Vision mixers: Switching it up

As chairman of the UK’s Vision Mixers Guild and a leading vision mixer in sports for more than 25 years, Trevor Bailey is well-placed to chart the changes affecting his area of the industry. Broadly speaking, he says, they can be separated into two types – operational and engineering-based.

On the operational side, the number of sources typically confronting vision mixers for live productions has continued to grow – for example, with additional beauty-cams often being added to sports events on an annual basis. The adoption of 4K/UHD is also having an effect, with Bailey estimating that it is now involved in “about 50%” of sports productions. But despite all this, he does not feel that “the operational side of things – ie. how it is experienced by the vision mixer – has changed a ridiculous amount over the past few years.”

From an engineering perspective, however, it’s a different story. “Below the covers”, as Bailey puts it, the transition from SDI to IP is continuing apace in broadcast centres and OB trucks. The call to accommodate UHD and HDR is leading broadcasters to undertake substantial upgrades, while the fact that the topic of formats remains a live debate in the industry continues to complicate new investments.

“Like the transition from SD to HD, [moving to 4K] does not tend to make a great difference as the mixer is either set up for one format or the other. From a vision engineering side of things, I am aware that it’s more…