This post-season, a 2.5- by 1.5-ft. radar box is giving Fox Sports more analytical information than the broadcaster has time to incorporate. Danish company IGS originally designed the radar box, dubbed TrackMan, as a coaching tool used mostly by golfers. For the past two years, however, Fox Sports tracked the TrackMan and finally took the opportunity to integrate it into this year’s coverage of the ALCS and World Series.

When it comes to life on the front bench of a sports production, it is often the technical director who is in the hot seat. The role demands a tremendous amount of focus and clearheadedness, for it is the technical director (TD) who turns the mental vision of the director and producer into a comprehensive story that smoothly takes the viewer from one camera shot and replay to the next.

The Paris-Tours cycling race has traditionally been an opportunity for innovation by outside-broadcast production company SFP. In 2006, it used the race to produce the first high-definition live RF coverage of cycling. This year, the company produced a 3D RF transmission from the race, the first live 3D coverage of cycling to date.

Following last week’s adoption of the ATSC Mobile DTV standard, companies like Harris Broadcast are hard at work to make Mobile DTV viable for the consumer marketplace, and looking forward to broader applications of the technology.

By company estimates, Gerling and Associates builds 90% of the video-production trucks and trailers in use in North America today. The biggest issue facing mobile-production vehicles today, the company finds, has little to do with technology, trailers, or tires.

The Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, Oct. 13-18 at the O2 Arena in London, provided a showcase for both the venue and new camera technology in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics. Among the highlights? Wireless cameras mounted on apparatus podiums.

Sony’s XDCAM EX product line for field-based acquisition continues to grow, with the rollout of two camcorders this week. The PMW-350 is the first to have ⅔-in. CMOS sensors, and the PMW-EX1R offers DVCAM recording for users still working in standard definition.

Margaret Dempsey McManus, a former Baltimore Evening Sun reporter and syndicated columnist who was the widow of sports broadcasting legend Jim McKay, died last Thursday in her sleep of congestive heart failure at her Monkton home. She was 89.

Nearly 15 years after the Los Angeles area’s two professional football teams left for other cities, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a bill to clear the way for a new stadium seen as pivotal to drawing a team to the region. Ever since the Los Angeles Raiders (now in Oakland) and the Rams (St. Louis) left after the 1994 season, civic leaders, politicians, and the National Football League have considered various schemes in a number of cities to woo a team to L.A., the nation’s second-largest television market. But the latest effort, to build a 75,000-seat, $800 million “green” stadium in City of Industry, a warehouse and shopping district 15 miles east of downtown, is considered one of the more viable to come along in a long time…

CBS Sports’ coverage of The NFL on CBS through the first six weeks of the season is averaging a national rating/share of 10.2/21, up 5% from last year’s 9.7/21.

The Sports Video Group is pleased to announce that ViewCast has renewed as a Platinum sponsor. ViewCast Corporation, headquartered in Plano, Texas, develops hardware and software for the transformation, management, and delivery of professional-quality video over IP and mobile networks.

The Sports Video Group is pleased to announce that Salzbrenner Stagetec has renewed as a Premier sponsor. The Salzbrenner Stagetec Mediagroup is a consortium of three enterprises that are market leaders in audio, video, and intercom technology.

The Music Engineering and Technology Alliance (METAlliance) certified four microphones from Audio-Technica’s 40 Series: the AT4080 and AT4081 bidirectional active-ribbon microphones, the AT4050ST stereo condenser microphone, and the AT4047MP multipattern condenser microphone.

Mark Sharp joined Ross Video as regional sales manager for the mid-Atlantic region, where he will be responsible for managing sales in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C.

Harris confirmed its full support for the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers recommended practice for the implementation of the Broadcast eXchange Format (BXF), a data-exchange format that standardizes interfaces among systems dealing with content metadata, content movement, schedules, and as-run information.

Sistemas de Video Comunicación S.A. (SVC) will be the official reseller for JVC Professional Products in Argentina, providing sales, service, and support for the company’s entire line and showcasing a variety of JVC products at CAPER 2009 Oct. 28-30 at the Centro Costa Salguero facility in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Comcast SportsNet will be the exclusive television home of the 34th Annual Marine Corps Marathon from Washington, DC, Sunday, Oct. 25, starting off with a special SportsDay Live at 7:30 a.m. ET, hosted by Brent Harris and Jill Sorenson.

Fox Sports Southwest was a star at the seventh annual Lone Star Emmy Awards, winning six of the awards, which honor broadcast excellence in Texas.

NBA TV and NBA.com are ready for the tipoff of the 2009-10 National Basketball Association regular season, as the league’s cable network and Website announced their plans for the campaign.

Lesley Visser, a Hall of Fame sports journalist for CBS Sports, loaned her talents to BBC World News America in a special report examining the National Football League’s plans to spread the game throughout the world.

The exclusive U.S. television rights to the Barclays English Premier League will remain with Fox Sports International through the 2012-13 season, Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News reports.

Richard Sandomir of The New York Times has advice for networks covering Major League Baseball’s postseason.

Sexual insensitivity, or guy talk? While ESPN Major League Baseball analyst Steve Phillips deals with the fallout of his affair with production assistant Brooke Hundley, Phil Mushnick of the New York Post isn’t surprised by what he called the latest example of insensitivity toward females by the total sports network.

The City Council of Doraville, GA, unanimously rejected a plan to build a new stadium for the National Football League’s Atlanta Falcons, April Hunt of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

With tipoff of the National Basketball Association season fast approaching, its cable network, NBA TV, reached carriage agreements with Time Warner Cable, Cablevision Systems, and Dish Network, reported David Tanklefsky of Broadcasting & Cable.

Major League Baseball analyst Steve Phillips was granted an extended leave of absence by ESPN to deal with family matters after the news broke that he had an affair with 22-year-old production assistant Brooke Hundley, Richard Sandomir of The New York Times reported.

Michael Hiestand and Michael McCarthy of USA Today debated whether Major League Baseball is wise to schedule the dates for the World Series well in advance of the actual games.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today wonders why TBS didn’t pursue someone like Vin Scully or Bob Costas for its Major League Baseball postseason play-by-play duties, instead remaining loyal to the oft-criticized Chip Caray.

Austin, TX-based vacation-rental service HomeAway joined CBS’ roster of advertisers for Super Bowl XLIV Feb. 7 from Landshark Stadium in Miami, Wayne Friedman of MediaDailyNews reports.

ESPN Major League Baseball analyst and former New York Mets general manager Steve Phillips had an affair with ESPN production assistant Brooke Hundley, who then taunted Phillips’ wife after the affair ended, Jeane MacIntosh and Dan Mangan of the New York Post reported.

Fox’s Joe Buck and Tim McCarver were strangely silent about three missed calls by umpires during Tuesday night’s American League Championship Series contest between Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, writes Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell says the league hopes to start playing multiple regular-season games in Britain in the next few years. He also says putting an NFL franchise in London is of "tremendous interest."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he'd like to see more National Hockey League teams in Canada.

The NFL’s Green Bay Packers are the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team in the United States. Since the start of the current football season, a new Lectrosonics wireless system has been used at the stadium to ensure pristine audio quality, excellent range and the freedom to adapt to evolving RF conditions.

Golf Channel recently added a 32-fader Solid State Logic C100 HD-S broadcast console to its Control Room 2, where it is being used in tandem with an existing C100 HD in Control Room 1.

The FOX-owned SPEED network is bringing the action and excitement of motor sporting events to viewers’ living rooms via Linear Acoustic’s UPMAX 5.1-channel upmixing technology.

During the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics Berlin 2009, as Jamaican athlete Usain Bolt broke the 100m world record, live feeds of the race were being distributed instantaneously thanks to Blackmagic Design signal conversion technology.