Camera Corps Tracks Record-Breakers At Swimming Championships

The 9th FINA World Short Course Swimming Championships were held at the Manchester Evening News Arena between April 9 - 13 and the event was televised by BBC Outside Broadcasts, using the latest version of Camera Corps' Poolside Trackcam plus two under-water flip-turn camera support systems, also provided by Camera Corps.
Camera Corps has long experience in providing high-volume support services to major sports events including the Commonwealth Games, summer and winter Olympics and World Cup Football.
The FINA Championships gave television audiences the chance to see some of the best swimming in the world. Kirsty Coventry won the women's trophy, Ryan Lochte the men's and USA the team trophy.
British swimmers finished fifth in the medals table, behind America, Australia, The Netherlands and Zimbabwe, with three gold, ten silver and eleven bronze medals.
Laurie Frost, Camera Corps Managing Director, said: "We have provided Poolside Trackcam for most major swimming events during the past eight years. For this year's Short Course Championships we deployed our latest dynamic camera tracking system along the full length of the 25 metre pool.
"We have completely updated the electrical track control to introduce higher controllability and more features. Based on our standard 300 mm gauge track, Poolside Trackcam has very gentle acceleration and can advance= the camera to a maximum speed of 3.8 metres per second. The entire tracking system can be operational within 4 hours of delivery and packed away within 3 hours."
Mitchel Randall, Camera Corps' Design Engineer, said: "The new Poolside Trackcam system allows up to eight preset camera positions to be preset. It incorporates the latest low-noise synchronous motor and drive technology with a 12 kHz pulse-width modulation feed for precise speed control.
"Maximum velocity is dependent on the timing pulley size and gearbox ratio to suit load and inertia requirements. Fully programmable S-Curve acceleration and deceleration profiling permits snatch-free take-off, stop and speed synchronisation.
"Live velocity adjustment allows the camera to track at the same speed as the live action. S-Curve velocity profiling is used as standard between each of eight programmable positions. Full TCP/IP connectivity allows programming, live diagnostics and monitoring of single or multiple systems using standard Ethernet technology.”
As well as the tracking system, Camera Corps fielded a Panasonic AWE800 16:9 SD-SDI underwater camera at each end of the pool to capture the swimmers' flip turns. Each underwater camera was equipped with remote pan and tilt.
Further information regarding Camera Corps is available at: www.cameracorps.co.uk.
(KMcA/JM)