Chicago-based sports production specialists Fletcher Sports completed the first season of MLB and NBA coverage using the I-MOVIX X10 and plan to use its new fleet of X10 UHD systems over the next season to come.
Deploying the X10, Fletcher Sports provided continuous recording in 300fps or 600fps to broadcasters Major League Baseball, and ESPN for the NBA coverage. The X10 system’s compact size allowed Fletcher crews to provide angles from cameras located behind the basketball backboard.
“With continuous recording in 1080P at up to 600fps, replays really look a lot better than anything you can get with the standard 60fps system, where there’s a lot of motion blur,” said Dan Grainge, VP of Fletcher Sports Chicago. “You can tell if a player’s over the line, whether he has possession of the ball and so on. Before using the X10 UHD, it was difficult to do that because you didn’t have all the frames to play with. But now you can slow down any action, reducing motion blur to zero.”
Shooting continuous ultra slow motion in 4K, Fletcher Sports delivered post-shot zooms, using the higher resolution to provide zoomed ultra slow motion shots.
While its broadcast customers particularly like zoom and the X10 UHD’s continuous recording capability as an enhancement for broadcasts in 1080P, Fletcher Sports is also scheduled to contribute to the pioneering 4K public broadcasts of major sporting events planned over the next few months.
The X10 UHD achieves ultra-slow motion, supporting both continuous super slow motion (SSM) and ultra slow motion (USM) at frame rates of up to 1000fps. The X10 UHD now has an increased dynamic range, and also supports higher frame rates in SSM mode (continuous mode).
For very high-frame rate ultra-slow motion in 4K sports coverage, the system operates in USM mode to deliver instant replays of up to 1,000fps. For continuous non-stop recording, SSM mode delivers up to 120fps at 4K. When operating in HD resolutions (1080P or 1080I) X10 UHD offers up to 600fps in continuous SSM mode, and up to 2,000fps in USM mode. The system can also complement these specialized applications by performing in a conventional live camera role.
