NEP Germany Captures New Sports Angles with CyanView and ATOM one
ATOM one installation at a basketball venue.
NEP Germany produces content for Deutsche Telekom’s live sport stream Magenta Sport – My Team TV, accessed as an app and through Facebook, YouTube, Livestream and other outlets. Given the competitiveness of live sport streaming today, creativity and viewer engagement are critical aspects of its TV coverage of sports events for Magenta Sport.
In order to add interesting new perspectives and camera angles to the basketball and ice hockey productions, NEP has acquired 14 CyanView Cy-Ci0 RCP multi-camera remote control kits and 30 Dream Chip ATOM one cameras. ATOM one is a line of miniature cameras, capturing at full-HD resolution with capabilities including a wide angle lens and 12-bit recording. NEP Germany is producing about 350 matches in the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL) and 400 matches in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL) this year.
Picture Quality
For the basketball, two Dream Chip cameras are mounted on each hoop, for example, and are controlled by the CyanView RCP. Cameras are similarly mounted to the goal frames for the ice hockey matches.
ATOM One fixed to hockey goal frame.
Zlatan Gavran, Managing Director at NEP Germany, remarked that NEP Group is regarded as a demanding customer when purchasing broadcast equipment and choosing vendors to work with. “For us, the aim is quality – and the system from CyanView and Dream Chip allows us to deliver very high image quality that we do not believe we could have obtained elsewhere.”
Founder and CEO of CyanView David Bourgeois said, “These deployments by NEP Germany are typical, simple workflows that the CyanView RCP handles easily, with only two cameras locally controlled by each RCP – but the panels are also capable of supporting much more complex scenarios with control of an unlimited number of cameras remotely via IP – Wi-Fi and LAN.
“This flexibility makes the CyanView RCP work for many different sports applications. Regardless of the application’s simplicity or complexity, the image quality remains very high, which increases the value the combination of CyanView’s control and Dream Chip cameras for NEP.” Controlling any number of cameras, even for remote production, the RCP has physical buttons for users rather than a web interface.
CyanView Cy-Ci0 RCP
Dream Chip ATOM one camera
Remote Precision
A single CyanView RCP allows the remote control of multiple mini-cameras of different types – including ENG, D-cinema and speciality cameras – and gives camera operators the opportunity to manipulate all functionality – iris, gain, black/white levels and so on – that could be controlled with direct access to the cameras. The RCP can also be used to precisely match colours between cameras.
NEP’s cameras are located in places inaccessible to operators, and are also so small that controlling them becomes difficult without a remote panel. One of Dream Chip’s range of five miniature cameras, the tiny ATOM one is among the smallest full-HD cameras available on the market that has dual 3G-SDI output and a genlock option. It measures 32mm x 32mm x 71mm, weighs 100g and has a global shutter and high sensitivity.
Colour Control
“All ATOM cameras have a built-in Colour Control Unit with extremely low latency and functionality including multi-matrix colour correction, colour temperature settings and profiles, lens shading correction, flare compensation and white balance,” said Stephane Ducobu, Director of Broadcast Products at Dream Chip.
Based on the Sony IMX174 image sensor, its multi-matrix ability allows modification of specific colour areas in the colourspace without affecting other colours, changing colour tone as well as saturation. The camera supports HDR (HLG and PQ) and colourspaces such as REC.709 and BT.2020.
Other interesting sports deployments for CyanView have included the Le Mans 24-Hour, where the Cy-RCP was used to control cameras, including the ATOM one, mounted onboard 17 cars. It enhances the ease of use, flexibility and efficiency in events while adding to the excitement of the coverage. It has also been deployed at major international tennis tournaments, cycling competitions, and high profile sports events across the USA and Europe. www.cyanview.com www.atom-one.de
