Mass Media & Technology

Golf OBs or Others - Do they leave cameras outside?

(July 2017)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
MO
Mof
mapperuo posted:
derek500 posted:
On a regular European Tour event they cover three or four holes from the towers. When the last 'TV group' has finished a hole, the camera is disconnected and moved to the next empty tower along the course and so on.

They also have a couple of roving crews who can quickly cover a non 'TV group' player who's doing well.


I take it in that situation they have pre-cabled all the towers so they are just plugging and playing almost with the camera. As it'll be the cable laying and truck end thats the biggest time in a rig? Attaching a box lens and sled to a camera must be the work of two people what 20 minutes?



The course is pre cabled. The cameras are connected back to a number of nodes which are connected to the TV compound. At an event such as The open, the nodes will be permanent of semi-permanent enclosures with underground fibre to the TV compound. On a weekly tour event they are temporary and connected via multicore fibre overground.

Though there are large lenses on some cameras, they mostly have Canon HJ40 or similar ENG style lenses to avoid breaking down the camera for a move.
MA
mapperuo
Rkolsen posted:
noggin posted:
[
A decent box lens is probably worth more than the camera head, and easier to sell on... Removing a camera but leaving the cradle and lens in-situ would probably not be an approach taken. Either you have security or you don't.

One other major reason for leaving cameras out overnight - particularly in winter - is that you avoid fogging due to temperature changes.


How easily and quickly could a box lens be mounted to the tripod and camera dock?

About the lenses - the canon UHD Digisuper 90 costs $187,980 via B&H. I just bought one - thank god my Amex Centurion card has no limits. I'm going to mount it to my $600 DSLR that I got at Costco. Wink (Wish I could find the YouTube video of someone doing just that).


If you have to ask, someone has deffo done it. Very Happy That the rule right?

Markymark and Rkolsen gave kudos
RK
Rkolsen
mapperuo posted:
Rkolsen posted:


How easily and quickly could a box lens be mounted to the tripod and camera dock?

About the lenses - the canon UHD Digisuper 90 costs $187,980 via B&H. I just bought one - thank god my Amex Centurion card has no limits. I'm going to mount it to my $600 DSLR that I got at Costco. Wink (Wish I could find the YouTube video of someone doing just that).


If you have to ask, someone has deffo done it. Very Happy That the rule right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-baLc-POBM


That's the video I was thinking of!
MA
Markymark
noggin posted:
Rkolsen posted:
I imagine the risk of theft may be low. They'd be easily detectable on the black market and useless without the rest of the camera chain.


That would be less of an issue if you sold them in a different country with fewer issues... (A lot of stolen kit in the UK doesn't stay in the UK...)

You're right that cameras aren't that useful without a CCU - s.


I visited Kuwait TV a couple of months after it was liberated from the Iraqi invasion. The Iraqis had taken just about all of the control panels and surfaces for the vision mixers and edit suites, but left the CAA virtually unscathed 😝
BL
bluecortina
Rkolsen posted:
noggin posted:
[
A decent box lens is probably worth more than the camera head, and easier to sell on... Removing a camera but leaving the cradle and lens in-situ would probably not be an approach taken. Either you have security or you don't.

One other major reason for leaving cameras out overnight - particularly in winter - is that you avoid fogging due to temperature changes.


How easily and quickly could a box lens be mounted to the tripod and camera dock?

About the lenses - the canon UHD Digisuper 90 costs $187,980 via B&H. I just bought one - thank god my Amex Centurion card has no limits. I'm going to mount it to my $600 DSLR that I got at Costco. Wink (Wish I could find the YouTube video of someone doing just that).


But do bear in mind any reasonably sized production facility is likely to get quite a discount on that price.
BL
bluecortina
noggin posted:
Rkolsen posted:
I imagine the risk of theft may be low. They'd be easily detectable on the black market and useless without the rest of the camera chain.


That would be less of an issue if you sold them in a different country with fewer issues... (A lot of stolen kit in the UK doesn't stay in the UK...)

You're right that cameras aren't that useful without a CCU - but that won't kill the market for spares, replacements etc. - and it's not unheard of to deploy more heads than CCUs and re-patch.

In the 90s, it wasn't unusual to see stolen camcorders in use in the Middle East (and I believe Russia) still with their original liveries.


Quote:

There have been cases in the past here in the US of people who stole relatively new cameras selling them on eBay or Craigslist and have been caught. Although for some reason there's been several camera thefts and robbings of crews in the San Francisco Bay Area and I believe the suspects haven't been caught.


All it takes is someone who doesn't care to buy the gear. If it's stolen to order it would be undetectable.

However manufacturers can and do register serial numbers of stolen gear, so if you take a stolen camera for servicing, or try to buy a new licence (say to unlock high frame rates etc.) you will be detected (as licences are locked to serial numbers).

With newer camcorders (less so with system cameras) there are also diagnostics, cloud services etc. that will be connected to - which may well alert a manufacturer to a stolen camera. (A bit like iPhone IMEIs being registered so that they can't be used if stolen)

Quote:

As an aside with the fact that cameras are light weight and easily dockable to box lenses - could productions leave the wiring, dock and lens in place and secure the camera overnight?


A decent box lens is probably worth more than the camera head, and easier to sell on... Removing a camera but leaving the cradle and lens in-situ would probably not be an approach taken. Either you have security or you don't.

One other major reason for leaving cameras out overnight - particularly in winter - is that you avoid fogging due to temperature changes.


We had a couple of new HD handheld cameras stolen from the back of our largest production studio overnight. Strange really as the cameras were by and large always taken back and locked in the camera store each and every night. Don't really know why this happened.

Newer posts