With the popularity of the Winter Olympic Games, the super high-speed 4K track camera system “Cheetah” and the combination of 4K ultra-high definition+8K VR cameras “Flying Cat” have also become popular on the Internet.
On the evening of February 7, the men’s 1000m short track speed skating final of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games saw many collisions and accidents among the competitors. Finally, the referee looked back at the video system and determined that Chinese player Ren Ziwei won the championship and Li Wenlong won the silver medal. After the game, many netizens called directly: “Thank Cheetah”.
For this reason, the program News Hyperlink of the Voice of China of CCTV interviewed Zhao Wei, the senior engineer of the special equipment department of China National Radio and Television Corporation, who is the head of the “Cheetah” research and development team. Let’s look at the secrets together ↓
Have the speed of “cheetah”
Special shooting equipment: 90km/h
“Cheetah”, fully known as the “super high speed 4K track camera system”, is a special camera device independently developed by the Central Radio and Television General Station in the past five years. It is specially used for the broadcasting of speed skating events of the Winter Olympic Games. This Winter Olympic Games is its first appearance.
The reason why it is called “cheetah” is that it is very agile. In the speed skating competition of the Winter Olympic Games, the speed of the athletes can reach 15 to 18 meters per second, which is about 50 kilometers per hour. The top athletes can reach 70 kilometers per hour. The design technical standard of “Cheetah” can reach 25 meters per second, which is about 90 kilometers per hour.
Not only that, “Cheetah” can also accelerate, decelerate and surpass according to the needs of the live broadcast, so as to capture various scenes in the speed skating competition more flexibly and randomly.
Why is “cheetah” not used in short track speed skating competitions?
Zhao Wei revealed that there is only one “Cheetah” system installed in the “Ice Ribbon” venue. The short track speed skating competition that netizens paid attention to on the 7th did not use “cheetah”. Why is this?
It is reported that the high-speed track system has certain requirements for the venue. It is necessary to install the track system behind the sponge cushion of the athletes outside the venue, and also install the isolation plate to ensure the safety of the surrounding personnel. However, the short track speed skating venue did not meet the deployment requirements of “Cheetah”. For the sake of adaptability and safety, the short track speed skating competition did not install the “Cheetah” system.
In addition, the referee system and the television relay system are independent of each other. The referee system will arrange some cameras on the scene to take special photos of key positions in the field or the foul actions of athletes. The referees will refer to the pictures of the referee system more than the live pictures we see on TV.
What are the “reported artifacts” of the Winter Olympics?
● “Time slice”: black technology that can dissect instant
In addition to “Cheetah”, the technical team of the head office also developed a set of AI image processing system for the 8K live broadcast system, so that the wonderful moments of athletes’ competitions can be presented in the way of “time slice”.
On the morning of August 8, with the help of the “time slicing” technology, the audience watched the broadcast of the freestyle women’s grand jump final, where Gu Ailing won the third gold medal for the Chinese delegation. With the help of the video playback, it was as if Gu Ailing had a “split body technique”. From taking off to landing, the soaring track composed of multiple postures was frozen in the same picture.
● The upgraded console “China Red” is coming
As an international mainstream media and rights holding broadcaster, China Central Radio and Television Corporation is responsible for the broadcasting of the opening and closing ceremonies and producing public signals with the world’s leading 8K technology.
At the same time, the main station has also achieved 4K production and broadcasting of the first event in the history of the Olympic Games, and produced public signals for freestyle skiing, speed skating and other projects with 8K technology. Technological upgrading and innovation are only to create the best audio-visual experience.
● Augmented Reality (AR) live broadcast presentation system
The opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games is themed with “building a snowflake”. With full technical support, the broadcast control system team of the main station elaborately built the augmented reality (AR) live broadcast presentation system for the opening ceremony. The virtual snowflakes are all produced in real time using AR technology, and they are played on a large screen at a 50 frame playback rate, which allows us to see the millisecond moment of “Yanshan snowflakes are as big as seats”.
From 8K ultra-high definition broadcasting to self-developed “Cheetah” ultra-high speed track camera system, from AI image processing to augmented reality (AR) live broadcasting, the introduction of high-tech special equipment of the headquarters is helping to protect the coverage of the Winter Olympic Games, and also presents the appearance of a high-level sports meeting for ice and snow fans around the world.
summary
Cheetah owes much to its tracking speed and flexibility, but also to the 4K camera module. The camera module is an essential core component of the optical camera lens. The 4K resolution means that the pixel value of each line in the horizontal direction can reach 4096. Of course, there are different standards for 4K resolution pixel values according to different application ranges.
The 4K camera module now has the same status as the leading role at the summit. With the support of 4K ultra-high resolution module, the video effect taken by the camera can be the same as watching a movie. Every detail and close-up in the picture are like watching in person.
With the development of technology and the improvement of transmission conditions, people have an increasing demand for the definition of monitoring images. The most obvious advantage of 4K technology is the improvement of display resolution, which makes the monitoring images more refined. There are two key factors affecting the picture fineness in monitoring: one is the number of picture pixels, and the other is the vertical resolution of the picture. The more pixels in a picture, the finer it will appear on a picture of the same size, and the smaller the lattice.
The human eye is quite sensitive to the vertical resolution of the image. The higher the vertical resolution, the more details and levels the human eye can identify. The application effect of 4K technology in the field of monitoring is to increase the number of pixels, at the same time, enhance the vertical resolution of the picture, making the details and levels of the picture more accurate. At the same time, with the monitoring of wide-angle special lens, it can achieve greater monitoring coverage. The impact of 4K on the security industry. Under 4K resolution, the system can obtain more detailed features, clearly present the original scene of the monitoring site, and achieve intelligent analysis applications for license plate recognition, face recognition, behavior detection, etc.