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Building for Broadcast-World Cup 2010




The World's Most Watched Sporting Event in History
A total of 22 Element Technica Quasar rigs were used to provide up to eight 3D camera positions in the Ellis Park and Soccer City stadiums in Johannesburg, as well as stadiums in Durban, Cape Town, and Port Elizabeth. In all, 25 soccer matches were delivered in 3D to viewers around the world. Sony HDC-1500 cameras with Canon HJ22ex7.6B lenses were mounted onto each of the Quasars. At each stadium, four Quasars positioned back from field action were configured in side-by-side mode, while the rest, located near the field, were mounted in the under/thru beamsplitter mode.

The Quasar rig, which was introduced at the 2009 International Broadcasting Commission (IBC) in September, began tests during actual soccer matches in February of 2010 to prove its ability to inter-operate with the Sony MPE-200 3D Processor.

“In addition to satisfying all the opto-mechanical performance criteria, the Quasar proved its compatibility with Sony’s stereoscopic processing,” said Duncan Humphreys, partner in UK-based 3D production specialist Can Communicate and a 3D consultant to Host Broadcast Services (HBS), host broadcasters for the international event.

Concurrent with these soccer match tests, ET’s Quasar 3D rigs were being used to produce 3D telecasts of other live sports events, including Europe’s Six Nations Rugby Championship in February and the French Open tennis championship.

Element Technica co-founder Stephen Pizzo noted that because 3D production equipment, including the Quasar rigs, cameras, and lenses must be moved among the five soccer venues in South Africa, the ET rigs’ ability to quickly and easily be reassembled and calibrated is critical. “Eight rigs had to be struck from the site of the opening match at Johannesburg’s Soccer City stadium, transported across town and reassembled at the city’s Ellis Park stadium in four hours for the next day’s match,” he says. “With the Quasar’s simplicity of assembly and calibration, the operation was completed with time to spare.”

Element Technica co-found Hector Ortega said this comes down to a dollars and cents issue: “We’ve been told that because our competitors’ 3D rigs would not have been able to complete such a fast turnaround, that rental of an additional complement of eight rigs, with additional cameras and lenses, would have to be necessary.”

Humphreys points to another advantage the Quasar 3D rigs provided to in-stadium sports coverage: its ability to be operated in the Element Technica rig’s Broadcast Mode. Most beamsplitter 3D rigs mount the mirrored camera above the rig, which does not allow conventional placement of the operator’s viewfinder monitor and can block spectators’ views of the event. “The under/thru configuration is not as high, which cuts down on the need to eliminate spectator seating,” he said. “It also allows use of a full monitor and operator controls in the back, which provides a familiar look and feel to a camera operator new to 3D production.”

World Cup 2010 in 3D
When the FIFA World Cup soccer championships decided to provide live 3D telecasts of 25 matches during the 2010 event from South Africa, host broadcaster HBS chose Element Technica to exclusively provide rigs for the event. Twenty-two Element Technica Quasar rigs were provided to the 3D telecasts.

The standard World Cup 3D telecast utilized eight camera positions in the stadium. Four were positions in the stands and pressbox; four more down at field level. Where the four long-lensed cameras back from the field could be configured in side-by-side mode, the four closer cameras would be configured in beamsplitter mode. The same Quasar rig can be configured in either mode, giving HBS technicians great flexibility.

A further characteristic of the Quasar also paid off for the 3D production crew. The Quasar is camera agnostic, and can stereoscopically mount two dissimilar cameras on the same rig. This allowed rigs to mount the one full-featured Sony HDC-1500 camera with a smaller (but optically identical) Sony 1500 TBlock camera. The 1500 provided intercom, camera and effects monitoring and other operator features in their familiar location, while the TBlock contributed a minimum amount of weight and size to the overall 3D rig package.

Fans attending the World Cup and other sporting events through the year object to having their view of the action blocked by camera positions. Most beamsplitter rigs place the mirrored camera vertically above the mirror, adding several feet to the overall height of the camera position. Because of the small size of the Sony 1500 camera, the World Cup 3D crew was able to minimize such blockage by assembling the beamsplitter rigs and cameras in Element Technica’s Broadcast Configuration, where the mirrored camera is positioned under the mirror. In addition to clearing spectator sight lines, configuring the cameras in this mode allowed the camera operators to position their camera monitors in the standard and familiar location, and lowered the overall 3D package’s center of gravity, greatly simplifying balancing the camera on the tripod and fluid head.

The Technica 3D Quasar rigs would prove to be perfect for the pioneering 3D telecast. Where a film crew might have time to rehearse camera shots, live sports requires capturing the action as it happens, with the ball and players moving in unpredictable directions. At the World Cup, convergence pullers assigned to each 3D rig could manually operate the rig’s parameters, but the process could also add an automation layer through the Technica 3D rigs’ communications capability with the Sony MPE-200 3D processor. With control, rig and lens metadata running through the camera’s fiber optic cable, interocular and convergence could be set with the Sony processors and inside the OB truck. Additionally, full metadata information was available to the convergence pullers and stereographers in the 3D OB truck for analysis of the stereo pair images.

The automation layer did not eliminate or minimize the convergence puller’s role in the production. With soccer action fast and furious, the production crew depended on the instinctive reactions of convergence pullers to provide a continuously realistic 3D image during the unpredictable action. In recognition that camera operators and convergence pullers could learn from one another, the production company had them switch positions during a portion of the rehearsal phase.

Building for 3D Broadcast
The rapidity with which Element Technica’s 3D rigs could be set up and aligned would be key to the venture. Since each 3D telecast would require up to eight 3D rigs, along with as many as 16 camera and lens combinations, and because matches would be produced in 3D from five different venues across the expanse of South Africa, equipment would have to be moved from venue to venue in as little as four hour’s time.

A case in point came after the World Cup opening ceremonies. Immediately after the ceremonies and opening match at Johannesburg’s Soccer City stadium, the eight rigs had to be struck and transported across town, then reassembled at the city’s Ellis Park stadium in four hours for the next day’s match. With the Quasar’s simplicity of assembly and calibration, the operation was completed with time to spare. Because the production crew could leapfrog the two sets of eight 3D rigs, with their attendant 16 cameras and lenses, it saved them the expense of adding an additional set of rigs, cameras and lenses. As was warned by other 3D rig manufacturers.

For the 3D telescasts, a pair of state-of-the-art outside broadcast (OB) trucks were upgraded to 3D capability. This included adding a 3D software package to the Sony MVS-8000 production switchers, and installing 24- and 42-inch LMD series 3D displays in the monitor walls. A convergence area was created providing eight MPE-200 multi-image processors with MPES-3D01 stereo image processing software to assist the convergence engineers to maintain camera alignment and to control the rigs.

At each venue the 3D broadcast also had access to cameras from the concurrently produced 2D coverage of the World Cup matches. Where a needed camera view was only available as 2D video, it could be run through a JVC’s IF-2D2D1 2D to 3D conversion box to avoid a jarring cut between 2D and 3D images to the 3D viewer.

Second Largest LIVE 3D Event
Element Technica’s Quasar 3D Rigs were used exclusively for live coverage of the Six Nation Rugby Tournament 2010 the weekend of February 6-7 from Twickenham Stadium in London and on February 27 from Rome. Telecast of the England vs. Wales contest February 6 was viewed in 3D at 40 sold-out Odeon and Cineworld cinemas throughout the UK.

Of the six Technica 3D Quasar rigs supplied for the production, three were arranged for side-by-side camera mounting, and three in beamsplitter configuration. Beamsplitter mounting allows the camera lenses to be closer together than placing the cameras next to each other would allow, which is critical when the camera is located close to the action.

The rugby tournament broadcasts, produced by the UK 3D specialists Inition, became the largest ever sports events to be broadcast live in 3D. Technica 3D rigs were supplied through the rental facilities of Panavision UK. Panavision recently signed an agreement to supply Technica 3D rigs worldwide.