French Open, cameras, slow motion

[Bruce Watson]

I was watching a little of the French Open on OTA TV. I tried to count cameras, and there are just too many for me to keep track of.

But doing this, I began to notice that there's a lot of slow motion. I counted at least three camera angles. At least two of these seemed to be fairly close (if not identical to) some real-time cameras, which made me wonder -- one camera, or two? So... Are they shooting any slow motion with the "normal" cameras -- for example, could they be shooting at, say, 120 fps all the time, and splitting that down to 60i in the truck for normal viewing, and showing us the full 120 fps when they need the slow motion? Seems far fetched, but IDK, so I'm asking.

If they are using special cameras dedicated to slow motion, anyone know anything about them? What cameras, what fps? And how do you actually do slow motion for 1080i60 broadcast anyway -- do they do interlaced in camera? And if they are special cameras just for slow motion, how do they get them so nicely color matched to the "normal" cameras?

If you know, please give me a short discourse on broadcast sports photography and slow motion. It looks like some of it is very slow, in the range of 1000fps. Phantoms? Software? What are they really doing? I'm just curious, is all.

 

[Justin Kuhn]

Yes. :cheesy:

 

[Paul F]

http://www.dvs-sport.tv/templatetext.php?id=13
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLt29bijDXg
http://www.newtek.com/products/3play-4800/3play4800.html

 

[Mitch Gross]

http://www.dvs-sport.tv/templatetext.php?id=13
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLt29bijDXg
http://www.newtek.com/products/3play-4800/3play4800.html

Yeah, except that's not what they're using at the French Open.

The cameras are from I-Movix and are called Sprintcams, which in their heart use Phantom cameras as the "engine" to their system. The cameras output a "live" signal that is a traditional real time video feed, which is extrapolated out of whatever frame rate the sensor is set to. Along a separate internal path, the camera can capture the sensor information and then play it back out a second signal path. This is controlled by an I-Movix control panel in the control room, mobile truck or elsewhere. Both feeds go as separate source signals into an EVS system for the broadcast team to use at will.

One of the coolest capabilities of the V642 cameras being used is that they can both record and play at the same time. The camera's internal memory RAM buffer can be divided into multiple "takes." The camera is always in record mode, so the partition of memory is being filled with the last few seconds of images. Hit the trigger and the buffer starts filling the next partition, but meanwhile the first partition is available for playback. So the camera can record take two while it is playing back take one. And the live real time signal is always playing out over another channel. Name me any other camera system in the world that can do this (there is none!). It's amazeballs.

AbelCine with IB/E makes the HDx2 optical adapters which are used by I-Movix to mount large 2/3" zooms on their 35mm sensor Phantom cameras.

 

[Bruce Watson]

Yeah, except that's not what they're using at the French Open.

The cameras are from I-Movix and are called Sprintcams, which in their heart use Phantom cameras as the "engine" to their system.

You mean these: SprintCam Vvs HD? Holy cats! I thought the angles of view were almost the same -- turns out they were exactly the same. And I was pretty sure I was seeing 10x or higher, so something in the 300-1000 fps range. And these things will do 2600 fps in 1080i, continuously.

How much light does it take -- can they still do this at night under the stadium HMIs? Maybe we'll see some this coming weekend and find out. ;-)

It's amazeballs.

You got that right! And to think, 100 years ago we were just inventing the whole concept of "over cranking" -- an actual human was turning an actual crank on the side of a camera somewhat faster than normal (which averaged out to around 18 fps), using really slow B&W film on a flammable nitrate base.

We've come a long way baby!

 

[Noel Evans]

Australian Open uses the High Motion II, assuming its a similar set up to the sprint cams.

 

[Bruce Watson]

How much light does it take -- can they still do this at night under the stadium HMIs? Maybe we'll see some this coming weekend and find out. ;-)

Duh! Silly me. Turns out that Roland Garros doesn't have lights. Or a roof. Tennis as it should be. But I won't get an answer to my question about how much light it takes to run these cameras at the high frame rates they use to get the excellent slow motion replays at the French Open.