Cameras
There are usually a number of cameras shooting the field, but typically only three main cameras are used for an American football broadcast (one on the fifty-yard line, and one on each twenty-yard line). The cameras with video that will be used with the graphics system have electronic encoders within parts of the camera assembly (in the lens and the moving platform the camera sits on, sometimes called a "panhead") that monitor how the camera is used during the game (pan, tilt, zoom, focus and extender). The encoders transmit that info live 30 or more times per second to the broadcaster's production truck, where it is processed by Sportvision computers (typically one for each camera). A camera with this type of extra hardware is usually called an "instrumented" camera. This information helps keep the yellow 1st & ten line in the proper place without being distorted whenever the camera follows the players or the ball.
In the larger productions, several other cameras can be "instrumented" to work with the graphics system, but these are usually restricted to following additional types: a camera usually placed in a high position to see all the field, typically called the "all 22" camera, and a camera shooting from above one end-zone, called an "end-zone camera", or in the industry often just "camera 4". The Skycam (or moving camera attached to cables above the field) can also be used to draw a yellow line over its video, but the mechanism has some major differences from the typical "instrumented" camera.
Read more about this topic: 1st & Ten (graphics System)
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