SPECIAL | SPORTS CAPTURE
We can enable 100 cameras to do tracking, which also enables them to do real-time graphics
Impossible to bring a whole new angle to the matches. Motion Impossible’s Rob Drewett comments on the conversion for BatCam to move such a new vehicle: “We’ve been helping BatCam with the Agito just to get them up and running, but they took over from the semi-final. Sunset + Vine had seen Agito over in Australia – the M series was known there as the Fox Rover – and mentioned us to BatCam. With Agito at the World Cup, they were using the MōVI Carbon stabilised head with a Panasonic broadcast camera inside.” BatCam already uses this camera package on its larger drones. “We’re trying to get them to use the Shotover with a proper Grass Valley
have lipstick cameras mounted to the sides of their eyeglass frames to give viewers a first-person, ringside perspective of the up-close drama of a live prize fight. For MMA matches, broadcasters use lipstick cameras to capture the crowd’s reactions to the pre-fight weigh-ins and get close-up shots of the fighters as they step on the scales. Marshall’s CV500 series has also been placed along the octagon for MMA events and ringside for live boxing. ADVANCED CAMERA TRACKING A new company called Arraiy is shaking things up with simple HD cameras and artificial intelligence within camera tracking. This is a company offering deep machine learning, which it can evolve for numerous applications; one of those is in a sport environment. Arraiy’s CEO Mark Tobin explains where he wants to use the technology: “So first thing we did was to focus on camera tracking and now we have a solution called DeepTrack – it’s a through-the-lens monocular tracking solution, which is entirely 100% software based, just understanding the features and the textures of a scene. “We calibrate the camera, which takes about 20 seconds, and we do some deep learning on the environment, whether that’s in the studio or in a sports environment outdoors. We can create a model over three to four hours, depending what the scene is, and then you have a known geometry of every scene. You can then enable any camera that’s in that scene to camera track and to object track. So if NBC wants to shoot a football game or an athletics event and wants to use 100 cameras, we can enable all 100 cameras differentiator; we don’t need hardware, we don’t need stickers on the ceiling; we create a neural network that we can leverage across any cameras or scenes.” THE ‘NO CAMERAMAN’ SOLUTION As we write, the ICC Cricket World Cup is wrapping up with a new addition to the camera crew – Agito. You may know what Agito is as this robot camera won in the Movement category in our Tech Innovation Awards 2019, but if you don’t, it’s Motion Impossible’s modular dolly system. The TV production company, Sunset + Vine, had commissioned BatCam, a specialised drone and camera movement outfit and they chose the new vehicle from Motion to do tracking, which enables them to do real-time graphics. That’s the
camera as the image quality is better,” asserts Drewett. Motion Impossible’s chief designer Andy Nancollis was driving the vehicle initially. “BatCam was already commissioned to do the drone footage. They are using the Agito for different things, including capturing footage either side of the game,” he says. “So when players arrive, they’ve got a few RF cameras, the Agito and they’ve got the SpiderCam. The players walk across the pitch to get to the pavilion. “At some cricket matches, some of the directors like to get the Agito out on to the pitch to follow the batsmen on and off as they’ve been given out and another one comes in. For the rest of the match, we
BELOW European men’s handball, captured in 4k UHD
42 DEF I N I T ION | AUGUST 20 1 9
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