MILTON KEYNES, U.K. AND SAN FRANCISCO —U.K.-based broadcast production company SIS Live deployed its specialty camera systems aboard boats competing in the 2013 America’s Cup to provide close-up action of the sport’s signature racing event.
The U.S. won this year's America's Cup when Oracle Team USA beat Emirates Team New Zealand by 9 races to 8. Photo credit: ACEA / Gilles Martin-Raget
SIS Live has been involved in the broadcast of the competition from the start, back in 2010; throughout the competition, the SIS Live special cameras team worked closely with the yacht designers and racing teams to ensure that the onboard broadcast technology was as lightweight as possible and unobtrusively rigged to prevent any disruption to the onboard activities.
Onboard coverage from each AC72 (the official yacht class that competed in the event), came from six agile and one fixed camera systems controlled by two operators, with four live feeds available to the director at any one time and switching used to select the four active sources. The director also had the option of seeing two quad split screens on his production stack. Sixteen channels of sound were captured from each yacht, including from SIS Live’s in-house designed 5.0 surround sound microphone, deck FX mics, radio mics on each of the crew members and two hull mics rigged inside the hull to capture the creaks and groans of the boats. SIS Live also handled the transmission and reception of all remote camera sources using its RF over IP system and spectrum management expertise.
The race came to a dramatic conclusion in San Francisco Bay on Sept. 25th with Oracle Team USA emerging victorious, reversing an 8-1 deficit and beating Emirates Team New Zealand by 9 races to 8.
