Sitting at home and watching the races on Trackside or TAB TV has become the option of choice for many racing fans, but there is plenty going on behind the scenes to make sure the pictures reach your living room.
Matt Smith looked at a day in the life of the Trackside crew in Otago-Southland from a very wet harness racing meeting at Oamaru on a Sunday earlier this month.
SATURDAY
The broadcast truck and satellite trailer arrives from Timaru, where it had been used for a thoroughbred meeting on the Friday. A ''scratch crew'' of six staff arrives in Oamaru to ensure the outside broadcast can get off the ground, even if roads are closed overnight.
SUNDAY
7am: Technical support staff leave Dunedin to arrive in Oamaru by 8.30am, including Otago-Southland manager Murray Wilson.
''The technical support crew had an hour's start on everyone else, and everyone else turned up at 9.30am when the van was plugged up and the satellite was ready. It was a good example of a team working under extreme conditions.''
9.30am: The Trackside crew - 12 for this meeting - congregates at Oamaru racecourse for a briefing with Wilson and director Jess Murphy.
''We had a few production details for that as we had a presenter [Dave McDonald] on that day.''
Included in the production requirements for the day are a list of McDonald's interviews and an ''Aussie preview'', in which McDonald outlines his selections in seven to eight minutes for each race which will be replayed on Sky Racing in Australia later that morning.
10.30am: After the satellite connection has been unpacked and set up, the engineer powers it up.
''The engineer confirms everything is running OK - on this occasion, it wasn't. So it is a bit of a heart-stopper - the satellite is your Achilles heel, as there is only one of them.''
There were some issues with the satellite which Wilson put down to the bad weather on the day, similar to the rain fade message on your Sky signal.
Only Ascot Park and Forbury Park are ''fibre'' venues with permanent links in place. These meetings don't require the satellite to establish a signal. All satellite bookings are made through a company in Washington DC in the United States.
11am: Murphy sits in the director's chair, after technical checks as all seven cameras around the course come ''online''.
She contacts the main control room at the Avalon studios in Wellington to set up the connections for the day and to run through camera checks and sound checks before linking up with the studio director at one of the New Zealand Racing Board's two suites at Avalon.
''She's chatting to [studio director] David Diehl and they're discussing a strategy of getting into the day. The clock winds down, and away we go. We get Dave [McDonald] up on camera and we're into it.''
A minute-by-minute script, produced in Wellington, gives the crew - and the studio crew - an idea of their requirements for the day, although the nature of live racing means delays can happen.
11.37am, race 1 and onwards: Murphy has seven cameras to use throughout the day, and cuts cameras through the race, calling the camera number to advise which camera shot she will be coming to next.
The two side-on cameras placed high in the grandstand are the main cameras used throughout a race.
One is used for close-ups and trailing back through the field when Murphy uses the split-screen when the field is in the back straight, far from the camera.
''At least three to four of those cameras are doubling up and covering the stipendiary stewards' requirements,'' Wilson says.
The ''stipes'' can have four angles recorded simultaneously throughout the race and provided to them on a four-way split-screen in their room, in order for them to check for interference during the race or to use the footage during an inquiry.
5.10pm, 1hr after the last race: Oamaru has more permanent cables in place than many other tracks in Otago or Southland, so the crew's packing-up process is simpler than elsewhere.
The broadcast truck and the crew then head back to Dunedin or Invercargill, depending on their home base.
Wilson estimates the crew is now covering three to four meetings a week which can end up being 12-hour days with travel included.
The pluses of the job include being in the great outdoors on ''good days'', and also the chance for progression within Trackside.
Some school leavers pick up jobs at Trackside and work up to other jobs within Trackside or in the television industry.
''They can graduate and move on career-wise''.
• Note: Matt Smith worked at Trackside from May 2008 to December 2012 as a daily producer and the harness racing producer on Trackside and TAB TV.
Trackside
At a glance
ROLES OF THE CREW
• Director: Runs the whole broadcast, co-ordinating the cameras, sound and video replays, along with being in constant contact with the studios in Wellington to update any information.
• Colour correction unit (CCU) operator: Tweaks with the raw feeds from cameras to ensure the camera exposures are constant when they leave the track.
''On a very bright day, we need to be filtering it back so it reaches you in a picture at home which has nice exposure. On a very dull day, we need to increase the intensity of the camera.''
• Sound operator: Puts the right audio source on line at the right time - be it commentator or presenter at the appropriate level, and the right amount of sound effects during a race.
• VT (videotape) operator: Cues up footage of races to use as replays following a race. Also can record interviews to be played out later in the day.
• Camera operator: Provides pictures back to the truck to be used in live coverage
FACTS AND FIGURES
• Trackside, the broadcasting arm of the New Zealand Racing Board, provides outside broadcasts of all official totalisator meetings in New Zealand and takes in coverage from, and sends to, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, the United States, France and South Africa.
• Trackside delivers the broadcast of 1056 meetings in New Zealand every year.
• 120 staff are employed by Trackside in operational roles across the Wellington head office and five regions.
• Trackside broadcasts 55,000 races a year - domestic and international. On Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, there is usually more than 18 hours of continuous live broadcasting in a day.
