Following last week’s US golf story, CTV is to introduce nine LinkHD wireless camera systems for its live coverage of the Ryder Cup in what is claimed to be the largest and most challenging deployment so far of HD cameras using wireless links.
The 2006 Ryder Cup is to be shot fully in HD with 52 Sony HDC cameras. Nine of these will be wireless and will follow the main players around the course as the four teams play on the first four days of the competition. This is despite the fact that the course at the K Club in Straffan (Eire), is a challenging environment for RF, having a unique ‘personality’ including treelines, foliage and water obstacles.
“We have been testing the HD RF systems thoroughly in Ireland prior to this competition and we are very happy with the way the LinkHD systems are performing and the support provided by Link,” says Hamish Greig, technical director of CTV.
“This is a major event for our high definition wireless camera systems,” says John Mulcahy, general manager of Link Research, “It is the biggest in terms of numbers of systems and the LinkHDs will be playing a key role in covering the competition. It is technically challenging but we have been working with CTV for several months during this year’s European Tour and we know that they have an outstanding technical team and they are very well prepared.”
The LinkHD system was developed by Link Research as the first commercial low-delay wireless transmitter for high definition cameras. The low delay is critical when wireless feeds are to be used alongside cameras on cables as it allows the programme director to cut seamlessly from wired to wireless cameras.
The LinkHD transmitter can be attached to any high definition camera and operates with all HD formats. It has an excellent track record, having been used at the Torino Winter Olympics, the Superbowl XL, the Wimbledon tennis tournament and the 2006 World Cup.
