Live From the US Open: New Automated Production Helps ESPN Go Live From All Courts Fletcher Tr-ACE robotic camera, SimplyLive ViBox systems drive outer-court coverage By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor
Friday, August 31, 2018 - 2:41 pm
Print This Story
Story Highlights
For the first time, ESPN is covering all 16 courts at the US Open, thanks to a new automated production system deployed on the nine outer courts at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center (NTC). Having debuted at Wimbledon in June, the Fletcher Tr-ACE motion-detecting robotic camera system has been deployed on each court (with four robos per court) and relies on SimplyLive's ViBox for switching and replay and an SMT automated graphics system. With this workflow, one robotic camera operator and one ViBox director/producer is covering each of the nine courts.
ESPN has deployed the Fletcher Tr-ACE motion-detecting robotic camera system on the nine outer courts at the US Open.
With one production room and one rack room here, we are essentially replacing what would have traditionally been nine mobile units, notes ESPN Director, Remote Operations, Dennis Cleary. We've been working on this plan for a long time, and there is just no way we would have been able to cover all these courts in a traditional [production model]. SimplyLive has been used at other [Grand Slams], and it was used with Fletcher Tr-ACE at Wimbledon but not really to this extent. We feel that we have taken it to the next level [and] are integrating it with our overall [show] and adding elements like electronic line calling and media management.
With all 16 courts now accessible, ESPN can present true first ball to last ball live coverage across its linear networks and the streaming platforms (a total of 130 TV hours and 1,300 more streaming on the ESPN app via ESPN3 and ESPN+. Moreover, ESPN was able to provide the USTA with live coverage of last week's qualifying rounds for the first time, deploying the Tr-ACE/ViBox system on five courts.
In addition, ESPN, which serves as the US Open host broadcaster, has been able to provide any rightsholder with a live feed of a player from its country - regardless of the court and including qualifying rounds.
On the Outer Courts: LiDAR Drives Fletcher Tr-ACE System
Four Fletcher robotic systems with Sony HDC-P1 cameras have been deployed on each of the nine outer courts: two standard robos (traditional high play-by-play and reverse-slash positions) and two Tr-ACE automated robos (to the left and right of the net).
The LiDAR inside the puck (center) tracks every moving object on the court and provides the two Tr-ACE cameras with necessary data to automatically follow the action on the court.
From the beginning, one of ESPN's big focuses was increasing the camera quality of what was being done on the outer courts, says Fletcher Sports Program Manager Ed Andrzejewski. So we built everything around the Sony P1's to increase the camera quality to match the main [TV courts]. When they send a feed to the rightsholder in Australia and the player they are interested is on one of those outer courts, they wanted the basic quality to be the same as in the bigger stadiums. I think we've been able to accomplish that.
Between the two Tr-ACE cameras is the puck, which powers the Tr-ACE system at each court via a custom-designed LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) image-recognition and -tracking system. The LiDAR tracks every moving object on the court (the ball, players, ball kids, judges) and provides the two Tr-ACE cameras with necessary data to automatically follow the action on the court. The LiDAR can also sense fine details on each player (such as skin tone or clothing color), allowing the cameras to tell the difference between a player and other moving objects.
A Room of Its Own: Nine Mobile Units in a Single Room
ESPN has erected a dedicated production room for the Tr-ACE/ViBox operation across from its NTC Broadcast Center. Inside this room are nine workstations featuring one Fletcher Tr-ACE camera operator and one ViBox director/producer each.
ESPN has deployed nine workstations featuring one Fletcher Tr-ACE camera operator and one ViBox director/producer each for outer court coverage at the US Open.
The Tr-ACE operator monitors the camera coverage and can take control of any of the four cameras at any point during the match. Meanwhile, the ViBox operator cuts cameras and rolls replays. An SMT touchpad at the workstation is used only during prematch coverage. All other graphics elements, including the scorebug and lower-thirds, are fully automated, and informational elements are triggered by preconfigured settings in SMT's data feed (for example, 10 total aces or 10 unforced errors).
The camera op and director are constantly communicating, Andrzejewski explains. ESPN put a lot of trust in us with this, so we brought out the best people we could and have some of the best [robo operators] in the business here. There was a lot of onsite learning, but we were able to give everyone lots of time on the system during setup and qualifying.
The coverage does not feature commentary, so all nine courts are being submixed out of a single audio room using a single Calrec audio console and operator.
ESPN has erected a dedicated production room for the Tr-ACE/ViBox operation at the US Open.
Also inside the automated production room are a video area to shade all 36 cameras, an SMT position to manage the automated graphics systems deployed at each workstation, an electronic line-calling position (which was not available for the systems at Wimbledon), and a media-management area, which was used during qualifying to record all five courts (this operation moved to the NTC Broadcast Center once draw play began on Monday).
Since the automated-production systems had to be up an
Most recent headlines
02/01/2025
NextGen TV, aka ATSC 3.0, continued to advance in 2024, with some notable developments and renewed hopes that a deregulatory-minded Federal Communications Commi...
02/01/2025
Artificial intelligence is undoubtedly the hottest topic in the tech industry today, displaying all the excitement, apprehension and hype of the early days of t...
02/01/2025
STAMFORD, Conn. NBC Sports said 2024 was its best year in terms of ratings since 2016. Its success was fueled by the Paris Summer Olympics as well as its NFL co...
02/01/2025
MSG Networks has been dropped from Altice USA's Optimum-branded pay TV offerings after the operator and the regional sports provider were unable to reach a ...
02/01/2025
How color film and analog color TV works with bluescreen / chromakey
Graham Quince January 2, 2025
0 Comments
A deep dive into VFX History looking at ...
02/01/2025
Hulu Series Interior Chinatown Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton January 2, 2025
0 Comments
Colorist Aidan Stanford delivers complex gra...
02/01/2025
Bulk Font Replacement in Premiere Pro
Andy Ford January 2, 2025
0 Comments
If you want to change the font of multiple text layers in Premiere Pro, the...
02/01/2025
Streaming media's impact on the media and entertainment industry continued to widen in 2024, as more sports rights moved to streaming platforms and the rapi...
02/01/2025
ATLANTA The board of directors for Gray Television Inc. has unanimously voted to change the company's name to Gray Media, Inc. effective Jan. 1....
02/01/2025
Official television and film archives exist to preserve the history and creativity of media. But even these formal institutions do not contain everything that h...
02/01/2025
Welsh succeeds Renard Jenkins, who has reached the end of his two-year tenure in the role
By Jenny Priestley
Published: January 2, 2025
Welsh succeeds Ren...
02/01/2025
Creator Economy Isn't Really Like Film/Show Entertainment
Andy Marken January 1, 2025
0 Comments
Come on Barry, you're good at this sort of s...
02/01/2025
Blackmagic Design Announces New Lower Price for Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera ...
02/01/2025
Hollywood Lighting Hacks: Big Looks, Tiny Budget
Sean Alami January 1, 2025
0 Comments
Discover how to create stunning Hollywood-style lighting using ...
02/01/2025
Comscore Appoints New Chief Marketing Officer Measurement innovator taps TV, streaming and digital ad veteran Jackelyn Keller for brand and product marketing e...
02/01/2025
A fresh start to 2025 with new faces, familiar voices and plenty of Irish music ...
02/01/2025
GeForce NOW is kicking off 2025 by delivering 14 games to the cloud this month, with two available to stream this week so members can get started on their New Y...
01/01/2025
Marcy Lefkovitz, Dalet SVP product innovation, details the findings of the companys report into the future of newsrooms, including leveraging AI, optimising mul...
31/12/2024
Rashad Frett shares a moment with Michelle Satter at the 2023 Directors Lab. Pho...
31/12/2024
What's Ahead in 2025? OWC's Larry O'Connor Offers Some Bold Predicti...
31/12/2024
Blackmagic Design Announces New Features for Blackmagic Cloud
Brie Clayton December 31, 2024
0 Comments
New thumbnail icon view, clip metadata inspect...
31/12/2024
5 Features in DaVinci Resolve You're Not Using (But You Should Be)
Kasia Jarco December 31, 2024
0 Comments
In this video we are going to talk abo...
31/12/2024
Back to All News
NFL Christmas Day Games on Netflix Average Over 30 Million Global Viewers
Entertainment
31 December 2024
Global
Link copied to clipboard
...
31/12/2024
Back to All News
Squid Game' Season 2 Smashes Top 10 Records as Millions W...
30/12/2024
Leaving Thomson after 21 years, former Managing Director David Quin reflects on a career spent navigating the shifting sands of global media development. From r...
30/12/2024
[Pictured: a still from Love Lies Bleeding, one of the 100 Sundance-supported titles that opened to wider audiences in 2024]...
30/12/2024
Digital Domain Creates Groundbreaking VFX for Venom: The Last Dance, Bringing ...
30/12/2024
Internet Giant GMP Builds Tokyo Virtual Event Space with URSA Broadcast G2
Brie Clayton December 30, 2024
0 Comments
Blackmagic URSA Broadcast G2 and ...
30/12/2024
Renderboxes launches Photon, a no-compromise transportable high-performance work...
30/12/2024
Shinobi II Monitor Supports Canon, Sony, Nikon - Touch to Focus with New Feature...
30/12/2024
30 Dec 2024
In a Groundbreaking Agreement, VEON and Starlink to Bring Starlink ...
30/12/2024
The pace of technology innovation has accelerated in the past year, most dramati...
29/12/2024
Gyeongnam Culture and Arts Foundation (GCAF), an active promotor of cultural and artistic diversity, has chosen Ikegami UHK-X700 camera chains for integration i...
27/12/2024
After starting 2024 with hopes that the transition to streaming might finally produce a more stable, profitable businesses, the media and entertainment industry...
27/12/2024
Broadcasters ended the year with hopes and fears about how the federal government will regulate the TV industry in 2025. While the incoming Trump administration...
27/12/2024
NVIDIA's AI Podcast gives listeners the inside scoop on the ways AI is transforming nearly every industry. Since the show's debut in 2016, it's gar...
26/12/2024
Talking about artificial intelligence in 2024 is akin to talking about the internet in 1994 everyone's excited about it and thinks it will have an enormous ...
26/12/2024
Back to All News
Netflix NFL Christmas Gameday Reaches 65 Million US Viewers
Entertainment
26 December 2024
GlobalUnited States
Link copied to clipboard
U...
26/12/2024
Back to All News
Check Out All the Must-See Trailers From Netflix's NFL Chr...
26/12/2024
Back to All News
Beyonc Delivers Epic Gift of a Halftime Performance "Beyonc...
26/12/2024
Back to All News
Get in the Game With Squid Game' Season 2 Complete Coverage Guide
Entertainment
26 December 2024
Global
Link copied to clipboard
Are...
26/12/2024
This GFN Thursday wraps up another incredible year for cloud gaming. Take a look back at the top games and new features that made 2024 a standout for GeForce NO...
24/12/2024
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) is calling for applications from South African film and television filmmakers to be part of the NFVF's delegat...
24/12/2024
WASHINGTON, D.C. The Federal Communications Commission Enforcement Bureau said Paramount Global is being fined $244,952 for violations of emergency alerting rul...
24/12/2024
NEW YORK Carnegie Hall's video-streaming channel, Carnegie Hall+, said it will celebrate the holiday season by offering a wide selection of holiday-themed o...
24/12/2024
LOS ANGELES PlayersTV, an athlete and fan-owned media company, has announced the acquisition of Cloud Media Center, an AI-driven sports adtech and media distrib...
24/12/2024
The Best Playlists of 2024 The top playlists we created in 2024, from dad rock to dembow.
By
Tara Bellucci
December 23, 2024
Image by Kelly Davidson
Tak...
24/12/2024
Editor's note: This post is part of the AI Decoded series, which demystifies AI by making the technology more accessible, and showcases new hardware, softwa...
23/12/2024
At IBC2024, Grass Valley CTO Ian Fletcher told attendees at GV Forum that broadcast is now an IT industry. During our discussions at the show, TVBEurope heard v...
Live From the US Open: New Automated Production Helps ESPN Go Live From All Courts Fletcher Tr-ACE robotic camera, SimplyLive ViBox systems drive outer-court coverage By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor 
