“In sports production, replay clarity is paramount,” said Brad Cheney, director of engineering, MLB Network. “Fans want a replay that is clearly definitive. With TruZoom, we can capture the entire image, then enlarge plays in the same frame so viewers can verify for themselves how close the game of baseball can be when a runner steals a base or a ball flies over the fence. The 4K source imaging provides us an extraordinary look at the game of baseball, and the quality that AJA has been able to reproduce is, far and away, better than any other scaling solution we’ve seen.”
First tested in March, TruZoom was deployed by MLB Network during a handful of regular season games in June, with plans to use the technology in the fall for two Division Series game telecasts. MLB Network’s workflow involves capture with either a Canon C500 or a Sony F55 camera, shooting first base and second base on a preset. The camera signal is delivered over fiber to an OB truck where it is converted back to video and plugged into the AJA Corvid Ultra with TruScale card, which is housed in a custom configured HP Z820 Dual Xeon 3.10 GHz workstation with an NVIDIA Quadro K4000 GPU, with record and playback facilitated via an internal SSD RAID array made up of eight Samsung 840 Pro 512 GB SSD drives connected to an Areca RAID controller.
“The best feature about the 4K imaging with TruZoom is that we can see close plays in a much better light than we’ve ever been able to before and offer our viewers an unprecedented look at the game of baseball,” Cheney said.
Without TruZoom, producing this level of replay required a multi-step process using a server and a DVE, which does not yield anywhere near the 4K quality level.
“Working with AJA has been exceptional,” Cheney added. “The challenges we’ve encountered have been slim to none and the handful of times we needed something fixed or replaced, the response was immediate.”
“MLB Network expressed interest when we first announced Corvid Ultra, and their feedback has helped shape TruZoom into a viable application that is incredibly user friendly for camera operators and editors alike,” AJA president Nick Rashby said. “We’re thrilled to see the applications of TruZoom in live sports broadcast, and anticipate additional inventive uses across customers in live event production, professional AV, broadcast and film.”
