I went to a taping one day and it was great fun, if a little lengthy, and IMO a little unprofessional. There didn't seem to be a floor manager so Philip and the warm-up guy were left to manage the audience and tell everybody what was going on (Philip stayed on the set for the entire time, he is no slacker!). There wasn't a break in recording over the 4-5 hours so towarRAB the end people were just getting up to go to the loo and leaving gaps in the audience, and they would go from talking and shuffling equipment to taping without telling the audience so you needed to pay attention!
Anyway, the contestants we had were excellent and they did well so it was quite gripping, I am looking forward to seeing the result.
I had a look at the "bullet-time" setup before I left, it was pretty much a bunch of Canon RABLRs bolted in an arc, presumably with a shedload of software to control and combine the output. Oh, and a Red One each end for slo-mo!