In November 2017 we produced HC Bilyi Bars against HC Donbass at the rink in Bila Tserkva — two Blackmagic URSA cameras, cut live, on a system we were still building. It was our first work in Ukrainian ice hockey, and it took two years to lead anywhere.
Two cameras, one rink, and a production system that did not yet have a name anyone would recognise.
On 25 November 2017 we produced HC Bilyi Bars against HC Donbass in Bila Tserkva for the Ukrainian Hockey League — a UHL fixture, cut live on two Blackmagic URSA cameras. It was among the earliest productions APEX OS carried. Ten months earlier the same technology had been a proprietary encoder pushing a basketball signal to national television. By this game it was running a broadcast.
Ice hockey is the hardest of the common sports to shoot on a small rig, and it punishes shortcuts in ways football does not.
The puck is small, black, and travelling faster than anything else in team sport. The surface is white and reflective under arena lighting that was not designed for cameras. Play changes end in seconds and the line changes happen while the puck is still live. Two cameras have to cover all of that without ever being in the wrong place, because there is no third angle to cut to when they are. The Ukrainian Hockey League wanted the fixture broadcast. We wanted to find out what our own system could do under a real load, in front of a real audience, with no way to stop and fix it.
A rig this small is a set of decisions about what you are willing to lose. One camera holds the play and follows the puck. The second covers what the first cannot — the far end, the bench, the reaction — so the cut always has somewhere to go that is not a repeat of the shot it just left.
The URSAs gave us the latitude that ice demands. A white surface under arena light will blow out on a camera that cannot hold the range between the ice and the boards, and once it is gone in the shot it is gone in the broadcast.
Switching, graphics and output ran through the system we were building for ourselves. This was one of its first outings on a live broadcast, which is a different test from a controlled one. A production system is not proven when it works. It is proven when something goes wrong during it and the broadcast does not stop.
We were not only broadcasting a hockey game. We were finding out whether the thing we had built could hold one. — Kostiantyn Moseichenko, Well Run
Kostiantyn Moseichenko — Well Run
The match was broadcast. The system held.
Then nothing happened for two years.
That is the part worth saying out loud, because case studies usually skip it. A good first job does not always produce a second one. Budgets move, seasons end, people change roles, and an organisation that liked your work still has to find the moment where it needs you again. We stayed in the conversation and waited for that moment.
It came in October 2019, and from a different door — the Ice Hockey Federation of Ukraine, asking for something entirely different: a technical recording of Continental Cup matches for its coaches rather than a broadcast for an audience. From the season after that, we were producing the Ukrainian ice hockey championship live.
The rink in Bila Tserkva is where that started, on two cameras, on a system nobody outside our own company had heard of.
A two-camera live broadcast of HC Bilyi Bars against HC Donbass for the Ukrainian Hockey League, produced at the rink in Bila Tserkva on 25 November 2017.
Two Blackmagic URSA cameras, cut live through an early build of APEX OS — our own production system, running switching, graphics and output. It was one of the first live broadcasts APEX OS carried.
The puck is small and fast, arena lighting is not built for cameras, and the white ice will blow out against dark boards on a sensor that cannot hold the range. Play changes ends in seconds, so two cameras have to cover the whole sheet with no third angle to fall back on.
Two years later, in October 2019, the Ice Hockey Federation of Ukraine engaged us for technical match recordings at the IIHF Continental Cup in Brovary. From the following season we were broadcasting the Ukrainian ice hockey championship live.
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Our production operating system for multi-camera live events.
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