Fox Sports UHD single truck “target” a reality
February 21, 2017
By Chris Forrester
Last October, speaking at the giant IBC television technology show in Amsterdam, Fox Sports was talking as to how it was working towards covering ‘mid-level’ sports events in Ultra-HDTV, and with just one Outside Broadcast production truck, and wholly basing the truck’s technology on IP-based protocols.
That plan came to fruition on February 17thwhen Fox Sports, along with AT&T and DirecTV, had their latest UHD OB truck at the University of California at Stanford University to capture the first-ever live college-basketball production. The eight-camera, single-truck 4K production (with a down-converted 720p feed for the ‘ordinary’ FS1 HD telecast) worked completely as planned.
Fox and its broadcast partners used Mobile TV Group’s facilities truck. “This is one truck emanating both 4K and HD signals, which is where we need to [be] to make this work long-term,” says John Ward, SVP content operations, AT&T, talking to trade mag SVG. He explained that as well as making the production as cost and technically efficient as possible, it also meant that a single UHD truck could be squeezed into tight spaces.
The cost side of the equation also means that many more sporting events could now be covered in UHD, and in particular local State and even city-wide events where the potential viewing interest might be limited. By Chris Forrester
Last August, speaking at the giant IBC television technology show in Amsterdam, Fox Sports was talking as to how it was working towards covering ‘mid-level’ sports events in Ultra-HDTV, and with just one Outside Broadcast production truck, and wholly basing the truck’s technology on IP-based protocols.
That plan came to fruition on February 17th when Fox Sports, along with AT&T and DirecTV, had their latest UHD OB truck at the University of California at Stanford University to capture the first-ever live college-basketball production. The eight-camera, single-truck 4K production (with a down-converted 720p feed for the ‘ordinary’ FS1 HD telecast) worked completely as planned.
Fox and its broadcast partners used Mobile TV Group’s facilities truck. “This is one truck emanating both 4K and HD signals, which is where we need to [be] to make this work long-term,” says John Ward, SVP content operations, AT&T, talking to trade mag SVG. He explained that as well as making the production as cost and technically efficient as possible, it also meant that a single UHD truck could be squeezed into tight spaces.
The cost side of the equation also means that many more sporting events could now be covered in UHD, and in particular local State and even city-wide events where the potential viewing interest might be limited.