks are one of the UK’s leading suppliers of 4K Cameras for Broadcast & Cine. We have the Sony products that were used at Super Bowl in our showroom, along with all the accessories that you are likely to need. Top-Teks also has a close working relationship with a number of companies that will enable an end-to-end 4K Live Production workflow.
For more information or to schedule a demonstration, please call us on +44 (0) 1895 825 619 and ask for Kevin Salvidge
FOX first started using Sony 4K for Super Zoom in 2012, with one F65 camera at its weekly NFL on FOX broadcasts. FOX continued using Sony 4K (the F55) at the 2013 World Series and last weekend’s game is the first major event to deploy multiple 4K cameras for Super Zoom.
Similar to the World Series application in October 2013, the Sony 4K camera signals are sent over fiber to the game production truck and put through Sony’s BPU-4000 baseband processor unit, allowing FOX Sports to do multiple cut-outs and zooms of 4K images and extract sharp HD images with no pixel degradation.
"We’re starting with a much bigger canvas, with so much more flexibility in 4K," said Steinberg. "Our cut-outs and zooms give viewers a completely clear image." The Sony cameras and BPU-4000 unit combine with Sony’s CA-4000 camera control unit to create an intuitive system that’s also very familiar.
With this easy-to-use combination of technologies, an operator can electronically zoom in on an image many times to provide a conclusive image for replays. This system’s operation is very similar to HD cameras. For example, operators can shade the 4K camera the same way they would an HD camera."
Another advantage of recording the event in 4K, is that when it comes to re-editing a highlights package, firstly you have a higher than HD resolution original to work from and we all remember that SD programming that were shot in HD looked sharper and secondly, with post-production platforms ability to create an HD Cut out, the content can be re-edited to have a complete difference look to the original live broadcast.
Interestingly, the FOX production of the 48th Super Bowl was a 720p production, which meant that the HD cut-out from the 4K cameras didn’t need any standards conversion, as 4K in only available as a progressively scanned image. However, if you were watching game on an international feed, that was standards converted to 1080i.
In Europe, were 1080/50i is the dominate format, the issue of cutting interlaced and progressively scanned images together needs to be considered. Sony’s BPU-4000’s HD Cut software can be configured to produce a 1080P, 1080i or 720P HD-Cut out via it’s the BPU-4000’s two down-converted outputs
You obviously still have the option of producing an end –to-end 1080/50P and then converting to the required 1080/50i at the end, if you so desire.
The only way to watch the 38th Super Bowl in 4K was to up convert Fox’s 720P broadcast inside your 4K TV. Fox doesn’t believe that a broadcast standard for 4K will emerge for years and sending an entire broadcast in 4K would require a tremendous investment. FOX uses 50 cameras for the Super Bowl broadcast. Even ESPN, which recently stepped up its production workflow to better accommodate 4K (and even 8K) doesn’t see 4K broadcasts in the near future.
However, prices for consumer 4K products are dropping (both a $2,000 Sony 4K camcorder and a $999 Vizio 4K TV were revealed at CES 2014), and software leaders like YouTube and Netflix are figuring out new streaming standards that won't demand Internet-choking bandwidth. The barriers preventing 4K from going mainstream are quickly being broken, and it's just a matter of time before the big game and other events get the 4K treatment.
If you are interested in investigating 4K Live Production in more detail Top-Teks are one of the UK’s leading suppliers of 4K Cameras for Broadcast & Cine. We have the Sony products that were used at Super Bowl in our showroom, along with all the accessories that you are likely to need. Top-Teks also has a close working relationship with a number of companies that will enable an end-to-end 4K Live Production workflow.
For more information or to schedule a demonstration, please call us on +44 (0) 1895 825 619 and ask for Kevin Salvidge