Special Cameras at the London Olympic Games

Among the innovative system was a X fly camera above the Serpentine in Hyde Park. The X fly covered the Triathlon swimming and the Marathon swimming event by following the athletes 900m on their competition delivering excellent images from a new viewing point. The images were covered by a Sony F23 with a 22x Fujinon lens and transmitted wireless via a Link HD RF transmitter.

Kitecam balloons delivered beauty shots from the Equestrian Cross Country event at Greenwich Park and from the Beach Volleyball matches at Horse Guards Parade. A Sony HDC-P1 with a Canon wide angle delivered its signals a fiber video/data/power cable from a height of 80 meters to the OBVans on the ground.

For Archery, Badminton and Rhythmic Gymnastics XD motion delivered its X tracks systems. The track systems followed the athletes during their quite different performances and matches.

LMC provided Antelope HyperSloMo cameras for various events like Basketball, Badminton and Hockey. All the Antelopes were running on the latest software. The Antelope controller now connects to the EVS servers. At the beginning of every replay mark an In-point is marked and at the end of the replay an Out-point is sent to the EVS. If the operator likes the clip, he can use one of two push buttons that will clip the replayed sequence onto the EVS without any delay. In the display of the Antelope Replay Controller the operator will see the EVS clip number for confirmation.

The operator now can assign an individual EVS page to each of the two push buttons, thus being able to use different locations e.g.  for sports clips and beauty shots. This workflow has  saved a lot of time for the EVS operator, because he did not need to look for the sequences and clip them individually: it happen automatically and chronologically onto a dedicated location on the EVS server. If the same person also was operating both, the EVS and the Antelope controller it made the operations even easier.

Apart from that the Antelope now also offers color control. The multi matrix allows much better and selective adjustments, supported by an increased overall sharpness due to the added detail enhancement board.

Finally, together with Deep Vision, XD motion provided Mini X track with motion control for the commentary positions of the rights-holding broadcaster France TV at the Opening Ceremony, the events in the Aquatics Center and the Athletic Events in the Olympic Stadium.