"How the Dallas Cowboys Scoreboard Works"

Interesting article from HowStuffWorks.com about the giant video scoreboard in Dallas.


Some notes:

• The display cost the Dallas Cowboys $40 million. Mitsubishi designed and built the screens.
• The scoreboard has four screens. Two gigantic screens face the end zones. They measure 29 feet (8.8 meters) high and 51 feet (15.5 meters) wide. The other two screens are even more massive and face the sidelines. These monstrosities measure 72 feet (21.9 meters) high and 160 feet (48.8 meters) wide. Together, all four screens create 25,000 square feet (about 2,323 square meters) of displays.
• The sideline displays are so wide that they stretch from one 20-yard line to the other. 
• The combined weight of the four screens is 600 tons. A 72-foot tall (21.9 meter) steel support system carries the weight. The support has 10 levels of catwalks that allow engineers access to the displays for maintenance. Steel cables 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) in diameter tether the displays to the stadium's pair of steel arches.
• As if suspending a 600-ton display wasn't enough, the steel framework suspended from the ceiling of the stadium can also support a 90,000 pound (40,823 kilogram) basketball arena scoreboard.
• The screen at the Dallas Cowboys stadium uses a different technology -- light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. At its most basic level, the LED is a light bulb. The light bulbs in the stadium's display are tiny and come in one of three colors: red, blue or green. By combining the light from four LEDs (two red LEDs, one blue LED and one green LED), the display creates a single pixel. Mitsubishi refers to each LED as a dot.
• To create a high-definition effect on a display as large as the scoreboard, you need a lot of LEDs. The Dallas Cowboys scoreboard has 30 million LEDs [source: Grotticelli]. The density of LEDs allows the screens to display images at 1080p resolution -- the same resolution you'll find in high-end HDTVs at your local electronics store.
• Mitsubishi arranges the dots in a pattern the company calls Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Vision. The LEDs are in lines of alternating blue and red or green and red dots. Any given square of four LEDs on the display will have one blue, one green and two red lights. The arrangement allows the display's processor to share LED dots between different pixels, creating what the company calls dynamic pixels.
• According to Mitsubishi, the two sideline displays each require 635 kilowatts. The end zone displays are a little less demanding at 80 kilowatts each [source: Mitsubishi]. That means the sideline displays consume more than 2,873 times the power of the WD-82837, Mitsubishi's 83-inch HDTV, which requires 221 watts [source: Mitsubishi].

Cool pre-game lighting at Chicago Blackhawks home opener

The Chicago Blackhawks produced a great pre-game show as part of the Stanley Cup banner raising on opening night last week.

The full-ice video projection was produced by Dangers Inc. out of Montreal, who worked with the Blackhawks in-house team to put together the moving video and graphics. Every member of the audience is wearing a remote-operated LED wristband called a Xyloband. Coldplay used these on their most recent tour. As you can see in the video they were able to program each section to flash little pins of light.

Nice job AJ & crew in Chicago to create a high-impact show and make the audience the "stars".

 

VIDEO: The "balloon artist" who orchestrated the massive balloon drop at the Republican National Convention

"Treb Heining has been doing the balloon drop at the past 7 Republican National Conventions, plus the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards. He's also coordinated the confetti drop for New Year's Eve in Times Square for the past 21 years."

Pacers and Lightning "go long" with new video scoreboards

The Indiana Pacers and the Tampa Bay Lightning are both adding massive new video scoreboards for this fall, and both have a similar format.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we've seen centrehung boards this wide in an inside venue before -- other than the big screen at Cowboys Stadium.  Will be interesting to see how the teams use the space for content, stats, ads, etc.  

These huge screens will be an attraction unto themselves and a big upgrade for the fan experience in both arenas.  That said, I think fifty feet wide may actually be too big for arenas this size. I've seen Montreal's massive screen (30'x17') in action and it's great -- but from some locations it can be overwhelming and distract from what's happening on the ice. 

The Pacers main display will be 50 x 21 feet on the long side with smaller 24x15 screens on the ends.  Built by ANC, with 6mm resolution on each side.  (Here's a press release.) 

Here's a mock-up of the Tampa Bay Lightning video scoreboard, which will be 50x28 feet on the long side and 16x28 on the ends. Also 6mm, built by Daktronics. (Here's a press release.)

Oh, and the Blue Jackets are getting a new video scoreboard too. It will be called the "Dispatch Media Center" and measures 25x15 feet.

Grand Rapids Griffins shoot a GoPro camera out of a t-shirt cannon

Don't try this at home.


 (via Puck Daddy)

Photo of the video scoreboard at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City

Daktronics LED scoreboard, installed in 2008.

• From TV Technology: At almost 9,000 square feet (85-by-105), the giant Daktronix screen is powered by a Ross Switcher and a couple of EVS replays, Deko 3000s for graphics and Pro-Bel routing gear. The towering board—the nation’s largest, according to Daktronix—debuted at the Royals’ home opener against the Yankees Tuesday at Kauffman Stadium ... The screen, at 1584x1980, amounts to about two 16:9 screens on top of each other ... The $8 million-plus system board replaced a 17-year-old Sony.

• From Business Wire: Daktronics HD-X LED technology will be installed in a huge outfield structure behind center field measuring more than 100 feet high by 85 feet wide, topped with the familiar Royals’ iconic golden crown. The LED display will contain more than 1800 full-color lines of resolution with lines on 16 millimeter (.63”) spacing. The display will be the largest HD LED board in the world, surpassing the former record holders designed and manufactured by Daktronics for Dolphin Stadium in Miami and Darrell K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin.

NYT: "To Pack a Stadium, Provide Video Better Than TV"

Derek Dawley tweeted about this article in the New York Times about video strategies at the new Meadowlands Stadium. Some highlights:

How do you keep football fans as regular visitors to stadiums when the television coverage of every play is so good?

For the Giants and the Jets, the answer, perhaps surprisingly, is more and better video than people can get at home. This season, the New Meadowlands Stadium will offer fans free smart-phone applications that they can glance at to see video replays, updated statistics and live video from other games — and that will work only inside a stadium.

Over the next few years, stadium officials say, the applications will provide fans with statistics on the speed of players and the ball, and fantasy games that will allow them to pick players and compete against other fans.

A real-life game no longer seems to be enough.

In recent years, television coverage of the National Football League has become so rich and detailed that teams and stadiums have no choice but to respond with their own technology plays. Last spring the league’s commissioner, Roger Goodell, said the experience for fans in stadiums needed to be elevated to compete with television broadcasts, to keep fans engaged — and to keep them buying tickets — in a challenging economic climate.

To do that, stadium officials here have taken steps few other N.F.L. stadiums have. About $100 million has been spent on the stadium’s technology, and a former television production executive was hired to oversee the fan experience to offer more than fans can get sitting at home on their couches in front of their high-definition television sets.

...It is unclear how the smart-phone applications will change the atmosphere of games. Fans praised Cowboys Stadium, which opened in Arlington, Tex., last year, for its twin video boards that are suspended over the field and stretch nearly from one 20-yard line to the other so that fans can watch the action live both on the field and on a big screen.

The four video screens at the New Meadowlands Stadium are smaller, but officials say the stadium’s innovations go further than at Cowboys Stadium or any other in the country.

...Security officials will have special bracelets that parents can have placed on their children. In the event that a child is lost, the stadium’s video security system can immediately locate the child on a television screen.

“Teams shouldn’t have an imbalance in the television experience and the stadium experience,” said Vince Gennaro, who is a marketing consultant to several sports teams and teaches sports management at Columbia University’s School of Continuing Education. “Once you raise the bar on one, you have to raise the bar on the other. I think it’s really important now that high definition and DirecTV have innovated, that teams compete essentially with themselves and bring that experience to the seat.”

Read the entire article...

Mental Floss: 100 Years of Scoreboard Watching

Here's a great post from the mental_floss Blog, chronicling the technical evolution of video scoreboards over the past century or so. The article is full of great photos, and here are some highlights:

In 1908, Chicago inventor George A. Baird developed an electric baseball scoreboard that recorded balls, strikes, and outs. While Baird’s invention was tested by Boston’s two major league clubs, it didn’t immediately catch on across the league. Team owners were hesitant to provide information to fans for fear that it would cut into the sale of scorecards, but the electric scoreboard signaled an eventual shift in the in-game experience at stadiums and arenas. Over the next two decades, manually operated scoreboards evolved to feature more information than the score. Lineups with player names and numbers were displayed, along with scores and pitchers’ numbers from games around the league...

When Yankee Stadium opened in 1923, it featured a large manually operated scoreboard in right field that was visible to every spectator in the park. In 1950, the Yankees unveiled an electric scoreboard that the team called “the most efficient scoreboard ever built and, in general, a big stride forward.” The Yankees’ new scoreboard was operated by two men as opposed to five and featured a non-glare enamel covering...

Before the 1959 season, the Yankees made another upgrade, installing the first scoreboard to feature a changeable message display. The New York Times, which dubbed the new scoreboard “the electronic miracle,” provided the specifics: “The board will contain 11,210 lamps with a wattage of 115,000, 619,000 feet of electric cable, will weigh 25 tons (not including the steel supporting structure), will have more than 4,860 push buttons on the master control console and will have a total face area of 4,782 square feet.”

Wrigley Field’s iconic 89-foot scoreboard was built in 1937 under the direction of flamboyant club treasurer and future White Sox owner Bill Veeck, whose father was team president until he died in 1933. Most of the original Wrigley Field scoreboard, which still stands today, is manually operated, but the batter’s number, balls, strikes, and outs are displayed electronically in the center portion of the board. The original control panel is still in use.

“What’s baseball coming to?”
That’s what former White Sox manager Jimmy Dykes asked after Comiskey Park’s exploding scoreboard, which featured multi-colored pinwheels and shot off fireworks after every home run by a Chicago player, was unveiled in 1960. “All I know is that if I was a pitcher whose home run ball had started that Fourth of July celebration, I’d fire my next pitch at the head of the next hitter,” Dykes told a reporter. While some opponents resented the extravagant display, which was another one of Veeck’s ideas, the unique scoreboard design was retained when Chicago’s current stadium opened in 1991.

Bigger and Better
When the Houston Astrodome opened in 1965, its 474-foot wide scoreboard was the largest in all of sports. The scoreboard featured 50,000 lights that erupted in a 45-second animated display of cowboys, ricocheting bullets, flags, steers, and fireworks after every Astros home run or victory. The display was set to a soundtrack that included “The Eyes of Texas.”

Diamond Vision
The Los Angeles Dodgers unveiled a $3 million, 875-square foot video board at the 1980 All-Star Game. Mitsubishi’s Diamond Vision, which enabled operators to show replays using a VCR, was the first video board of its kind and a sign of things to come. Similar video boards soon became standard in stadiums and arenas, as the resolution and functionality of the screens improved and Sony entered the market with its popular JumboTron. In 2009, the Dallas Cowboys unveiled the world’s largest high-definition video display, an LED scoreboard developed by Mitsubishi.
Other Iconic Baseball Scoreboards

Read the entire article...

Behind the scenes: The technology behind the Olympic opening ceremonies

Here's a really interesting article from Production, Lights and Staging News about the technology that powered the opening ceremonies at Vancouver's Winter Oympics. The article details some of the challenges in rigging and programing the massive show. To give you an idea, here's a partial list of the lighting and video gear used for the event:

Projection: (Solotech)

• 30 Christie 20K Roadster projector
• 24 Christie 18K Roadster projector
• 2 Christie 30K Roadster projector
• 4 Christie 10K Roadster projector
• 36 PIGI DDRA 7K Xenon projector
• 6 Only View Master unit
• 118 Only View Display unit
• 2 Only Cue Master
• 6km fiber optic cable
• Sony broadcast switcher and monitoring for all the creative staff

Lighting: (PRG)

• Fixtures:
• 192 Martin MAC 2000 Wash
• 64 Martin MAC 2000 Performance
• 19 PRG Bad Boy
• 70 PRG VL6C+ Spot
• 242 Vari*Lite VL3500 Spot
• 165 Vari*Lite VL3500 Wash
• 173 Vari*Lite VL3000 Spot
• 112 Vari*Lite VL2416 Wash
• 74 Vari*Lite VL1000 A/S
• 104 Vari*Lite VL5Arc Wash
• 50 Vari*Lite VL5 Wash
• 44 A&O Technology Falcon 6kW CMY
• 4 A&O Technology Falcon Flower 7kW
• 326 Philips Color Kinetics ColorBlast 12 TR
• 44 Philips Color Kinetics iW Blast TR
• 33 Philips Color Kinetics iColor Cove MX Powercore 12"
• 30 Philips Color Kinetics iW Profile
• 22 Coemar ParLite
• 386 Element Labs HD Versa TUBE 1 Meter
• 24 Element Labs HD Versa TUBE .5 Meter
• 5 Strong 3kW Xenon Gladiator III followspots
• 11 Strong 4kW Xenon Gladiator III followspots
• 2 Strong 2.5kW Xenon Gladiator II followspots
• 16 Lycian 2.5kW HMI M2 followspots
• 300 ETC Source Four Ellipsoidal and Source Four PAR

Control:

• 6 PRG V676 consoles
• 1 PRG Virtuoso DX2 consoles
• 2 MA Lighting grandMA consoles
• 2 PRG Mbox Extreme v3 media servers
• 27 PRG Series 400 racks
• 162 S400 208V breaker modules
• 336 S400 208V break out boxes
• 4 S400 FOH modules
• 52 S400 Node Plus
• 45 S400 10 port switches
• 17,500 feet (3.3 miles) optical cable
• 77,745 feet (14.65 miles) S400 trunk cable
• 37,135 feet (7.03 miles) L6-20 cable
• 47,710 feet (9.04 miles) 5-Pin XLR DMX cable
• 21,925 feet (4.15 miles) 4/0 feeder cable

Recommended reading: BackTeching

If you like hockey, video, and technlogy, then you should check out BackTeching. It's a new blog by Chris Devivo, who's the Director of Media Technology for the Pittsburgh Penguins. He's using the blog to chronicle some of the cool video technology being installed at the new arena in Pittsburgh. Tell him I sent you!

The future of in-arena interaction

From Boston.com, here's an article called "Hi, tech: Gadgets are being introduced that will bring the games even closer". Highlights:

Imagine a face-to-face chat with Tom Brady, David Ortiz, Kevin Garnett, or Zdeno Chara hours before game time. Standing in front of high-definition displays in a local arena concourse, you make eye contact with your sports hero via Cisco TelePresence technology. It is the latest in video conferencing; you talk league gossip and lineup changes, knee injuries, and new players

...

High-tech entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban predicts a super-sized future for NBA arenas where "it won't be unique to see a [video] screen that stretches the 94-foot length of the court." He also envisions "digital delivery of sound that can be customized by area.

...

But more than anything, fans want a say in the experience. Chanting, clapping, and singing on cue aren't enough.

TelePresence at recent NBA and NHL All-Star festivities gave fans direct access to athletes. It was a World's Fair-style look at the future innovations provided by high-tech leader Cisco. Ticket upgrades via airport-style kiosks soon could be commonplace. The same could be true for replays by request on cellphones. Concession stand menus will appear on cellphones, too, allowing fans to order food from their seats and get it delivered.

...

Cisco wired the new Yankee Stadium and new Cowboys Stadium, giving the host teams interactive showplaces for the next generation of fan experience. The infrastructure is in place at TD Banknorth Garden, which is close to partnering with Cisco, though Garden president John Wentzell said, "We have not signed a contract yet."

Garden executives would like Cisco's StadiumVision installed when the 2009-10 NHL season starts. The video display application would network the arena's 600 high-definition monitors, clearing the way for easily customized signage. Walking through concourses after the fourth quarter, Celtics fans might see arrows pointing to the nearest exits and real-time traffic updates for Storrow Drive. That is Phase One.

....

"We have to be careful that working on your handheld device, sending text messages to the video screen, connecting to other areas around doesn't detract, and distract fans, from what's happening on the court," said NBA commissioner David Stern. "Now, there's looking at the video board and looking at the court. When you start looking at your cellphone, we may have a sensory overload issue with our fans."

...

Ricci foresees fans exchanging cellphone video of key plays from different seats and chatting in real-time with friends at the game and at home. Cisco technology already can offer all that, essentially allowing every fan to create an individualized, multi-media view of the game.

But what does this mean for the communal game experience? Will the days of Red Sox fans singing "Sweet Caroline" at Fenway Park soon end? Will Gino dance alone because Celtics fans are too busy checking statistics on cellphones?

Not necessarily. As a faithful member of Red Sox Nation raised in the Boston-area and living in California, Ricci cites his favorite baseball team as proof technology will enhance the communal fan experience. Using the Internet, he watches Red Sox games when he wants and catches up on team news. At a game last summer, his 15-year-old daughter snapped pictures of Jacoby Ellsbury, then posted them on her MySpace page.

...

At their home opener April 16, the Yankees officially will unveil what Cisco calls the most technologically advanced stadium in North America. At the new Yankee Stadium, there are 1,100 high-definition video monitors programmable with everything from replays to subway routes. Fans will find the monitors in luxury suites, concession stands, restaurants, and restrooms. Standing 59 feet high and 101 feet wide, the high-definition main scoreboard will be the top video attraction.

...

While the Yankees still made a splash with announcements about the futuristic features at the new stadium, they actually will be the second major league team to introduce fans to Cisco StadiumVision during the upcoming regular season. The Royals, who invested $250 million into renovating Kaufmann Stadium and added many of the same high-tech innovations, will be the first by six days.

...

Multi-purpose arenas may benefit most. "Dolphins Stadium can morph to suit whatever tenant, whatever event," said Dolphins Enterprises vice president of marketing partnerships Chris Overholt. By reprogramming high-definition displays to reflect different home teams, Dolphins Stadium in Miami easily switches from hosting NFL games to MLB games to NCAA football games.

...

At Gillette Stadium, winter weather and NFL rules regarding content distribution factor heavily into discussions of high-tech additions. Technology helps entertain Patriots fans, but they also are served by a practical application, increasingly popular in other sports venues.

"We've installed a special number to text message security problems, cameras will be turned onto that location and people will come," said Patriots president Jonathan Kraft. "That's not entertainment, but it's ensuring you have as good an experience as you can."

Read the entire article...

Bob Sheppard: Yankees announcer forever?

Really interesting post today from Darren Rovell on NBC's Sports Biz blog: It's about Bob Sheppard, the 97-year-old announcer for the New York Yankees. He's been announcing for the Yankees since 1951 -- that's 57 years -- except this year there's a bit of a difference:

Sheppard, 97, who had been announcing all the names and numbers for the New York Yankees since 1951, hasn’t made it to the stadium this year due to illness, but his voice has lived on due to the fact that he has recorded the Yankee lineup.

Given the ovation at the mention of Sheppard’s name last night, it’s clear that there would be no replacement for Sheppard if he sadly never makes it to the new stadium next year.

But due to the state of text-to-speech technology, Sheppard’s voice could be the voice of the starting lineups for the next 50 years, if the Yankees choose to go that route.

Read on...