RaceTech, supplier of technical and brodcast services to the British horse-racing industry, has chosen Ikegami HDK-55 cameras as part of a major upgrade into high definition production. The initial order comprises 18 complete HDK-55 camera chains including triax adapters and base stations plus OCP-300 control panels.
“Many of our courses are triax equipped so we needed the option of running the cameras over long and often unreliable triax cable,” said Nic Christodoulou, director of engineering and technical operations at RaceTech. “Longer term, the courses will be upgraded to fibre and these cameras will allow us to phase this change in as it happens, whilst still easily allowing courses on triax to use the same cameras. Our racing fleet works pretty constantly and we cannot afford to factor camera compatibility into our logistics planning. We have begun the replacement of standard-definition equipment and purchase of extra equipment to meet our ever-increasing workload.”
“The HDK-55 is a high-performance fully digital HDTV camera which is ideally suited to the demands of live outside broadcast sports,” added Mark Capstick, general manager of Ikegami Electronics UK. “Six of the 18 cameras have been delivered with SE-H750 system expanders which convert the portable camera into a full-facility studio camera. RaceTech has also ordered 20 OLED colour viewfinders. This combination of options gives RaceTech’s OB crews the freedom to equip the cameras for a wide range of productions including the ability to reconfigure quickly and easily.”
Ikegami’s HDK-55 incorporates a 16-bit A/D and matching 16-bit digital signal processing to maximise the benefits of high bitrate quantisation. 2/3-inch 2.3 megapixel AIT CCDs are employed to deliver a horizontal resolution of 1,000 lines with 60dB signal to noise ratio at F10 (1080/59.94i) or F11 (1080/50i) sensitivity. The camera can be docked to an optional fibre adapter or triax adapter. In additional to the main output, auxiliary channels are available for a teleprompter and external monitor.
