The Tornado System on Centre Court at Wimbledon

Developed and introduced as the Tornado system, ARRI Media has teamed the digital high-speed NAC fx Cam from NAC Image Technology, capable of recording images up to 1000 frames per second, with the eQ from Quantel, which allows images to be enhanced and then easily versioned to any required output standard. By expanding the capabilities of the camera with eQ the system becomes a form of workstation that takes care of file down-loading, content management, necessary image processing, file conversion and camera control.

“When we received our first system from NAC” explains Bill Lovell, ARRI Media’s Head of Digital Development, “we decided to focus on the workflow as our first priority. We looked long and hard to find the right ‘box’ that would do the best job for our system, but we also looked for the right people with a similar mind set to ours and the same passion for the pictures as we and our customers have. The guys from Quantel and their eQ is the best and it is great to work with them on making the most out of our system. With eQ and software that Newbury has written specially for us we have something really unique. We have HD or SD SDI outputs that can directly plug into any television infrastructure, plus great and very sophisticated picture processing from Quantel’s version 2 that will be of great benefit to anyone working with our Tornado system from now on.”

		Wimbledon 2004 winner Roger Federer

“We have put together our production expertise, NAC’s willingness to customise their finest high-speed camera and Quantel’s ability to fix workflow on the fly and we’ve got the Tornado” continues Lovell, “with this system, tremendously exciting slow-motion can be delivered. We are pulling shooting and post closer together than ever, bringing powerful post tools to the shooting stage.”

The introduction of the system created widespread interest. In particular, the system has proved extremely popular in the field of outside sports broadcasting with ARRI Media supporting high profile events such as Wimbledon.

The ultra slow-mo images are always highly praised as the Tornado can produce views that no other system can offer, creating replays showing detail that would normally be missed by the naked eye.

BBC Sport has also used the system for coverage of horse racing and golf, and Channel 4 and SKY Sports for international test cricket.