Interesting observation of 5 Swatch timer crew vs 3 french cup timers.
Except for the elite and juniour "medal" championships the Worlds were timed by 3 people using a single side Lynx and a HD cameral face on at 45 degrees. Most finish orders were manual. Some were photofinish which is where they did something new to me,

I think they were using a scan start trigger because I am not sure how he recorded finishes. I did not see him press a key or trigger button. the other thing that was interesting to me was the use of a small flip board where a volunteer scanned it past the view of the finish lynx camera to show the moto number for indexing. This saved the operator the need to save to new files for each moto but i am not sure he had a backup.

The Swatch team brought lots of gear. 6 or 6 computers, a Chip timing system and 2 Omega cameras as well as photocells, They could barely manage 1 race at a time without making us wait for the next heat. They did manage for the most part to run 2 races but we waited for them more than for the other team who ran a lot more races and racers. They had file management issues i am sure as they were manually assigning new file numbers each moto. They also used an Official to trigger the cameras for each rider. The software they used for the transponders would announce a photo finish for any 2 riders the finished within a preset time to prevent any Transponder overlap. I think thes used 50 thousands of a second as the delay. The program should have been able to output moto transfers but the BMX rulebook is changing ever week. There was at least 1 transponder mixup and at least 1 case where the rider rode a different bike in a final.
The swatch guys were supplying the TV graphics and they looked ok. They definitely have all the gear but they need some smoother procedures. and the file system needs faster save capabilities.

->->I did not see him press a key or trigger button.

They were probably using Lynx's extremely slick "autocapture" feature. Lynx's software can be set up to trigger captures via autocapture OR manual trigger OR photocell trigger. In conjunction with Lynx's auto-iris feature, it's the ultimate set-and-forget photofinish solution. Unique to Lynx.

->->They definitely have all the gear but they need some smoother procedures

Have mercy on those poor Swatch guys, they operate under the handicap of having to use their own equipment and software, even in cases where it is inferior to the best stuff available. Most timing & scoring contractors do not suffer from that restriction, most simply obtain the best hardware and license the best software for the job at hand.

Mercy for Swatchies Skunk??? You are showing a sensitive side I didn't know you had, or you got hit on the head by your surfboard.... Either way, the Swatchies need to make a living just like the rest of us.

I was previously hired to time/score the BMX Worlds and SX races from 2003-2006 using the AMB system. The previous two years they had custom software that was not as bug free as it should have been. That's a combination as Mike said, of the rule book and transfer tables changing weekly. My favorite was the rule that the timekeeper could not verify the transponder finish (deemed official) on the camera system. MANY times I tried to fight that one. They changed it for 07 finally.

When I decided to leave, I did my best to recommend the studs at Matsport to Johan at the UCI. Instead, Swatch offered their services in exchange for sponsorship. Can't beat free timing!

Hi George! How ya doing old dog?

It's interesting that they used an HD camera.

I tried using a Sony HD SR1 as a 'helper' camera at some small-budget road cycling events and found that the lack of a 'sports' mode and the MPEG compression (even at the highest mbs rate) gave a completely useless picture.

I still use an 8-year-old a Sony TRV900 DV camera for this kind of role.