{"id":137421,"date":"2018-03-30T11:39:47","date_gmt":"2018-03-30T15:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsvideo.org\/?p=137421"},"modified":"2018-03-30T11:39:47","modified_gmt":"2018-03-30T15:39:47","slug":"mlb-2018-preview-fox-sports-continues-on-uhd-path-with-three-4k-mlb-shows-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sportsvideo.org\/2018\/03\/30\/mlb-2018-preview-fox-sports-continues-on-uhd-path-with-three-4k-mlb-shows-this-season\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB 2018 Preview: Fox Sports Continues on UHD Path With Three 4K MLB Shows This Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

After producing two games of the ALCS and multiple regular-season A-level games in 4K last year, Fox Sports is back aboard the UHD train with three 4K MLB productions planned this season. Fox\u2019s 4K baseball slate, which will air on DirecTV, begins tomorrow when the Astros visit the Rangers at Globe Life Park in Arlington, TX, followed by A\u2019s-Blue Jays in Toronto on May 19 and Yankees-Red Sox in Boston on Aug. 4.<\/p>\n

Although 4K baseball is nothing new for the Fox Sports operations team at this point, this year\u2019s trio of productions will be unique in that all three games are C-level games as opposed to postseason or A games. That means Fox will be the third broadcaster pulling into the venue after both teams\u2019 RSNs, forcing the national broadcaster to work with limited existing cabling and resources.<\/p>\n

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Game Creek Video\u2019s Nitro 4K truck, used primarily by NHRA, will house to Fox Sports\u2019 4K\/HD MLB production in Arlington, TX, this weekend.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cBecause we\u2019re the third [broadcaster] in, we\u2019re doing almost everything on our own,\u201d says Francisco Contreras<\/strong>, director, field operations, Fox Sports. \u201cCabling is probably the hardest thing because there\u2019s not a lot available anyway when you\u2019re doing a three-way [production]. And 4K requires a lot more fiber, so we\u2019re actually going to have to start running cable at the venue on Friday even though we can\u2019t park the truck until Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n

All three 4K productions will feature seven cameras and produce both the 4K feed for DirecTV and 720p feed for FS1 out of a single truck \u2014 producing a single 4K feed and then downconverting it for the HD feed. This weekend, Game Creek\u2019s Nitro mobile unit will serve as Fox Sports\u2019 home in Arlington; Mobile TV Group\u2019s 39FLEX truck will be on hand in Toronto and Boston later this season.<\/p>\n

This is very different from [4K shows] last year because we\u2019re treating this like a C game, where we have seven cameras and seven EVS [channels], so it\u2019s not as big as our A games in primetime,\u201d says Contreras. \u201cLast year, when did 4K, it was on Game of the Week<\/em> shows, so it wasn\u2019t a side-by-side [with the RSNs\u2019] show, which made it easier. This is a much tougher show, but we\u2019re really excited about it, and it should be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fox also has plans to produce multiple MLB Postseason games in 4K, the games to be determined.<\/p>\n

As for its HD schedule of games, Fox Sports continues to rely more and more on its army of RSNs<\/a> to produce games that will air on FS1 this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a similar setup to last year; FS1 is just picking up more RSN productions this year,\u201d says Contreras. \u201cWe\u2019re very proud of how we\u2019ve all been able to work together to create high-quality productions for both the national and regional shows. The main goal for us [on a national level] is to get the season started and get ready for the All-Star Game in July.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After producing two games of the ALCS and multiple regular-season A-level games in 4K last year, Fox Sports is back aboard the UHD train with three 4K MLB productions planned […]\n More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":112780,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9248,33],"tags":[4655,438,417,1119],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137421"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137421"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137428,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137421\/revisions\/137428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsvideo.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}