Drone Camera coming to a hockey broadcast near you soon

[pylon]

Originally Posted by skeena1

Lets keeps in mind its quite likely the camera in the drone recorded the footage, landed and then the footage was uploaded and edited. Not quite ready for "broadcast."

You would be shocked at what you can buy as consumer Joe now. This stuff is moving incredibly fast. I have a DJI Phantom Vision, and it broadcasts FPV straight to the phone or flight goggles, records HD (streams to your tablet in SD) and stays airborne for 25 minutes on a single charge. I made a simple antenna mod to mine, and I can fly it 2kms away, and still have a clean FPV signal. These also have autonomous flight options available that you can load flight plans from your ipad. And if it loses signal, no problem, it auto pilots bake to it's take offl spot, and lands itself.

I just upgraded to the Vision+ which adds a 3D stabilized gimbal for ridiculously smooth video. All this only costs you $1500-$2000 now. And DJI just released light bridge which streams HD from the drone instead of SD. Basically, 5 years ago, these could be sold to the military for $60-100k/copy, and are now available at your local hobby shop. It's scary.

Right now if you want to go full prosumer, and have $10k to spend you can buy drones that can handle SLR's, stay airborne for 40 minutes on a single charge, and shoot cinema quality stabilized video. You can also set up a dual pilot mode, where one controls the craft, the other controls the camera. Sending a broadcast feed from them is entirely doable as well now. And with the 8 prop rigs, which they would likely use for this, they can have up to 2 props fail before they crash.

This is awesome if true.

[PeteMoss]

Based on this video it seems like a player or ref cam that seems like a good idea but doesn't actually add anything (beyond the sound of the guys on the ice). It could probably do something cool in a shoot out though if they figured it out.

[Regular_John]

They use the wire cam occasionally in the Winter Classic and other than the face offs I'm not sure it adds any real value. Getting a top-down view of the face off no matter which dot it occurs on is nice, but other than that there's not much value there.

[To Be Quite Honest]

Originally Posted by Galakanokis

An overheard that follows the play? Would be tough, there's a lot of stuff up in those ceilings. Football is easier for this type of overhead stuff as you generally have open ceilings especially in the outdoor stadiums or at least a lot more room in the domes.

It would be relatively simple to do a cable pulley system to each end. There may be a lot up there but not much below it where the cable and camera would be.

[Hackey]

Definitely a fan of the idea. I've always thought the NhL should look for ways to improve the tv viewing experience. Always thought the string camera the NFL uses would be a good idea.

[Galakanokis]

Originally Posted by To Be Quite Honest

It would be relatively simple to do a cable pulley system to each end. There may be a lot up there but not much below it where the cable and camera would be.

Still be tough. To low to be on the boards and above that you would have to attach at the bottom ring of the second level and that might put you at score board height. Even then you might be to low to follow the play properly. The wide angle is always used because it takes the least physical movement to keep up with the play. Something to close would be jerking all over the place. Plus a cable would only get you down the middle of the ice.

The drone would be cool but don't think it is possible. I did show the video to director of game presentation and a couple of others and their first response was could you imagine if that crashed on the ice or stands?