 |
|
|
The Great Britain operation of Irish broadcaster Setanta Sports went into administration Tuesday June 23 and ceased broadcasting, only days after losing the rights to cover both the English and Scottish Premier League football championships. Setanta continues to broadcast in Ireland and internationally, but its parent company and Irish subsidiaries are in receivership, with accountancy and auditing firm Deloitte considering approaches from potential buyers.
| Full Story
Rogers Sportsnet’s HD facility is fulfilling its promise of multichannel HD playout, having launched four HD feeds: Sportsnet East HD, Sportsnet Ontario HD, Sportsnet West HD, and Sportsnet Pacific HD. A move to tapeless technology, based on Quantel sQ servers and editing systems and a Harris control system, played a major part in the process.
| Full Story
More than 300 professional-level wireless microphones and audio communication devices are being coordinated this weekend at the U.S. Open at Bethpage, NY, and the event is a milestone: the first major sporting event to benefit from a more wide-open spectrum universe after the analog-TV shutoff.
| Full Story
Inclement weather is threatening to wreak havoc at this weekend’s U.S.
Open Championship at Bethpage Black in Farmingdale, NY, but NBC says
let it rain — havoc on the course should make for great television. | Full Story
DirecTV subscribers who are golf fans can once again get their fill of golf coverage from Bethpage Black this weekend, thanks to U.S. Open Mix, an interactive-TV experience that, besides a leaderboard, gives viewers the ability to watch up to four video feeds on one screen. Increasingly a must-have feature for fans and ESPN, it will be available for all four rounds of the U.S. Open.
| Full Story
While the Los Angeles Lakers are working toward winning their 15th
national title, the NBA is working the kinks out of a brand-new way to
collect the statistics surrounding those titles. STATS Inc., the NBA’s
partner for global data distribution, is developing a tracking system
that collects real-time positioning data of NBA players, referees, and
the ball. During games three, four, and five of the NBA Finals, STATS
is collecting the data necessary to transform their successful
soccer-specific algorithm into a basketball-friendly application. | Full Story
The first day of SVG’s inaugural College Sports Video Summit, held this
week in Atlanta, ended with a bang, as five heavyweights of college
sports programming took the stage. Conference chair Tom Buffolano
moderated as experts from across the college sports landscape offered
attendees a view from the top, examining the rights relationship
between networks and universities. According to the panel, the current
trend toward aggregating rights at the conference level is here to
stay, which means that the schools themselves have plenty of questions
to answer if they are going to get their own piece of the
rights-agreement pie. | Full Story
Chris Bevilacqua, CAA Sports president and CEO and cofounder of CSTV, discussed the future (and past) of college sports programming during a keynote address at the 2009 SVG College Sports Video Summit June 9 in Atlanta. “There has been a lot of change [since CSTV was launched], and there is a lot more change coming over the next seven years,” he said. “The cards are being shuffled, and there will be some winners and losers, and those who get out in front stand to benefit the most.” | Full Story
An alliance of industry-leading companies, including HighSchoolSports.net and PrepAthlete.com, has been formed to bring high school sports-video creation and distribution to the next level. And with more than 16,000 high schools working with the companies on some level, the unified platform could gain marketplace traction.
| Full Story
Tennis fans in Spain won’t be able to watch Rafael Nadal go for his
fifth straight title this weekend, but they will be able to watch the
Men’s Final as never before: in 3D. Orange and France Télévisions are
producing the Final in 3D, and it will be delivered live to theaters in
Barcelona, Madrid, and Valencia as well as a theater in Paris.
| Full Story
The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) and the
Sports Video Group (SVG) have announced the nominees for the first
annual Global Media Awards for College Sports. The awards celebrate
excellence across the entire spectrum of college sports video
production, including work by colleges and universities, national and
regional sports networks, and technology innovators. | Full Story
Some danger is inherent in the sport of horse racing, but equipment provided by RF Central is helping lessen the threat to both horses and humans at Belmont Park. The tracks at Belmont have long been equipped with wireless cameras to provide the best view to spectators and racing officials, but those camera feeds are now being sent to in-park ambulances as well.
| Full Story
NBC Sports French Open coverage begins this weekend, and tennis fans are in for some graphical treats, courtesy of Orad’s MVP graphics platform and its Playmaker replay server. The systems will be used to bring a new level of information to the broadcasts, including the distance players run on a point, the speed of shots, and even the spin and arc of the ball’s flight.
| Full Story
The big European football showdown of the year takes place at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome tonight (May 27) as Manchester United take on Barcelona in the Champions League Final. The clash is being broadcast in HD across Europe and the UK, with plenty of slow-motion shots for analysing all the action of a much anticipated game.
| Full Story
Indianapolis Motor Speedway Productions (IMS Productions) revved up a new HD production unit at the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, and the new truck, known as HD2, has some new features that are as drool-worthy as those found in the high-performance racing machines that captured the attention of race fans around the world. More important, it can cut production costs.
| Full Story
A new HD-production truck is on the road via Dome Productions and the
unit, known as Thunder, is the company’s fifth unit that will be
committed to the Olympic Games and the first to offer clients the new
Sony HDC-1500R cameras that are 3G-compatible. “It’s been a terrific
launch and the acceptance and feedback has been very positive,” says
Mike Johnson, director of engineering for Dome. Johnson adds that the
effort involved integration company Azcar, an internal team, and
Gerling and Associates working closely with vendors like Evertz, and it
was one of Dome’s most successful collaborative efforts. | Full Story
Fiber networks have revolutionized the way broadcast centers communicate with sports venues, and the way those venues communicate with each other. But at SVG’s second-annual Sports Transmission Forum, held May 19 at the HBO Theater in New York City, it was clear that there are some clouds hanging over the revolution.
| Full Story
The newest
truck from NEP Broadcasting and its New Century Productions Division hit the
road this week at the NASCAR Pit Crew Challenge, which was the perfect event to
showcase the scalability of the just-out-of-the-box NCPXI. The 53-foot
expanding HD trailer is equipped to handle the largest shows — it can
accommodate up to 60 channels of EVS — but can also scale down to handle much
smaller shows, running without a B unit. | Full Story
The college football and basketball video-coordinator community held its 15th annual convention in Jacksonville, FL, this week, discussing the future of the industry and challenges as colleges and universities gear up for the move to HD coaching analysis. | Full Story
Tiger Woods may not have delivered the anticipated thrills for viewers
of The Players championship on Sunday afternoon as Henrik Stenson tore
away from the field, but NBC Sports and NEP delivered some new thrills
to keep viewers tuned in, including the debut of Inertia Unlimited’s
XMo slow-motion camera system at the yearly event held at TPC Sawgrass
in Ponte Vedra, FL. “The U.S. Open varies with different courses every
year but this is pretty much the same show,” says Ken Carpenter,
technical manager for NEP and NBC Sports, referring to next month's
U.S. Open golf championship to be held in Bethpage, NY. “So the
challenge here is to find out where the trouble spots are an add a
camera or kill a camera to get better coverage. When you visit a course
every four years or so you never have that chance.”
| Full Story
PGA Tour’s The Players championship at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, this weekend is celebrating the 10th anniversary of live streaming from the 17th hole. “It’s the crown jewel of PGAtour.com’s live-streaming application,” says Chuck Scoggins, VP of operations, PGA Tour Productions. “And the production quality today exceeds our wildest expectations.”
| Full Story
3D sports production is gradually gaining traction, but when it comes
to determining a working business model for the medium, the jury
remains out. This summer, ESPN will try a new avenue to 3D success as
ESPN Films presents “X Games 3D the Movie, “a feature film in digital
3D. By turning a live event into a limited-run film, ESPN is hoping to
create content with a much longer shelf life than a single competition,
or single run of the X Games.
| Full Story
Manny Pacquiao made short work of Ricky Hatton in a junior-welterweight championship bout in Las Vegas on May 2, but he wasn’t the only one to score a knockout. HBO’s proprietary PunchZone technology made its debut and carried punch data to a new level.
| Full Story
Last fall, Churchill Downs Simulcast Operations made the transition to HD, but this weekend will be the first time the track’s most famous event, the Kentucky Derby, will get the HD-simulcast treatment for visitors at the track, viewers at OTBs across the country, and even viewers who visit TwinSpires.com, the Churchill Downs Internet wagering site.
| Full Story
NBC Sports coverage of the Beijing Olympics keyed a big night at the
30th Annual Sports Emmys for the network but it was a moving lifetime
achievement award presentation to Dick Ebersol, NBC Universal Sports
& Olympics chairman, that was the night’s highlight. Muhammad Ali
walked on stage and presented Ebersol’s award following a live tribute
from the leaders of the six largest professional sports leagues.
| Full Story
While the NAB Show has been the domain of news broadcasters for many years, the 2009 exhibit floor was dominated by the sports community — which was good news for many exhibitors.
| Full Story
The NBA Development League (D-League) Finals this week mark the first commercial use of NewTek’s new 3Play multichannel HD/SD slow-motion replay system. The NBA is live-streaming the best-of-three finals between the Colorado 14ers and the Utah Flash.
| Full Story
One of the greatest attractions of NAB 2009 was curiosity – and concern
– for the attendance. The numbers of those coming to the show was
obviously going to be down reflecting the economic downturn. But how
far down? Now, the numbers are in from NAB. Registered attendees came
in at just under 84,000 – down from last year’s 104,000.
| Full Story
On Election Night 2008, CNN used technology provided by STATS and Vizrt to create a holographic effect that created instant buzz throughout the news and sports world. The VirtualVU technology, which captured a three-dimensional virtual image of a field correspondent and placed her face-to-face with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer in the network’s New York City studio, was replicated on Tuesday at the NAB Show.
| Full Story
In a winning streak that would make Michael Phelps jealous, Panasonic
Broadcast will play a key role in the production of a ninth consecutive
Olympics. Olympic Broadcasting Services Vancouver (OBSV), the Host
Broadcaster, will use Panasonic P2 HD series with solid-state memory
cards to support the broadcast of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter
Games. As in the Beijing Games, Panasonic’s “DVCPRO HD” will be used as
the recording format.
| Full Story
<< prev
next >>
|
|
