Sports broadcast news from Broadcast RF

Broadcast RF, specialist provider of wireless camera equipment to the TV industry, will be showing its latest RF systems for outside broadcast featuring an entirely new Refcam system which captures high definition video yet is small enough to be head-mounted. While linesmen and referees accepted Broadcast RF’s first Refcam, and Sky Sports used it to great advantage in its sports coverage, the new system has improvements all round.

It features a tiny new camera with an HD-SDI output that feeds directly to a transmitter, making the whole system smaller and lighter and nicer to wear, besides using less power. Broadcast RF supplies this with full remote camera control so that OB vision engineers can control the picture, exposure and colour matching from the van. The transmitter is a Cobham NANO HD which will operate throughout an entire match on one battery. The whole system is worn in a pack under the referee’s match day shirt, and will be ready and on display at IBC.

Broadcast RF will also show its own new RF Fibre Extension System – a product the company created because they could not find a commercial product that exactly fitted its requirements. It is used to transport the received RF signals distances of 500 metres or more, in those situations where the receiver cannot be located by the OB truck.

Consisting of just a 19” rack base unit and a waterproof fibre remote adaptor box, there is not much to rig at the venue, and the system is powered by SMPTE fibre. It was used for the radio cameras and the helicopter cameras at the FIFA World Cup, the roving cameras at Wimbledon and touchline cameras at the weekly Rugby League games.

Also on show will be a brand new compact wireless camera system using the Sony PMW 500 camcorder. It features a new mounting bracket which carries a compact 1 watt power amp, the camera control receiver and the antennas, and is based upon the latest, smallest, Vislink L1700 transmitter. The camera control uses a compact data receiver to communicate with a large range of Sony cameras without an external interface.

At only 1.7 kg, the system was deployed at Hoylake for the BBC for the Open Golf Tournament. It achieved 100% RF coverage of the course, leading the CTV OB unit manager to describe it as “the best RF camera operation I have ever experienced at an Open Golf.”