Camcorder News

An all HD 2008 Olympics in Beijing
There is some great footage coming out of this year's Beijing Olympic games.  No surprise since Beijing is the first Olympic game to be recorded and broadcast entirely with HD systems.  I wanted to know what cameras were using to capture that HD footage.
In particular, I wanted to know how they caught some of the more spectacular footage of divers plunging into the water and arrows flying at targets. I also wanted to compare shots grabbed by the big expensive cameras uses by the networks and some of the
better prosumer footage being grabbed by spectators sitting on the sidelines.  So I went looking for details. Here is what I have found so far.

In the US, the Olympics are being broadcast and streamed by NBC.  Most of the event footage NBC is showing is actually captured by Chinese videographers. Some of that footage was captured from Chinese shoulder mount cameras, but a good chunk of the footage is being grabbed by a wide range of exotic robotic camera setups. 

Primary Chinese News Gathering Cameras
According to Broadcasting and Cable Magazine the Chinese are operating 60 mobile units shooting with a mix of Thomson LDK hard cameras and Panasonic P2 solid-state camcorders. All these cameras are configured capture 50 Hz, 1080-line-interlaced HD with video compressed using a 100 Mbps JPEG 2000 codec.

Thompson cameras:
Thompson claims it is providing 70 percent of all the HD cameras the Chinese are using including:

• 425 LDK 8000 mk II WorldCam cameras ($116,600 list)

• 42 LDK 8300 3X slow motion Sportscams 

• 60 LDK 8000 2X slow motion SportCams. 

• 15 Infinity DMC1000 HD camcorders

Clips captured with the Infinity cameras are off-lined in the field on EDIUS laptops using an external USB REV PRO drives. Edit lists created from the laptops will then be transferred to EDIUS NLE workstations for online finishing. The finished program files will be delivered to the Chinese news network for storage, sharing, and management.

Panasonic Cameras:
Panasonic cameras used by the Chinese include 100 DVCPRO P2 HD cameras including:

• P2HD AJ-HPX2100 (a $27,000 2/3' 1080i 3-CCD 16:9 camera) 

• AJ-HPX3000 (a $48,000 2/3' 1080p 3-CCD 16:9 camera)

Robotic God's Eyes
Many of the more interesting shots are being captured by specialized robotic rigs. These are designed by Garrett Brown
(best known as the inventor of the steadycam or remote camera design house Camera Corps

Robotic cameras include:
There are lots of robotic camera setups at the Olympics. Here are a couple of my favorites.

• MobyCam: A torpedo like underwater HD camera pulled underwater along the black lane stripe at the bottom of the pool to film swimmers as they race through the water.

• Divecam: A camera in a plastic tube that follows Olympic divers as they soar though the air and splash into the pool.
  

• Flycam: An ultralight wired 24 pound camera that flies 2,000 feet over the canoeing venue in Beijing

• BullsEyeCam: Mounting a camera within archery targets allows follow the arrow as it is released from the bow and flies right at the target (and the camera).
  

Check out this Wired post for details and photos of Garrett Smith's exotic cameras,

Primary News Gathering Cameras used by NBC
You can't expect Chinese videographers to films interviews with American athletes and coaches.  That's the job of the NBC crew.
NBC crews are using a variety of Sony HD camcorders to record athlete arrivals, interviews, venue press conferences and any other assignment that requires portable recording and capture.

Sony claims it has equipped NBC with 100 Sony XDCAM HD optical disc cameras.  These were handed over to NBC in June 2008 so they did not have a lot of time to master them.

Sony cameras NBC is using include:

• 30 PDW-700 cameras ($29,800, 2/3-inch CCDs MPEG-2 1080i)

• 42 Sony HDC-1400 studio cameras, ($65,000, 2/3-inch CCDs, 1080i memory stick camera)

• HDC-3300 3x Super Slow Motion cameras ($118,000.00)
  

NBC is running an operation llargely built upon Microsoft technology.  The player is Microsoft Silverlight, Microsoft MSN is handling Internet delivery,  48 XT servers are handling the flow. Of course other vendors play their part.  Avid has supplied NBC with a Unity ISIS storage system with 224 terabytes of storage. Cisco is providing communications infrastructure. Broadcasting and Cable Magazine has a good overview of the NBC production setup in Beijing.

No Citizen Videographers Allowed in Beijing
I have talked several freelancers who arrived at the Olympics hoping to make a few bucks video taping events. Best as I can tell they are out of luck unless they work for one of the big organizations that bought the rights to film at the Olympics (like NBC). No unofficial videography  with good quality cameras allowed 

In the Official Spectators House rules and the Official List of Prohibited Items the Chinese make it clear that they have banned spectators carrying 'professional cameras' and 'tripods' at all Olympic events.

Anyone who watched the opening ceremony noticed that a large chunk of the athletes filmed the event from within using hand held camcorders. Have not seen any of that video up on YouTube.  Don't expect to see much of this video on the web in the US while the games are running. 

I am trying to get a photographer in Beijing to go on the record about what they are being told.  Anybody got any stories they want to relate?