CBS Sports to Use Bevy of 8K, 4K Cameras at Super Bowl for Super-Zoom, Slo-Mo

Though CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus predicted at NAB Show New York that broadcasting live sports in 4K or 8K would take the same slow, methodical migration path as HD (see 1810170060), 4K and 8K cameras figure prominently in the network's plans to telecast the Super Bowl Feb. 3 from Atlanta, it said Thursday. In so doing, CBS will continue “its long tradition of introducing innovation and technology to the sports broadcasting industry at the Super Bowl,” including when in February 2004 it became the first to broadcast the Super Bowl pregame, game, halftime show and postgame show in HD. This year, for the “first time ever on any network” in the U.S., CBS will use “multiple” 8K cameras for the telecast, plus 16 cameras with 4K “capabilities,” it said. The 8K cameras will use a “unique, highly constructed engineering solution” to give viewers “dramatic close-up views of the action” from the end zones, it said. The “bonanza” of 4K cameras “will provide additional live game camera angles, and give the production the ability to replay key moments of the game in a super slo-motion and an HD cut-out with zoomed-in perspectives with minimal resolution loss,” said CBS. Its Super Bowl plans also include using a live, wireless handheld camera showing augmented-reality graphics and “up-close camera tracking on the field,” it said. “This will allow the camera to get closer to these virtual graphics in a way that gives viewers different perspectives and angles including never-before-seen field level views of these graphics.”