Question about goal line camera angles - why rarely lined up right?

[FiveWeight]

Anyone know why they don’t just make it standard at all levels of football to have a camera in the plane of the end zone line, vertically straight up?

Drives me nuts during a goal-line review to hear commentators talking about whether the ball broke the plane or not, or if a knee went down before the ball broke the plane. Seems like that really shouldn’t even need to be a discussion if the camera was in-line with the goal line and time-synched to cams at other angles.

Otherwise, you have to subjectively determine where the ball is in three dimensional space, from a vantage point somewhere else in that three-dimensional space. Too many angles, measurements, and other variables to factor in and too hard to do in your head anyway. Why not just eliminate all of that? Wouldn’t it be easier to watch a time synched feed of two videos, with one zoomed in on a knee on the frame it touches the ground and the other clearly showing within a pixel, whether the tip of the ball crossed the line?

That recent drive was an example. The difference wouldn’t have really mattered in this case because Purdue clearly didn’t make it. But still - the replay wasn’t in-line with the goal line. Maybe the officials have access to a better angle, but if so, it would be nice if they shared that angle with audiences too.

 

[indykent]

As a cameraman who worked predominantly for ESPN and ABC, and specifically covering Big Ten games for over 35 years, the two biggest reasons are real estate and expense. Almost all football setups use 3 up cameras for play-by-play coverage. Those positions are usually a 20-50-20 yard line positions. Those specific positions are usually built into the stadium's seating areas or into the press box itself. When one of those cameras is doing play-by-play, the other two are usually isolated on the "pit" or on a receiver/defender matchup. Now to the expense. Most games now are covered with a minimum of 8 manned cameras. The three play-play cameras, 1, 2, and 3, the end-zone, cam 4, a sideline cart, cam 5 if room is available to drive it on the near sideline, 2 low endzone cameras on each end looking down the hashmarks, cams 6 and 7, and then a handheld, cam 8, working the near sidelines but can sometimes be sent to the far sideline. If a team is in the redzone, the cart camera will usually go and set up looking straight down the goal line. That's if there is room and at Northwestern there is plenty of room. As far as extra cameras up at play-by-play level at respective goallines, those usually are only used for the very biggest of games. The bigger the games are when you will start seeing sky-cam, a reverse 50 yardline camera across from the play-by-play cams, extra handhelds, a far side cart cam, pylon cams and such. It's all about the budget and the respective audience and whether the extra camera are justified. More cameras mean more cam operators and more replay machines along with the operators needed for those replays. It adds up in a hurry.

 

[FiveWeight]

Thank you for that fascinating perspective, indykent. That makes sense, especially as part of a production crew.

I guess what im thinking is the minimum requirement though shouldn’t require such a low angle as to compete with seating real estate, be high quality, or even manually operated. Instead, all that’s needed is a built-in stadium feature that could be effective even if at a high angle and had to zoom in from the rafters with telephoto. Something more like a wifi security camera, which could be a ridiculously cheap, one-time cost per stadium these days.

 

[indykent]

I will say that stadiums that have an upper deck would be able to accomodate a robotic camera with a zoom similar to the "above the rim" setup for basketball. Camera could be mounted where no seats would be blocked by putting them on the upper deck facades. I could see this working at Rutgers, Maryland, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Illinois, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska. Purdue could mount robos on the front of the pressbox. Penn State and IU would probably have to mount those type of cameras on a mast since neither stadium has an upper deck on the sides. You would also only need one operator to operate both cameras. Maybe it will happen in the near future.