Cowboys video board draws curiosity
I’m headed to Arlington tonight for the Cowboys-Panthers game, and this will be my fourth trip to JerryWorld and my third ballgame. But I got a very interesting email last week that makes me look at the Cowboys’ amazing video board in a whole new light.
Bill Perry is deputy director of network public affairs for OETA, the Oklahoma Education Television Network. In other words, he’s an experienced television man. And he had some interesting observations about the stadium.
Perry was at the OU-Brigham Young game and wrote me: “As a TV guy, I was naturally fascinated with the contemporary technology in use there and did a little exploring. What I noticed, there’s something unusual about the big screens I’ve not seen anyone mention to date in print or anyplace else. It’s a unique technical challenge they faced, and it’s because the screens are not hanging on a wall, like in most stadiums.
“With the video screens right in the center, it occurred to me that if all the screens carried the same feed, at least half the stadium would be looking at a reverse image of what they saw down below. The pressbox side is the primary angle with multiple camera positions, so for everyone on the pressbox side, the broadcast video feed matches what’s on the field. But if you’re sitting on the same side as the Cowboys bench, that feed would look backwards to you (the screen direction would be wrong according to what your eyes were seeing).
“To see how they tackled this potential problem, I took a walk and looked at both ‘big’ sides during the game. Somehow the screen direction was matching what was down below. Did they just flip the picture? Nope. All the numbers would be backwards, and they were not.
“After looking at it, I finally figured out that they must have some additional cameras on the reverse (Cowboy bench) side, dedicated to feeding that board the images necessary to keep the fans on that side from going directionally nuts (that way the runs and passes are not going the wrong way when they look up at the board). However, when there’s a closeup they use the same shot on both sides of the big boards. That’s why it can indeed be confusing if the closeup is of a ref calling a penalty — if you’re sitting on the Cowboy side, the guy on the big board is pointing in the opposite direction from the reality down below. When all those flags were flying at the OU game, we kept thinking they were pointing at BYU until we eventually figured out the ref image was backwards on the closeups.
“The smaller end screens are also somewhat of a screen direction issue, but I think people in the end zones can adapt to whichever screen direction is up there. I believe the south small screen is in sync with the pressbox side and its opposite one is in sync with the Cowboy bench side, but I didn’t confirm that.
“It must be very stressful to keep everything fed correctly during the game. Of course, when they are showing a commercial or promo video or, really, anything other than game action, they can pump the same feed to all four sides. But the technology of managing two separate feeds and cutting in closeups on both views is really a slick accomplishment. One more reason to be impressed.
“Now the sound in that big football room was really really lousy — we couldn’t understand but maybe 10 percent of the PA announcements. I have talked to a lot of people who sat everywhere from sections 100s up through the 400s at the OU-BYU game, and they universally thought the sound was terrible. The other common comment was the lack of an informative data or stat board anywhere (TV feeds could not be seen). There was nothing to indicate ‘yards to go’ or how many timeouts were left for each team. Since you couldn’t hear the PA, that became irritating. The dinky scoreboard in the corners of the strip boards were also laid out poorly, as in 13 OU 10 BYU, with numbers preceding the team, not following it. Lots of nice things in there, but some dumb things too.”
Now that was an interesting email. That’s a guy who went to a stadium and studied what he was seeing. I can’t vouch for the sound; we don’t hear much in the pressbox no matter where we are. But I believe it. Sound quality is mostly awful at a lot of arenas. And the scoreboard issue is ridiculous. No down and distance. Hard to find the clock. Stats virtually non-existent.
But that video screen is something else.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
Interesting article.
I attended the OU/BYU game, so we we’re watching the smaller boards, and experienced no visual confusion.
I agreee in principle with the criticism of a lack of a proper scoreboard. However, when I viewed the displays at the end of the light strips, this is the info I saw:
Score
Down
Distance
Yardline
Clock
Not having ‘timeouts remaining” was the biggest drag, but I’ve become a yardage junkie and I love what they do at Owen Field.
I also agree that the sound stunk.
“Jerryworld” is a disappointment in these 2 areas ONLY–otherwise it is amazing.
Oops.
In the second sentence of the post above I meant say that our seats were in the endzone, and that’s why we watched the smaller boards.
I’m a cowboy season ticket holder, and I noticed this from my seats in the upper deck last Sunday. Every once and awhile, the picture would be backwards, but it would flip to the proper perspective after a brief few seconds.
All in all, a great venue. I had no problem watching the field then glancing up to see the replay.