A little bit of Thursday's preparations for Super Bowl XL HD broadcast.

[scgalena]

Sorry for the dark shots. The lights were turned off just as I pulled out my low-def camera.


http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/4191/16zd2.th.jpg (http://img136.imageshack.us/my.php?image=16zd2.jpg) http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/1341/27ce.th.jpg (http://img403.imageshack.us/my.php?image=27ce.jpg) http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/5692/37ha.th.jpg (http://img136.imageshack.us/my.php?image=37ha.jpg)

[snodgrass23]

That's pretty cool. Are you working there?

[scgalena]

Yes. In all, there are a total of seven TV freelancers up from the Columbus area. Four are working ESPN's Sports Center at Ford Field, one is at ABC, another at the NFL Network and the seventh person is downtown at the Sports Center complex in the Renaissance.
Sports Center from Ford Field, by the way, will not be in HD Sunday.

[Scott]

Yes. In all, there are a total of seven TV freelancers up from the Columbus area. Four are working ESPN's Sports Center at Ford Field, one is at ABC, another at the NFL Network and the seventh person is downtown at the Sports Center complex in the Renaissance.
Sports Center from Ford Field, by the way, will not be in HD Sunday.


NICE! Are you working in one of the trucks? I can't believe that SC won't be in HD on Sunday--did they just designate all of the available cameras for ABC?

[Smak Runner 2K]

I would imagine so. Although we are starting to see "the bloom" of HDTV sports coverage, there are still things that are cost-prohibitive. I'm sure there are 8,000 HD cameras on the field...so SC is a low priority in the eyes of Disney, in my estimation.

[scgalena]

Sports Center, even though not HD, is still a good sized production using a total of eleven of their own cameras inside Ford Field. They will include two RFs, a Jib, a SteadyCam, a high slash and a reverse 50.

Plan is to strike the desk and equipment from the field when the time comes and move it all up the entrance ramp in less than 30 minutes.

[scgalena]

I now count at least ten Super Bowl TV crew people in the Columbus contingent.

[Scott]

You'll have to post more pics if you get the chance!

[whitllam]

Thanks for the 'behind the scenes' view...I can only imagine the huge undertaking this is if there are 10 people up from Columbus and probably every other major city in the upper midwest.

Off topic rant: I wish they would stop calling this the '40th anniversary Super Bowl' because it's actually the 39th anniversary of the Super Bowl - Super Bowl I was not the first anniversary, Super Bowl II was...stepping down off my soap box now.

[scgalena]

It's over!! 14 hours yesterday, 22 hours today! I'll be sure to post a few more Super Bowl pics after I rest up a bit.

[scgalena]

Super Bowl XL is over but I thought you might like seeing a couple of my SkyCam hardware pictures.

First shot was taken at the operator's (pilot) position high-up in the rafters of Ford Field.
http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/672/img05522ws.th.jpg (http://img78.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img05522ws.jpg)


Second shot shows a remote servo controlled reel with a Kevlar cable going up to a pulley near the roof.
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/8374/img05580zk.th.jpg (http://img151.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img05580zk.jpg)


Each of the four corners of the arena has it's own reel of cable which extends down and across the field to the camera spar where all four cables are joined. The cable is braided and also contains a single-mode fiber optic cable for video and control and conductive copper elements for camera power.
Every so often a reel can become tangled or one of the cables accidentally kinked during an install and the whole length must be painstakingly replaced.
The camera itself is video shaded, along with the rest of the cameras, from inside the remote truck by a video operator. Sometimes a microphone is incorporated with the camera for crowd noise.
Typical SkyCam rental for a game would be around $50,000, not including local install labor.

More information about SkyCam can be found at - http://www.cfinflight.com/pages/skycam.asp