ESPN 3D Bringing New Camera Technology to College Football Telecasts

When ESPN 3D televises its fifth college football game Saturday, it will be using a custom rig built by camera equipment company Chapman Leonard that places a robotic 3D camera on the first-down marker cart to give viewers a 25-foot-high perspective from the sidelines. Phil Orlins, coordinating producer of ESPN 3D, called the custom rig “the first major enhancement” in 3D coverage for the network in a constantly evolving effort to balance the “impactful visual experience” with “solid documentation” of a sports event. The camera moving along the line of scrimmage is high enough for an overview shot similar to the view from the press box, but with the proximity required for compelling 3D, Orlins told Consumer Electronics Daily in an interview Wednesday.

The balancing act is delicate for sports production teams, Orlins said. “If the 3D presentation isn’t a noticeably enhanced visual experience from 2D,” he said, “then we can’t expect people to invest time and money as viewers.” Delivering the experience requires providing the best shots in addition to offering the depth of 3D, he said. “If someone watches for 10 minutes and sees cool stuff but can’t tell what’s going on in the game, they're going to change channels,” Orlins said. That’s especially a concern as the marketing buzz of 3D wears off and people will have to be motivated enough by content to make the financial and other efforts to buy a 3D TV and wear the glasses, he said.

Coming up with a way to maintain the depth required for impressive 3D while providing overall perspective of a sports event has been a challenge, especially for stadium games like soccer and football, Orlins said. “When you look at something 300 feet away, you lose depth cues coming from your eyes being 2.5 inches apart,” he said. To achieve depth, he said, the camera needs to be within 100 feet of the subject. The robotic camera is controlled by a technician in the truck, and is set up with a tripod to handle typical pan, tilt, zoom functions, Orlins said. The system was developed for NASCAR races, where cameras have to capture speed shots from positions too dangerous for a manned camera, he said. Now 80 percent of ESPN football shots are handled by the robotic camera on the sidelines, he said.

ESPN uses eight cameras in a typical football game, Orlins said, six close to the field. Two, placed midlevel for perspective, are in “safe” locations and provide an alternate way to see the game, he said. They are also used when the cart with the robotic camera changes position. Robotic cameras mounted behind the crossbar of each goalpost provide closeup action. At 10-12 feet above the field, the cameras are high enough for players not to pass in front -- which can cause an interruption in the 3D illusion -- but low enough to make viewers feel close to the action, he said.

ESPN is also using small Sony XMOR handheld cameras, which offer a dramatic change from shoulder-wearying first-gen handhelds. “Everybody in 3D had a huge struggle at the outset with handheld cameras,” Orlins said. The first models weighed 40 pounds and required revolving cameramen to operate cameras in “unmanageable” unbalanced positions, he said. Beginning with last summer’s X Games, ESPN redesigned handhelds, using Sony XMOR cameras “the size of ice cubes,” he said. Power supplies, the Fujinon lens, fiber adapters and other components expand the overall package size, but the handhelds are now about 18 pounds, down from 40, he said. The tradeoff is in lens capability, he said. If a cameraman needs to shoot 100 feet away, the camera might not be able to get in as close as with a 2D lens and couldn’t get in as close as 18 inches, either. “As long as you're working at 4 to 5 feet away,” he said, “you're close enough for comfortable 3D.” The bottom line, he said, is how close the camera can get to the right spots “and get there quickly.” Orlins watched his first 3D game, between South Carolina and Auburn, from the ESPN viewing room last weekend. Despite the tradeoffs, he said he was impressed: “I was overwhelmed by how real the players and coaches looked and by the sense you were on sidelines with them.”

Up next is adapting the Spidercam to 3D, Orlins told us. A 2D Spidercam -- a camera connected by cables to fixed points high in a stadium -- was used to deliver 360-degree camera coverage at the US Open. Orlins hopes a 3D version from Skycam will be in operation for NCAA football in less than a month. He said the Skycam will deliver all the benefits of a camera that moves up and down the sideline, plus “proximity everywhere on the field.” By being slightly above field level, the camera has enough of an angle to see plays well, and by being able to move all around the field, it gives a 3D feel even in 2D, he said. Orlins hasn’t seen the camera in 3D but believes it will provide “the most real 3D” by being close to the subject and not requiring a lot of zooms. “That will present the ultimate feeling of dimension,” he said, “and we believe it’s crucial to 3D’s ultimate success.”

The most effective 3D football shots have been those from the end zone when the center, at about 40-50 feet from the camera, snaps the ball to the punter, who’s about 10 feet from the camera, he said. Because of the predictability of ball and player location, it’s similar to a fixed-location game like tennis, he said, that “definitely creates the feeling you're right there and the ball is coming toward you.” MLB’s Home Run Derby had a similar effect, he said, where a 3D camera was mounted to a cage just over the pitcher’s shoulder. He noted that a player hit two line drives that almost hit the camera. “The crew said next time they'll have to bring a glove for the truck because people were ducking for cover,” he said.

Viewers’ response to 3D football has been about 80-90 percent positive, Orlins said. A few comments have mentioned motion sickness, he said. A constructive criticism involved something that ESPN has been concerned about: changing game coverage from what viewers expect. “We got an appropriate reprimand that we weren’t doing an adequate job of giving scores of other games,” he said, noting that the network doesn’t have a bottom line running across the feed with score updates, or a studio show in 3D. “We were not doing well enough adding that into our regular game coverage so we took that very seriously and will try to do better,” he said. “Some day we might have those, but not right now."

At least one ESPN 3D fan on Twitter was impressed by last week’s game. Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews tweeted last week: “Ne1 else watching this S Carolina v Auburn game in 3D. I'm still not over this! Depth is unreal!”