Camera Corps Streamlines Live HDR Sports Production With AJA Gear

High dynamic range (HDR) has transformed the sports fan experience, enabling broadcasters and OTT providers to deliver live events with remarkably lifelike colours.

Despite the popularity of HDR, many production chains still use standard dynamic range (SDR) equipment, even for events captured in HDR. This mix of technologies can create colour management complexities throughout the production process. Camera Corps, a UK-based specialty camera solutions provider, addresses these challenges for major broadcasters with its camera expertise and innovative workflows. Central to many of these solutions are tools like AJA ColorBox for colour management and conversion and 12G-AMA and 12GM Mini-Converters for high-quality audio embedding and signal format conversions.

Camera Corps has worked on several prestigious international sporting productions, providing camera equipment rentals, camera customisation services, crew, wireless and cabled connectivity products, and comprehensive on-site and remote support services. The company takes pride in delivering unique camera experiences that enhance live broadcasts; its many achievements include two of the world’s biggest sporting events of 2024, among countless others.

When servicing live sports productions, the Camera Corps team deploys hundreds of cameras and must adapt each to the client’s unique broadcast requirements. Ensuring seamless signal compatibility and quality across different formats and venues is also part of the job. "Planning for large-scale projects typically starts two years prior to the event. This past summer, we supplied approximately 450 equipment pallets and 150 crew across multiple sporting venues in Paris," Camera Corps Technical Director Andy Sanders explained. "The level of detail required to ensure that every item of equipment was seamlessly integrated into the broadcast infrastructure took an incredible number of resources, from planning logistics to crew training, building, testing, on-site delivery and deployment, and more."

Establishing a workflow for HDR and SDR conversions for landmark events
Considering all the SDR and HDR equipment involved in modern sports workflows, it is crucial for Camera Corps to convert signals between both ranges while maintaining signal integrity. Similarly, the ability to handle multiple LUTs for these conversions with low latency and high-quality processing is essential. This past summer in Paris, Sanders and his team deployed ColorBox to enable HDR conversion of high-speed cameras, which offer dual outputs for live and replay and are designed to capture slow-motion shots of dynamic sporting events, such as pole vault and high jump. The lightweight design of the cameras and AJA gear made it easy to integrate into their setups without being intrusive.

"Our goal was to capture the highest possible quality images and ensure smooth transmission from the cameras to the vision mixer in the correct HDR format. We started with camera signal acquisition and used AJA 12G-AMA and 12GM Mini-Converters to convert the signals. We then tapped ColorBox for SDR and HDR LUT processing requirements and our converters to handle various other technical requirements," Sanders explained. "The high-quality signal conversion that our AJA gear provided fit seamlessly into our workflow, enabling us to support specialty camera deployments across multiple event venues."

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