It seems Fox Sports have gone all out this year to capture the World Series of Baseball in all it’s glory using a variety of cameras including 8 super slow motion dedicated devices. While the majority of the 41 cameras they will use will be 30 HD game cameras i.e. 1080p for live play, the rest is a mixture of diverse high frame rate options for replay and call analysis as are flying wire cameras.
It is unclear which models of camera they will be using but Phantoms by vision research are mentioned which are among the most used for their ability to review a shot immediately without encoding the data and the ability to save to hyper-fast flash media, along with 360fps and 960fps options which are probably from other manufacturers.
Fox Sports World Series Broadcast Slow Motion Interesting quote from the press release:
“We will have eight Super Slow Motion and Hyper Motion Cameras, including the FOX Phantom Cameras, at either side of the plate to capture at-bats and close plays at a blistering 1,500 frames per second,” said Michael Davies, FOX Sports SVP of Field & Technical Operations.
“Quite simply, it’s more Motion Cameras in play than at any other baseball game on any network this season.”
FOX’s new X-Mo Super Slo-Mo: World Series by MLB:
So have fun watching the 113th World Series starting Tuesday, October 24, 5:09 PM on FOX and see if you can spot some of the cameras in use, better yet see if you can identify them and post your findings below. -HSC
Full Press Release by Fox Sports Below:
Link to FOX SPORTS Site Release Here!
“FOX Sports Teams with SMT, MLBAM to Continue Augmented Reality Strike Zone as Part of Colossal Tech Effort
LOS ANGELES, CA – As part of its massive lineup of production technology, including up to 41 cameras and 121 microphones, FOX Sports is deploying a battery of eight Motion Cameras for the network’s 20th year of World Series presented by YouTube TV coverage, which begins Tuesday, Oct. 24 on FOX.
“We will have eight Super Slow Motion and Hyper Motion Cameras, including the FOX Phantom Cameras, at either side of the plate to capture at-bats and close plays at a blistering 1,500 frames per second,” said Michael Davies, FOX Sports SVP of Field & Technical Operations. “Quite simply, it’s more Motion Cameras in play than at any other baseball game on any network this season.”
FOX Sports continues the groundbreaking audio work it introduced earlier this season at the MLB All-Star Game, placing 14 underground microphones strategically around the playing field. With 80-plus game-action microphones in play on-site, an additional 15 to 20 mics are available for managers, coaches, umpires and players.
In addition, FOX Sports is teaming with SMT and MLBAM to provide an in-perspective strike zone for both live action and replays. SMT provides a live strike zone that incorporates data captured using MLBAM Statcast radar technology. This data shows pitch speed and location in real time. For replay sequences FOX Sports is using MLBAM’s Pitchcast system. This system, which made its debut during the ALDS, shows pitch speed, location and ball trails, while splitting the data into different varieties. Whether it’s showing all first-pitch strikes, pitch sequences to a certain batter or other specific data, FOX Sports has the strike zone covered.
The FOX Sports 113th World Series tech initiatives are the latest effort from FOX Sports Lab, a designed approach to exploring technical partnerships that give viewers a fresh perspective and ad sales teams more targeted sports integrations.
FOX SPORTS WORLD SERIES TECH BY THE NUMBERS
- Staff & Support
140+ technicians
36 support staff
126+ man-hours over nine days - Field Support
384+ strands of fiber
3+ miles of fiber optic cable
3 edit bays
64TB of shared storage
2 Gbps of data connectivity
12 transmission paths - Cameras and Lenses
30 HD game cameras
6 SSMo 6X (360fps)
1 SSMo 16X (960fps)
2 Xmo (2000fps)
2 RF cameras
1 RF stabilized camera (MOVI)
1 aerial camera - Replay
64 record channels
32 playback channels
2,000+ hours of recording capacity - Audio
Submix
All digital audio network throughout stadium
12 RF player, announcer and umpire mics
8 RF FX mics
9 RF base mics
78 field microphones
14 RF infield microphones”
126 man hours over 9 days? Maybe I do not understand the concept of man hours but that does not seem accurate.
It seems low if that is a team statistic but that is the official spec from FOX Sports. If it was an individual hour number then they would have 14 hr days which seems ludicrous. Something is off from the number.