KEY POINTS:
TV3 will be at the mercy of French broadcaster TVH for live coverage of 2007 Rugby World Cup games "whistle to whistle".
The New Zealand channel will be taking a live feed from the French hosts.
Stu McPherson is the executive producer of TV3's coverage and will be heading up six separate sport and news film crews working on the ground
"Whistle to whistle, we'll be in the hands of the French which can sometimes be an interesting brand of coverage," Mr McPherson said.
He said there would be up to 20 cameras capturing the action. And a fly-by wire camera, similar to a flying fox suspended about 30m in the air, would be used at Cardiff and Stade de France.
"I'm fairly excited about what that might be able to produce, I just hope it doesn't get in the way of any kicks," he said.
TV3 will not be able to control camera angles during the game so if there happens to be an unbroken slow-motion shot of the French captain gloriously scoring a try, there could be a few replays.
"But during the match our cameras will be recording the match and we can use that footage in various pieces we edit during the week," Mr McPherson said.
The IRB have issued a directive that during the game the French live coverage must be used to protect the tournament sponsors' rights, he said.
And unlike TV3 Super 14 coverage, there will be no adverts during the live rugby, he said.
Mr McPherson said TVH will be broadcasting in high-definition but the New Zealand audience will miss-out because this country's networks are yet to adopt the technology.
He said TV3 will be converting the broadcast into "standard definition".
"But what we can do is take a high-definition signal and down convert it. It will still be better than standard definition," Mr McPherson said.
All the All Black games and the big games such as England versus South Africa will be called live from the ground by the commentary team lead by Hamish McKay.
The others will feature the English world commentators.
Alongside Mr McKay will be All Black greats Grant Fox and Alan Whetton.
Mr McPherson said there's a high possibility they will be joined by Andrew Mehrtens and a contract is in the final stages of being ironed out.
He said two other high-profile former All Blacks are in negotiations with TV3 but he could not give further information on them.
"Until those deals are struck, I'm not at liberty to name them. They have a wealth of experience both at international level and world cup level," he said.
Aside from the David Tua versus Lennox Lewis title fight, TV3 have never done anything like this before, he said.
Mr McPherson said a team of about 45 staff will be going over, including the camera crews, lighting and technical production staff.
"It's a fairly massive undertaking," he said.
Mr McPherson has previously been directing rugby programmes for the UK BSkyB network.
