[TV Technology]
To honor the nation’s veterans on Veteran’s Day 2011, ESPN presented the “2011 Quicken Loans Carrier Classic,” a groundbreaking live show featuring a matchup between NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball teams Michigan State University and University of North Carolina on the flight deck of the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.
The event, which kicked off at 4 p.m. PST/7 p.m. EDT, garnered ESPN a 2.7 rating, the highest it’s received for a November college basketball game since 2001. Broadcast in both stereo 3DTV and HD, the Carrier Classic presented many creative, technical, and logistical challenges since it was the first production of its kind. President Barack Obama, accompanied by first lady Michelle Obama, kicked off the event with a patriotic message honoring the service of our troops.
“We were extremely pleased to be part of this historic event,” said Dave Miller, senior coordinating producer for ESPN. “Our goal was to offer our viewers something very innovative and unique. The carrier proved to be a very exciting venue for this game.”
LOGISTICAL HURDLES …
WIRELESS RF…
FOCUS ON 3D …
BSI parked its truck—which was responsible for receiving the RF signals and quality control—alongside ESPN’s “5D” truck in a lot about 300 feet from the ship. Besides the fiber run between the ESPN and BSI trucks, cables were also run all the way up to the upper flight deck and around the stadium seating—a relatively long cable run.
ESPN’s need to produce stereo 3DTV alongside HDTV gave rise of the unique 5D workflow—where stereo 3D and 2D are produced on a single mobile unit, SS32, which was custom-built for ESPN by NEP Broadcasting. In the 5D workflow, 3D cameras feed both left and right eye signals into a massive 200×100 Sony MVS-8000x production switcher. Then the left-eye portion of the finished stereo 3D program is used to feed ESPN’s 2D networks. SS32 also has consoles for stereography and image convergence, as well as a Vizrt realtime graphics workflow. ….
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