While the big news from technical facilities provider RaceTech is the launch of Galileo, its largest OB truck yet, the company has also been expanding its remote production facilities in recent months in response to the increasingly hybrid nature of horse racing broadcast and production in the UK.
The company made its first major investment in remote production around two years ago with a post-Covid rethink of its south-west London facility to create a new technical space complete with six galleries, a master control room (MCR) and two replay rooms.
This has now been expanded with the addition of three more galleries, creating eight similarly sized spaces and one larger room.
“It was driven by customer need,” says John Bozza, RaceTech CEO. “Customers are moving forward and looking for synergies, cost savings and efficiencies wherever possible. The number of galleries is based around the fact that the maximum number of fixtures could be up to eight in one day.”
While available for racing fixtures, the ninth gallery could also handle events outside of horse racing.
“It’s not something that we’ve really looked at in the past, but I think that we’ve got that capability now,” he adds. This is enhanced by the unveiling of Galileo, which was designed with flexibility in mind to ensure it can be utilised across other sports and live events.
The design of the new galleries is based on the existing spaces, with many of the same tech choices, including Evertz Nexx routers and Ross Ultra vision mixers. A new Evertz EQX matrix was also installed.
RaceTech has also recently taken on the role of providing the off-course connectivity for TRP-affiliated courses, partnering with BMC Networks.
“We’ve got about 30 racing sites on net now,” adds Bozza. “The MCR monitors the feeds that come in for those tracks, be that horse racing tracks or greyhound racing tracks, and then we push those on to the various rights holders. It’s a big step forward for us as it enables us to offer that end-to-end service – cameras on the course, connectivity, and then off-course distribution to the rights holders.”
The company also continues to invest in camera technology and is trialling automated solutions, initially on greyhound racing.
“Greyhound racing is a simpler model in that the distances that the greyhounds race are fairly standard, there are six dogs in every race, it’s not like the varying field size which you get in horse racing, and so on. The challenge with the AI models is certainly tougher on horse racing than on greyhound racing, but it’s starting to become something that we think could be deployable,” says Bozza.
The focus of any investment in automated and remotely controlled cameras has been to enhance storytelling and offer viewers new angles, rather than just replacing manned camera positions.
“Having cameras that can be remotely controlled can add value to the standard race coverage. So we’ve been putting cameras in parade rings, washdown areas so you see the horses after the race, and in various walkways on racecourses, so you bring more of the event to the viewer. Some of these areas you couldn’t even fit a manually operated camera in, so it’s not about an efficiency play, it’s about adding value.”