DEFINITION July 2019

REMOTE HEADS | FEATURE

WORDS JULI AN M ITCHELL / PICTURES ACS HEAD INTO SUMMER A erial Camera Systems (or ACS) is at the forefront of remote camera systems worldwide and manages its remote systems in the air as much as THE USE OF ROBOTIC HEADS IN SUMMER SPORTS AND EVENTS IS CONTINUOUSLY EVOLVING AND UNDER CONSTANT DEMANDING SCRUTINY FROM BROADCASTERS

on the ground. In fact its aerial systems are currently being used for the Fifa Women’s World Cup in France. The company is also gearing up for a summer of sport, including Wimbledon and The Open, but the main priorities are preparations for next year’s Olympics in Japan and also the Uefa Euro 2020 football championship; both UHD HDR standard broadcasting across all venues. For all broadcasting equipment companies, gearing up also means the journey from HD to UHD along with HDR, increasingly a prerequisite for broadcast as well as drama. For ACS, this means moving cameras, from Sony’s HDC-P1 to the new UHD and HDR enabled HDC-P50. SONY HDC-P50 Matt Coyde from ACS explains the move to UHD and HDR. “We’ve been in this transitory phase from 2017 onwards where we have invested in P43 cameras, which are UHD compact designs. Then last year Sony announced their HDC-P50 which was the true replacement for the Sony P1. We’ve invested in a number of those cameras to twin with our SMARThead systems.” The P50 is a true box camera, as the P43 had

OB environment however it has meant that ACS has had to develop a new UHD fibre transmission system to support these new cameras. There is also an option coming from Sony this summer which will offer up to six times speed for a handy slow-motion option in HD without having to employ a specialist server. COMING UP ACS’ remote systems are all built on their SMARThead technology which is a continuously evolving platform. There are variants like the SMARTgrip which is based on a jib arm and mainly used for the goal shots in major football matches. Some of their recent work with SMARThead included both royal weddings last year, Russell Brand’s Re:Birth tour and this year’s Britain’s Got Talent – and looking forward, the 2019 Fina World Aquatics and World Athletics Championships. Also coming up, they are populating the main courts at Wimbledon including Centre Court which will be UHD HDR, the beauty camera (for filling shots and celebrity spotting), which will also be UHD HDR, and the railcams.

most of the processing in a separate CCU. This inflated the cost of the entire channel but the P50 is a standalone camera with all the processing in the camera. It can be used in other situations, for instance RF, and is also ideal for stabilised camera gimbals with its compactness and light weight. The Sony P50 is being introduced throughout ACS’ remote designs and is a box camera without having to route through an outboard CCU. This is ideal for the live

The Olympics and Euro 2020 are both UHD HDR standard across all venues

LEFT ACS’ SMARThead at Wimbledon ABOVE The KARTcam at the London Marathon

JULY 20 1 9 | DEF I N I T ION 61

Powered by