I’m curious as to how a ref will blow their whistle and get instant replay footage within seconds. Can someone explain this process to me?
In: Technology
There are a few different systems but one of the most widely used ones are made by [EVS](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EVS_Broadcast_Equipment)
[LSM-VIA](https://evs.com/products/live-replays-storytelling/lsm-via)
It’s basically just a multi channel video recorder on steroids with instant access to recorded video w/audio
Hope this helps ya.
There’s a whole room (or trailer) full of directors, producers, and editors watching dozens or hundreds of feeds simultaneously. They’re pretty much constantly cutting highlight shots, different angles of play, etc to be ready when the lead director wants a replay.
It’s a huge amount of very fast-paced work.
I worked for live TV news for a few years in the production room and it was fucking nuts. The answer to your question? There is no one answer haha… just a ton of people playing rough shot with a director putting it all together and piecing together a “show” on the fly.
I design control rooms and their replays systems, and its not quite as bad as one might think. On large shows (if run properly) each replay op will have 4-6 camera inputs to watch, with one or two outputs. Ops that have been working for a long time get used to the rhythm of the sport theyre working. Cameras angles are arranged roughly the same way at every venue (partially cuz I do that too, and obviously we have guidelines), so you know the looks you have available. Like others have mentioned, theres a certain adrenaline rush to having a show go well, and when a production crew is working well together the whole thing feels like a well practiced dance.
Unrelated: captioning for live broadcasts is also being typed live by someone. Gotta go fast!
Been saying for a long time that challenge
/replays need to be handled by TV crews who have the correct angle and call within 15 seconds 99% of the time
Basically, you have a device that is recording footage the entire time. It has a single job, which is to remember the last few seconds of an input, and when prompted it plays it back in either in real time or slow motion. The more inputs and footage it can handle, the more expensive it is. My dad uses them when he shoots football, and they’re useful when I have to break a shot and run up the field to get in position for the next play.
You can actually do this yourself in OBS on your computer for streams, with a little effort.
Expensive machines. With turning knobs. Makes the work do much easier. Perhaps you’ve seen the replays done live when they rewind it.
A lot of the camera feed is inserted into a system that is recording multiple angles and that is fast to create “events” with ins and outs.
What happens is that someone is watching and every time they see something cool they will create the event, there is usually shortcuts for -3, -5, -10 and -20 seconds, this way a event is created where the start point is on the correspondent time you pressed.
After that it’s just a matter of knowing if your shot is good when the director calls for the replay, on bigger games and bigger budgets you will have multiple replay operators with multiple cameras, since there is people covering the ball, the off-side line, players near the ball for random stuff, there is the open shot, close shot, slow motion…
It’s really cool to see it happening, it’s a lot of people working together to make it happen and, like a lot of people said here, there is this adrenalin rush that you get on a good show that you can’t describe. I’m working with live events for the past 3 years, did eletronic sports for 2 years and I’m on corporate events for the past year, because the market exploded with covid. I love what I do now, but, there is way more adrenalin on any kind of sport coverage.
I’ve only worked on small set-ups/crews but there’s usually a replay operator in sports broadcast control rooms. They’ll have a rolling recording of a handful of camera angles on a specialized piece of equipment. When the director of the production asks for a replay to show on air, usually of a big event like a goal, they’ll ask the replay op to cue up the goal. The replay op will “jog” back to the point in the recording where the goal happened (usually just a few seconds to a minute ago), while the replay machine is still recording the camera angle in real time. The director will “take” the video signal from the replay machine, while telling the replay op to “roll” their footage and put it on air for the viewer at home.
It’s a lot less editing, in the traditional sense, and a lot more of switching video signals on the fly. Kind of like putting a puzzle together as 5 different people are throwing pieces at you.
Sometimes you’ll see a heavily edited video as the broadcast is going to commercial break, kind of a highlight reel of the last period, inning, etc. I don’t have much experience with that but as far as I can tell, that is done with video editing software (Adobe Premiere, etc.) and played directly out of the computer or done with a much more advanced level of replay equipment.
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