Fox To Enhance MLB Playoff Telecasts

Isn’t October great? Playoff baseball and new technology to help you see the big games at home like never before.

Building on technologies introduced last year, Fox Sports will enhance its coverage of the American League Championship Series this weekend and the subsequent World Series with improved slo-mo, overlay imaging and ball-trailing graphics.

Last year, Fox unveiled the Phantom Cam — a high-speed camera by Vision Research — for its “X-Mo” ultra slow motion replays. The camera has the ability to shoot between 3,000 and 5,000 frames per second using a Canon 300mm still lens.

Mike Davies, VP field operations for Fox Sports, says his team has been perfecting the Phantom camera throughout this year’s regular season and hopes to incorporate at least three of them into every game throughout the ALCS and the World Series. Regular season games this year have typically incorporated only one Phantom Cam.

“The Phantom Cam was the gift that kept giving last year,” says Davies.

The Fox Sports crew has made some modifications to the cameras to help reduce light flicker. The network is also trying to get its hands on a 4K version of the Vision Research camera in time for the World Series that will allow it to zoom in even further using the extra resolution for close calls.

Fox posted a video on YouTube featuring the Phantom Cam, giving some good examples from last year’s World Series.

New to this year’s baseball playoffs is a picture overlay technology that will allow the Fox crew to air several pitches in the same sequence, giving the viewer at home a new-look pitch sequence shot.

“If there’s a four-ball walk, the viewer can see all four of those pitches thrown at once,” Davies says. “You could see how far off the pitcher was, or determine where a pitcher’s release point is during those pitches.”

Fox is using a product called SimulCam by Dartfish and Sportvision, which is used in other sports, like NASCAR during qualifying rounds. This is the first time it’ll be used for a baseball game, says Davies.

Fox also plans to enhance the ball trail graphics that have been used for a few years now. Previously, when a sports network wanted to show the trajectory of a pitch, it’s always been from an angle directly behind the pitcher. Fox is going to try to show those trails from other angles starting this weekend in Boston.

“We might put a camera at a low angle from third base and the viewer would be able to see the trail as it goes from the pitcher’s hand to the catcher’s mitt from that side view perspective,” says Davies. “I don’t think anybody has seen this before.”

As the series goes on, Davies says his crew will try other angles, such as a low angle from home plate, giving the perspective of the catcher.

For replays, Fox is using ChyronHego’s Paint production tool for telestrating graphics like ball and runner trails, using the technology’s built-in chroma keyer and tracking engine. Those graphics can be tied into the shot from up to three different cameras, giving the viewer at home various perspectives.

The network tested Paint during this year’s MLB All Star Weekend, Davies says. During the Homerun Derby, for instance, it was used to track homeruns and estimate the distance the ball traveled.

“For a quasi-exhibition game like the All Star Game, it didn’t lend itself to the analytical nature of what we might be able to do with it during big games like the World Series,” he says.

Andrew Dodson is the technology editor at TVNewsCheck and is rooting for the Detroit Tigers to go all the way. Follow him on Twitter @AndrewDodson.