Cinevideo capturing everything from football to fashion with OB5 Ultra E-Motion
Pescara, Italy-based Cinevideo Srl is a young and dynamic company specialising in various aspect of television production, including sports and entertainment. One of its long-term collaborators is Aret Video & Audio Engineering Srl, with which it has worked closely on the development of a number of OB vehicles.
Reflecting on the design and deployment of the OB5 Ultra E-Motion facility, Andrea Buonomo – co-owner of Cinevideo Srl with his brother Roberto and father Adriano – comments: “It is no coincidence that the latest OB van that we designed together and [was then built by] Aret Srl is a concentration of technologies, and also sports a very elegant look. OB5 Ultra E-Motion is the first vehicle in Italy entirely dedicated to high-speed shoots and can accommodate up to four I-MOVIX Vvs HD cameras SprintCam or Super Slow Motion with EVS HD or BLT HD. It is also equipped with an important matrix by Ross, Kroma broadcast monitors, a compact 1RU intercom system by Kroma Telecom, and a prestigious and unique D-Flicker by I-MOVIX that eliminates flickering of the lights.”
The ultra-slow motion system SprintCam by I-MOVIX uses a special camera with a 2K sensor derived from cinema and can capture up to 2600 fps, with several intermediate ramping speeds available. The result is the ability to capture details that would simply not be detectable with more conventional cameras.
“Basically we are talking about a new language of images,” says Andrea Buonomo, “and our Ultra E-Motion OB5 is chosen by broadcasters such as Sky Italy for their unilateral production and to differentiate them from the official feed of the host broadcaster. This is due to its ability to offer a truly unique and subjective imagery. We [have] used it in football, rugby, events and advertising and we would like to use it more and more even in different broadcasts, such as fashion shows and TV shows in general, like we did with The X-Factor.”
The data flow of the I-MOVIX SprintCam is so high that the camera does not ingest a continuous loop. It has a memory that can take a number of seconds (often 20 for 500 frame per second shoots).
“After several field tests we chose to shoot in Italian stadiums with a frame rate around 300 fps for a better insertion of the clip in the stream of live images,” adds Buonomo. “This means that we can insert our HyperSlow motion images into the normal flow of replays without stretching the chain of replays, and avoiding the risk of losing important live action.”
Generally, the shooting position for this hyper-slow motion I-MOVIX camera in football is behind the goal. The SprintCam is placed on a Hi-Lo by Egripment which allows an optimal shooting position within 90cm to 1.80m. It is generally located more or less along the line of sight of the players in order to be as close as possible to the penalty area and then obtain the best shots.
The lens is the Canon 95x, which delivers very good performance in terms of brightness and zoom. In general, each operator follows the entire field from the same location throughout.