That ever-expanding object of desire – Bundesliga in 3D

posted:

16/05/2011

Borussia Dortrmund played Eintracht Frankfurt on the last match day of the season 2010/11

At close of play on Match day 34 Borussia Dortmund captain Roman Weidenfeller raised the Bundesliga championship plate to the skies, to a thunderous roar from the massive crowd packed into the Signal Iduna Park. For the seventh time, Borussia's name will be immortalised on the nation's most coveted "salad dish" – and all the action on the field was broadcasted on Sky and “Liga Total” in stunning 3D.

The TV media service provider Sportcast finished the Bundesliga season2010/11 with the production of another soccer highlight in 3D – Borussia Dortmund crowned their championship-winning season with a 3-1 victory on home turf, relegating Eintracht Frankfurt in the process. Sportcast again had commissioned TopVision to cover the match and the victory ceremony in 3D – this time with ten 3D camera pairs.

The camera plan

Camera pairs #1 and #2 were Sony HDC-1500’s mounted on side-by-side rigs from Element Technica and positioned high next to the traditional HD camera platforms. Camera pair #3 consisted of two HDC-1500’s mounted on an Element Technica “Quasar” mirror rig while camera pair #4 saw two Sony HDC-P1’s on a Steadicam with an Element Technica “Pulsar” mirror rig. Camera pair #5 was a Polecam with an LMP side-by-side rig and two LMP HD:1200 chip cameras. Camera pair #6 (again two HDC-1500’s) was mounted on Elemet Technica’s “Quasar” mirrorrig. The “behind the goal” pairs #7 and #8 were made up of HD:1200 mini cameras fixed on side-by-side rigs from LMP. To cover the victory ceremony in the best way possible two more camera pairs have been set up: camera pair #9 (two HDC-P1’s on an Element Technica Pulsar mirror rig) and camera pair #10 (two HDC-1500’s on an Element Technica side-by-side rig). The left and the right eye camera signals from all the Element Technica rigs were fed into Sony’s fiber optic video transceiver HDFA-200 and send together with the camera, lens and rig control data via one optical fiber cable to Sony’s MPE-200 production processors in the convergence area, located in one of TopVision’s tender truck. All theHDC-1500/P1 cameras were equipped with Canon zoom lenses.

During the match the 3D director in the 3D production area also had the choice of integrateing some of the 2D camera signals (up-converted to 3D via the Sony MPE-200 box) for his story telling. At this production the director Knut Fleischmann mainly used the Spidercam feed. The camera signals were mixed on a MVS-8000 from Sony and recorded on an EVS LSM network for SloMo playback while the 5.1 surround sound was composed on a Stagetec Aurus console.

Party time in Dortmund

Captain Roman Weidenfeller lifted the famous Bundesliga plate to roaring applause around the Signal-Iduna Park, where the partying continued long into the night.

Looking back to the 17 matches of the second round of the German Bundesliga which were produced in 3D, also Sportcast, Sky and TopVision can celebrate the successful introduction of 3D in Germany. And if you feel the enthusiasms of the stereographers, the convergence engineers, the cameramen and all the other specialists involved in a live 3D production you know it’s happening again: 3D has become another viewing experience on our multi-platform TV portfolio.