Netizen: "Thanks cheetah"!
Author | Home scale from the planet Magnesia
In the men's short track speed skating 1000m final that ended last night, South Korea and Hungary were captured by the field cameras to catch foul actions, and finally China's Ren Ziwei won the gold medal.
After the game, South Korea and Hungary raised objections, but in the face of the "ironclad evidence" of high-definition video, the ISU did not accept the objection and chose to respect the final judgment of the referee team present.
On the Internet, netizens are also talking about this, a Winter Olympic games, the camera on the sidelines has "accidentally" become the protagonist!
cheetah? Flying cats? It's all black technology
First of all, correct the small mistakes of the majority of netizens.
The photography system used in the capital stadium of the short track speed skating final is "Flying Cat", which consists of an array of 40 4K ultra-high-definition cameras plus three 8KVR cameras.
The "cheetah" that netizens are talking about is actually located in the speed skating competition hall - "ice ribbon".
The names of the two are slightly different, and the use scenarios are slightly different.
In terms of events alone, speed skating emphasizes "speed" more, and spectators pay more attention to the "impact" of athletes accelerating in the straights.
According to statistics, the average speed of male athletes in the distance of 500 meters is about 15m/s, and the fastest peak speed can reach about 17m/s ~ 18m/s, which is about equal to 70 kilometers per hour. This places extremely high demands on the high-speed movement of the camera.
Previously, there was no corresponding special equipment in China, and there was only one similar set of equipment in the world, which had been used in the speed skating event at the Sochi and Pingchang Winter Olympics. The appearance of the "cheetah" can be regarded as making up for the lack of live cameras that cannot track shooting quickly.
According to the CCTV documentary, the full name of "Cheetah" is the high-speed 4K rail car system, which is a complete set of camera platform systems independently developed by the Central Radio and Television Corporation for the tracking and shooting needs of large-scale rapid straights and curve sports projects, and the running speed of its rail cars is up to 25m/s, and the acceleration can reach 3.5m/s.
In the actual speed skating hall test, the railcar showed good tracking performance, and the cameraman was able to adjust the composition in time during rapid movement, thus achieving low-latency, high-quality and stable 4K camera.
In contrast, short-track speed skating focuses on tactical coordination between team members and "cornering games" between players, so it is more reasonable to choose a "flying cat" with a multi-camera ultra-high-definition camera array.
From the screenshot of the previous competition, the "cheetah" is installed on the outside of the runway, and it is easy to have a blind spot in the perspective of a single perspective, and when shooting with a wide angle, there will be some fences in the lower left corner of the picture, and the "flying cat" can achieve full perspective coverage.
In addition, in addition to broadcasting the picture, the system camera also plays a role in assisting the judgment. In the final, the hidden fouls of Korean and Hungarian athletes can be hidden, relying on the "golden eye of fire" of this set of high-definition cameras.
It is worth mentioning that "Flying Cat" is different from "Cheetah", not a specific name for this photographic system, but a synonym for "ropeway camera system technology". Therefore, we can hear the name of "flying cat" in football matches, concerts or other large-scale cultural programs, but this "flying cat" is not another "flying cat", and it cannot be confused.
Back to the game itself, the overnight explosion of the "Cheetah" also shows that the sports event is "getting fairer".
In fact, in previous Olympic Games, new technologies have been helping referees solve game errors that are difficult to identify with the naked eye, thus avoiding the possibility of misjudgment. Various technologies, including trackers and quantum timing, are constantly emerging and being used in sports events. In addition, black technologies such as AI referees and computer vision tracking continue to empower sports competition.
Watching the Olympics, it is becoming clearer and clearer
At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the Chinese people saw from television an outstanding Olympic Games produced and broadcast by high-definition (HD) standards.
14 years later, high-definition live broadcasting has long been popularized, and the breakthrough in photography technology has brought more exciting perspectives to the olympic audience, such as ultra-slow motion, "bullet time" and so on.
According to statistics, in order to ensure the broadcast technology, the Olympic BroadcastIng Service Company (OBS) and its partners have invested more than 660 cameras, including 148 special cameras, 13 orbital camera systems (cheetahs), 11 ropeway camera systems (flying cats), 10 bullet time playback systems, 33 virtual reality cameras and 25 ENG cameras.
For a global audience, these new video technologies bring more realistic details, as well as richer colors.
According to the International Olympic Committee, this Year's Beijing Winter Olympics will not only be broadcast in 4K ultra-high-definition format for the first time, but also some important events will be broadcast in 8K format. China Central Radio and Television Corporation will cooperate with Japan's NHK for 8K program production. NHK produces figure skating events, while CCTV is responsible for 8K production for ceremonies, freestyle skiing, snowboarding and speed skating. In the main media center (MMC), there is a huge display of 15×8 meters, with a resolution of 7680×4320, which is used to display the results of 8K production.
In addition to improving image quality, another application of 8K is in the field of VR, and the Winter Olympics are expected to produce 70 to 80 hours of 8K VR content, including six 180-degree cameras and one 360-degree panoramic camera will be put into use.
But from the feedback of social media, although the visual impact brought by 8K photography technology has made the audience marvel at VR live broadcasting again, the heat still stays in the perspective of media promotion.
This "new technology", which has been pinned high hopes on by countless people, is still bound by various factors in 2022, which is inevitable.