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Camera Corps streamlines live HDR sports production with AJA gear

High dynamic range (HDR) has transformed the sports fan experience, enabling broadcasters and OTT providers to deliver live events with lifelike colors. Despite the popularity of HDR, many production chains still use standard dynamic range (SDR) equipment, even for events captured in HDR. This mix of technologies can create color management complexities throughout the production process.

Camera Corps, a UK-based specialty camera solutions provider, addresses these challenges for major broadcasters with its camera expertise and innovative workflows. Central to many of these solutions are tools like AJA ColorBox for color management and conversion and 12G-AMA and 12GM Mini-Converters for audio embedding and signal format conversions. Camera Corps has worked on several international sporting productions, providing camera equipment rentals, camera customization services, crew, wireless and cabled connectivity products, and on-site and remote support services.

When servicing live sports productions, the Camera Corps team deploys hundreds of cameras and must adapt each to the client’s unique broadcast requirements. Ensuring seamless signal compatibility and quality across different formats and venues is also part of the job. “Planning for large-scale projects typically starts two years prior to the event”, says Camera Corps Technical Director Andy Sanders. “This past summer, we supplied approximately 450 equipment pallets and 150 crew across multiple sporting venues in Paris. The level of detail required to ensure that every item of equipment was seamlessly integrated into the broadcast infrastructure took an incredible number of resources, from planning logistics to crew training, building, testing, on-site delivery and deployment, and more.”

Considering all the SDR and HDR equipment involved in modern sports workflows, it is crucial for Camera Corps to convert signals between both ranges while maintaining signal integrity. Similarly, the ability to handle multiple LUTs for these conversions with low latency and high-quality processing is essential. This past summer in Paris, Sanders and his team deployed ColorBox to enable HDR conversion of high-speed cameras, which offer dual outputs for live and replay and are designed to capture slow-motion shots of dynamic sporting events, such as pole vault and high jump.

“Our goal was to capture the highest possible quality images and ensure smooth transmission from the cameras to the vision mixer in the correct HDR format”, says Sanders. “We started with camera signal acquisition and used AJA 12G-AMA and 12GM Mini-Converters to convert the signals. We then tapped ColorBox for SDR and HDR LUT processing requirements and our converters to handle various other technical requirements. The signal conversion that our AJA gear provided fit seamlessly into our workflow, enabling us to support specialty camera deployments across multiple event venues.”

Camera Corps’ use of ColorBox continues to expand, especially with increasing client demand for HDR formats. “We work on a lot of projects where we have to convert SDR signals from certain small-form cameras, maintain signal integrity with 10-bit processing, and correct SMPTE 352 payload IDs”, says Sanders. “ColorBox ensures format consistency and compatibility for necessary video processing downstream. With ColorBox’s onboard storage library and preset management, our team can also handle multiple 3D LUTs efficiently.”

(Photos: AJA Video Systems/Camera Corps)

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