R E P O R T A G E
The international television production of the German Touring Car Championship (DTM) in Hockenheim
Motorsport: When cameramen work in fireproof overalls
150 employees – 50 HD cameras on the ground, 18 scaffolds, three risers, cars and helicopters – camera crews in fireproof overalls in midsummer weather – “The Gallery” with three innovative control rooms – new television partner – the smell of petrol and the motto “Loud. Close. Close.” are the cornerstones of the German Touring Car Championship (DTM) season opener in Hockenheim.
Text: Bernhard Herrmann
When 150 creative, editorial and production staff travel to Baden-Württemberg, a hotel that is still available is 28 kilometers away from the action, all cameramen wear earplugs and some have to work in fireproof overalls in midsummer weather, the smell of petrol is in the air, we have arrived at the TV production of the opening race of the German Touring Car Championship (DTM) at the Hockenheimring.
The 32nd DTM season began on the 4.574-kilometre race track near Hockenheim on the first weekend in May. A total of 20 races will be held over 10 weekends on nine race tracks in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Austria and Hungary. 18 racing drivers from 10 nations are the main protagonists of the most popular international touring car series, which lives up to the motto “Loud. Close. Close.”. The rights holder, organizer and marketer of the DTM is Internationale Tourenwagen-Rennen (ITR) GmbH in Stuttgart. The team around the 1st Chairman, Gerhard Berger, who was a successful Formula 1 racing driver for many years, awarded the national television rights, which had been held by ARD for 18 years, to Sat.1 for the first time. The exclusive contract between 7Sports, the sports business unit of the ProSiebenSat.1 Group, and the ITR has a term of two years. The live broadcasts on Sat.1, produced and broadcast in 1080i (ARD 720p), will start on Saturday and Sunday at 13:00 (except for the night race in Italy), with 30 minutes of pre-race coverage, the race and 15 minutes of post-race reports. There will be a varied program of events for the audience at the race tracks. Gerhard Berger wants “every race weekend to be a family-friendly festival”.
This year, the car manufacturers Audi, BMW and Mercedes-AMG are participating with teams. According to the regulations for 2018, the weight of the cars with driver and TV equipment is limited to 1031 kilograms. The racing cars with V8 engines and a displacement of four liters achieve an output of over 500 hp.
According to ITR, media representatives from 18 countries showed great interest, with 210 people permanently accredited for the DTM and 120 only for Hockenheim.
ITR has commissioned Skyline TV from Mainz with the international TV production of the DTM, which can be seen on television in […] countries. Host broadcaster ITR and Sat.1 produce all car races, as in Hockenheim, at enormous expense.
Director Thomas Strobl directs the DTM world feed for ITR. His camera plan for Hockenheim includes a total of 50 HD cameras. These are spread across the race track, pit lane, race cars, speedlifter, cranes, risers and helicopters. One camera is located on a 40-meter high riser and two cameras each on a 70-meter riser. One camera hangs on the crane in the hairpin bend and one on the crane at the end of the home straight. A hothead is mounted on a wall at the end of the pit lane. Three chip cameras record the mechanics changing tires on the race cars above three pits. Another chip camera shows the start lights. CubeCams are positioned above the starting lights with a view of the starting grid and at the entrance and exit to and from the pits. Riedel Communications realized the wireless transmissions for six cameras. Four hand-held cameras with wide-angle lenses were used in the pit lane. A wireless high-speed camera in a quad was available for the grounds of the Hockenheimring. 12 HD mini cameras with 8mm lenses were mounted three at a time in racing cars previously specified by the ITR. Scaffolding of various heights had to be erected for 18 cameras. […] camera positions were permanently wired to the TV compound with a total of […] meters of fibre optic cable. The HD cameras are equipped with 3 x 21x, 3 x 26x, 3 x 70x, 1 x 76x, 12 x 86x and 2 x 101x HD lenses. These cameras ensured that 18 racing cars, protagonists, pit crews, command posts and the audience were never lost from view. Scenes that could not be shown immediately were recorded and, as soon as the opportunity arose, shown re-live from several angles, including in slow motion.
Production manager Claudia Köhler from TV Skyline arrived in Hockenheim on Monday afternoon with a fleet of production vehicles. On Saturday and Sunday, 150 employees will realize the TV production. The multi-channel sound was produced in Dolby Digital 5.1 by four sound engineers, eight sound technicians and […] microphones in the sound control room of two OB vans. Three picture engineers and nine picture technicians ensure brilliant HD television pictures. 11 slomo operators and one EVS operator record all scenes from the cameras that are relevant in any way to the racing action and off the track.
Wolfgang Reeh, Managing Director of TV Skyline, brought along “The Gallery” as a premiere. This is a silver-colored semi-trailer with space for three picture control rooms and an office space, which can be pulled out on both long sides and lowered to wheel height. On the front and rear sides, there are two steps leading up to two entrances with small vestibules. From the rear entrance, behind a sliding glass door on the left-hand side, there are four workstations in “Control Room A” (international). The UHD monitor wall consisting of eight almost borderless 55-inch flat screens, each of which can be divided into 16 camera images, immediately caught the eye with its very wide viewing angle. A […] picture mixer, three command control panels from […] and […] are integrated into the worktop.
Behind a sliding door towards the front, the Sat.1 employees sit in “Control Room B”. There are six 55-inch UHD monitors, a […] picture mixer and also three command control panels. Behind the monitor wall there is a small office and meeting room. Opposite “Control Room A” is “Control Room C”. Four employees work there for the DTM TV, which is produced for the fans and audience at the Hockenheimring. In addition to three 55-inch UHD monitors, a […] picture mixer, two command control panels and a […] sound mixer are integrated there. The three air-conditioned control rooms of “The Gallery” can access all graphics, intercom, image and sound signals. “Working in the three interconnected control rooms enables immediate personal exchange between employees and makes working in the respective separate rooms more relaxed,” says Wolfgang Reeh.
On the Saturday of the race, everyone had to get up early, as the directors‘ meeting took place in the TV compound at 7.30 am. Director Thomas Strobl emphasized that “the change of channel should be seen as an opportunity. Together we want to achieve the goal of producing the highest quality touring car broadcasts. The perspectives have been optimized for this. The technical redesigns will also shape the program. The new editorial storytelling places the racing drivers and teams at the center of our reporting. Now we need to think in new dimensions and get to work with courage and drive.” The staff then manned the camera positions and other workstations in the sunshine and outside temperatures of around 28 degrees Celsius.
A blue helicopter lands on a meadow outside the race track. The Eurocopter EC 120 from HD-Skycam is equipped with a Unimount camera mount. “This is a Danish design, of which there are only two in Europe,” says Klaus Stuhl, company boss and camera operator. The system consists of a 5-axis gyro-stabilized Cineflex V14 HD camera system and a Sony HDC 1500 R camera with Fujinon HA42x9.7 optics, which can be freely swivelled 360 degrees and lowered after the helicopter has taken off. All camera and gimbal functions are controlled via a control panel. The mounts (Unimount, antennas) are approved by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) for this type of helicopter.
Klaus Stuhl works with a 17-inch HD monitor and a seven-inch HD monitor on the co-pilot side. HD-Skycam is responsible for the helicopter and camera technology and Riedel Communications for the transmission technology. The operator has been working at the DTM since 2007 and has more than 6000 flight hours as a helicopter cameraman.
It was only possible to show the kilometer-long wheel-to-wheel duel between racing drivers Timo Glock (BMW) and Gary Paffett (Mercedes-AMG) at speeds of up to around 270 kilometers per hour to television viewers from above with vibration-free moving images using a helicopter.
On the ground, these scenes were filmed on the long straight by a speedlifter, which travels alongside the track at the Hockenheimring at the same height as the racing cars at a distance of around 110 meters at a speed of around 220 kilometers per hour, thus showing smooth TV images. The basic vehicle is a VW Touareg W12 with 450 hp, equipped with camera mounts at the front, on the roof and at the rear (drivable with a lift of four meters). According to Klaus Stuhl, the HD-Skycam camera technology consists of the Cineflex V14 HD, with a Sony HDC 1500 R camera and HA22x7.8 Fujinon optics. The Cineflex is moved with up-side-down software. A vibro-isolator dampens the strong acceleration and deceleration. Inside the car is a 17-inch monitor for Marc Heinemann, who has been the HD-Skycam operator for this TVTEC vehicle for three years. Driver Michael Rathgeber follows the racing action on a seven-inch monitor to his left.
As of this racing season, Riedel Communication is also responsible for the HD mini cameras and wireless image, sound and data transmission from the DTM racing cars as well as radio communication. According to Managing Director Thomas Riedel, up to four HD mini cameras have been installed in race cars selected by the ITR for this purpose. With a 2-way transmission path in the 2 to 3 gigahertz transmission range and a mini video mixer developed in-house in the vehicles, the signals are transmitted to the receivers in the Riedel technology truck and to the OB vehicles. Riedel was also responsible for the entire audio and video distribution network used by the racing teams, timekeeping, race control, car manufacturer hospitality and video walls at the Hockenheimring. Riedel’s Artist Intercom and MediorNet were set up for this purpose. This integrated all TV production units and race control via intercom panels, audio and video, the IT infrastructure for production and all radio communication, including with the racing drivers, using […] radios on […] channels in Tetra digital radio. “The fiber optic-based network in Hockenheim is around seven kilometers long, can be used very flexibly and includes a new audio network,” says Thomas Riedel.
Wige Solutions is responsible for data acquisition and time measurements with graphical display. The new lime green DTM font on the left-hand side of the screen shows the elapsed time, driver with name abbreviations and race position, start number, car make, DRS laps and whether the car was in the pits. Further graphics were displayed as required. When the onboard cameras were “cut”, the speedometer was displayed with speed, revs and the selected gear of the racing car. At the same time, the stereo sound from this car can be heard.
The Sunday race in Hockenheim was won by Timo Glock (BMW) ahead of Mike Rockenfeller (Audi) and third-placed Gary Paffett (Mercedes-AMG).
The Sat.1 program reached 0.63 million viewers on Sunday with a market share of 6.3 percent. On Saturday, 0.70 million viewers watched the race with a market share of 8.3 percent.
Timo Glock told Sat.1 on the podium: “It was the coolest race of my life.”. Jens Marquardt, BMW Motorsport Director, added: “That was the perfect advertisement for motorsport and the DTM.”
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