Daktronics Provides Technology to Bring the Big Screen Home
Daktronics has announced the release of a new product to bring game day into people’s homes. Fall sports are coming quickly, fans who are far away or can’t attend games can still be part of the action. Big Stream from Daktronics will bring the fan experience on a video board right to the TV or computer screen.
Big Stream is the first streaming technology that creates a video signal to stream the video board content directly to the fans so they can have a more exciting and interactive game-day experience. Daktronics created it to keep fans engaged while they support student-athletes.
“Some schools do stream games over the web now using a single camera with no animation and no audio,” said Daktronics Market Manager Kyle Sydow. “Big Stream lets fans see exactly what would be on their big video board on the field, complete with audio, animations, trivia and even sponsor advertising. We named it Big Stream because it combines the big screen with a live stream.”
Schools with video boards, scoreboards or both can use Big Stream. It doesn’t require any extra operators as it’s a simple plug and play player. It’s also portable so schools can use the technology in various venues for different sports or events.
“We offer Big Stream with multiple options so we can accommodate schools that use any type of Daktronics scoring system,” explained Kyle. “Schools can add capabilities for real-time data, add inputs like cameras and even show instant replays.”
It can also be used in conjunction with any existing school curriculum that teaches students programming technology, so students won’t miss opportunities to work with the video board. Also, schools who have business sponsorships on their scoring systems will be able to satisfy contracts by including logos, sponsored events and dynamic advertising on the feed.
“We think students and fans shouldn’t miss out on any season, if that’s possible. And at Daktronics, we believe Big Stream can help with that,” said Kyle.
ChyronHego Partners With Stats Perform
ChyronHego has announced a new partnership with Stats Perform to enhance sports venues’ ability to provide the sophisticated, data-rich graphics today’s fans crave. The integration of ChyronHego’s Click Effects PRIME stadium and arena graphics with advanced data from Stats Perform gives sports leagues and teams a powerful tool for boosting fan engagement, maintaining brand momentum, and creating valuable new sponsorship opportunities.
“We’re proud to partner with leading data providers such as Stats Perform to help our shared clients offer interesting in-venue visuals that enhance their fans’ understanding and enjoyment of the game,” said Olivier Cohen, senior vice president, marketing at ChyronHego. “The combination of Click Effects PRIME and ChyronHego’s creative services with advanced data from Stats Perform allows users to create more meaningful experiences for fans and to incorporate new sponsored elements into the game-day production. It’s a win for everyone.”
Click Effects PRIME unites the advanced authoring, rendering, and platform-agnostic data-binding power of ChyronHego’s renowned PRIME Graphics Platform with industry-leading arena graphics generation and custom digital display control. With a simple point and click, Click Effects PRIME operators can deliver real-time graphics, video clips, audio tracks, animations, and sponsor ads that take storytelling to the next level.
Stats Perform collects rich sports data and applies artificial intelligence (AI) to unlock in-depth insights that power engaging and informative visualizations. Integration of this data with Click Effects PRIME allows for rapid, highly automated generation of timely, data-driven graphics that illustrate key elements of the game. With sophisticated graphics — player images, bar charts, heat maps, and much more — displaying up-to-the-minute stats on player and team performance, as well as historical data, operators can give fans a more complete understanding of what’s happening on the field or court.
Because Click Effects PRIME makes it easy to push data-rich graphics to social media and digital platforms, sports leagues, teams, and venues can extend fan engagement to those fans watching from home and, in some cases, awaiting their opportunity to return to the stands.
“Incorporating rich game insights with advanced data visuals has a profound impact on the in-stadium fan experience,” said Wayne Ford, senior vice president of global partners and channels at Stats Perform. “Uniting two innovative, immersive technologies, our new partnership with ChyronHego empowers users to elevate the fan experience through advanced data and content creation. It is an ideal combination for colleges, universities, and professional sports franchises looking to offer more dynamic and engaging experiences for their fans.”
ChyronHego joins Stats Perform’s Sports Partners Intelligence Network (SPIN), which combines Stats Perform’s leading sports intelligence offerings (data, insights, analytics, machine learning, computer vision, and AI) with top partners to develop complementary solutions that support joint customers and the sports market.
Scott Williams and CJ Davis: Quince Imaging
Scott Williams and CJ Davis from Quince Imaging sit down and discuss their background, the main things they consider when it comes to a sporting venue project and specific companies they work with when it comes to media servers and projectors.
Read the full interview below:
https://issuu.com/mondiale/docs/mondostadia12/30
DS Smith Produces Cardboard Fans for Football's Return
You’ve heard of plastic fans – now meet the cardboard ones. Hundreds of thousands of them coming to a football ground near you. While Premier League and Championship players all over the country are preparing for the re-start of the season, provider of sustainable packaging, DS Smith, has been busy building a fanbase – quite literally.
The global packaging giant most commonly known for its boxes has turned its hand to produce a solution for any football clubs who need to fill stadiums quickly, reliably and sustainably, at the last minute. From the Bundesliga and Serie A to the Premier League, sports leagues across Europe are back in action post lockdown, but sans the fans.
With average weekly attendance in excess of 39,300 fans in England’s Premier League alone, social distancing has left fans relegated to the sofa leaving sports’ stadiums empty. To create some much-needed atmosphere, DS Smith has developed its ‘Return to Sport’ range, a series of customisable and fully recyclable options for clubs. These can be easily purchased via its website – DS Smith’s specially trained team can help design and deliver them anywhere in the country. The impressive range includes bespoke crowds, able to withstand temperamental local climates, as well as social distancing solutions to help visitors observe local legislations.
Each bespoke ‘fan’ is made from recycled materials and designed to easily slip over existing stadium seating. As a result of DS Smith’s digital print capabilities, the range can be custom printed to celebrate individual fans’ faces or messages of support and represent team colours, sponsors or charitable partnerships.
James Lomax, Football Fan and Sales, Marketing and Innovation Director at DS Smith commented: “DS Smith likes to see itself as a box to box midfielder and we’re ready to spring into action as the Premier League and Championship both get back underway. Sport is an integral part of many people’s lives and by using a versatile material like cardboard, we can support clubs across the country to create a unique atmosphere while fans stay home to support social distancing. Our ‘Back to Sport’ range is the ideal sustainable solution providing clubs with a blank canvas that can be fully customised, while also ensuring the material can be reused or recycled.”
DS Smith’s range is scalable from a lone fan to a full house of up to 100,000 fans and can be on the road within days. Due to the durability and recyclability of the cardboard materials, individual fans can be gifted or auctioned to fans eager to have a piece of the action or put into the local recycling system via DS Smith’s own curb-side collections.
DS Smith’s ‘Return to Sport’ range – a series of customisable, quickly scalable and fully recyclable options for clubs – can be purchased easily via its website here, with free delivery to anywhere in the country.
Ascot Racecourse
There aren’t many sporting venues that can lay claim to such a rich history as Ascot Racecourse. Since opening in 1711, the renowned racecourse has been the home of horse racing in the United Kingdom. Hosting Royal Ascot every June - the flagship event and one of the most popular in the sport overall - the venue welcomes around 300,000 people over five days, with more than 163 full-time staff and more than 6,500 temporary staff.
Ascot Racecourse is visited by over 600,000 people a year, accounting for 10% of all UK racegoers and it was the first racecourse in Europe to reach the 500,000-racegoer milestone, highlighting its continued popularity.
https://issuu.com/mondiale/docs/mondostadia12/42
Images: Ascot Racecourse
Danley Takes Over The Sports Facilities At University Of California
University of California, Santa Barbara athletic teams go by the name “Gauchos” and have been successful even without a football team to anchor the program. In fact, the Gauchos baseball team won the Big West Conference Championship in 2019. They play in the 1,000-seat Caesar Uyesaka Stadium. The men’s volleyball team plays in the 3,000-seat Robertson Gymnasium, and the women’s volleyball team and both basketball teams play in the 5,600-seat UCSB Events Center, more commonly referred to as “The Thunderdome.” All three venues recently benefitted from sound system upgrades led by area audio consultant Ara Ayrassian and his company, Audio 77. A modest number of high-efficiency, high-fidelity, point-source Danley Sound Labs loudspeakers now give Gauchos fans an impressive game-day experience.
“I met the men’s basketball coach, Joe Pasternack, a few years ago when he first joined the team,” Ara recalled. “He said the sound in the Thunderdome was bad. The announcements were unintelligible and the music lacked impact. The system was a decade old, but its real problem was too many speakers. All the phasing and comb filtering was headache-inducing! Danley’s patented technology could get the job done with a fraction of the speakers.” Although the conversation started with the Thunderdome, Ara consulted on Caesar Uyesaka Stadium and Robertson Gymnasium first. A UCSB crew performed the actual installations.
Ara began with a simple demo of a single Danley OS80 fully-weatherized loudspeaker as proof of concept at the baseball stadium. “We placed a single OS80 on the press box, walked to the centre fence, and turned it up,” he said. “It was really nice sounding. I let them use that box for an actual game, and they were sold.” For the permanent installation, Ayrassian specified two Danley OS80s, one aiming down the first base side and the second aiming down the third base side. At the Robertson Gymnasium, where there is no seating at the ends of the court, he specified just two Danley OS12CX loudspeakers, one aiming at each side of the court.
The Thunderdome came last, and Ara effectively replaced thirty-six distributed loudspeakers with just eight Danley OS80s and one Danley BC415 subwoofer. The OS80s hang near the centre scoreboard, with two each hitting each side of the stadium. “For this installation, I wish I had a video of the coaches and athletic directors when we first fired the system up,” he said. “It was overwhelming. The deputy athletic director kept shaking my hand! And the cost of the Danley system in the Thunderdome was so much less than the previous, vastly-inferior system! We replaced nine amplifiers with just a single four-channel Danley DNA 20k4 Pro. And the bass from the Danley BC415 is absolutely phenomenal. The boundary coupling technology that Tom [Danley] came up with is amazing. Some of the sound techs from UCSB showed up and we listened to it up close, turned it off, walked to the far side of the stadium, and turned it back on. Again, I wish I had a video of their reactions!”
Ara continued, “Danley’s Synergy Horn technology delivers huge sound with relatively small number of these small boxes. It’s really untouchable. The proof is in the Thunderdome, where the sound is way better. As a designer and consultant, Danley makes it easy. Just a few well-placed boxes get the job done without trying to nuance a bunch of loudspeaker angles.”
Daktronics Delivers New Video Display for Rocket City Trash Pandas
Daktronics has partnered with the City of Madison, Alabama, and the Rocket City Trash Pandas to manufacture and install a new LED video display in left field at Toyota Field. The new display features 1,600 square feet of digital space.
The left-field video display measures 25 feet high by 65 feet wide and features a 15HD pixel layout to bring excellent image clarity and contrast to fans throughout the stadium. It features industry-leading environmental protection to ensure it operates during all forms of weather in Alabama.
“We’re thrilled to be a part of professional baseball returning to northern Alabama,” said Glen Marts, Daktronics sales representative. “This is an exciting project for our company and we’re looking forward to seeing the new technology making an impact on fans for years to come.”
The new technology brings the ability to cater to fans with all the information they expect at a live event. The display is capable of variable content zoning allowing it to show one large image or multiple zones of content including any combination of live video, instant replays, statistics and game information, graphics and animations, and sponsorship messages.
Daktronics will also be including its powerful Show Control solution with this installation. This industry-leading system provides a combination of display control software, world-class video processing, data integration and playback hardware that forms a user-friendly production solution.
Supponor Strengthens Opens New Office in Barcelona
Following several positive announcements for the sport industry in the past couple of weeks, including the announcement of LaLiga resuming on 11 June, Supponor has announced the opening of its new office in Spain. The company has chosen Barcelona as a strategic location that will reinforce its commitment to continuous innovation and expansion of its sixth season of commercial deployment in LaLiga.
The opening of the new office follows the recent long-term deployment agreement with FC Barcelona which was followed by the multi-year renewal with Mediapro to continue to deploy Supponor’s advanced virtual advertising technologies in LaLiga and elsewhere in Spain.
Supponor’s innovative virtual advertising solutions are delivered using certified perimeter LED systems from TGI and operated by Mediapro as the exclusive production partner for LaLiga. Matches played by FC Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid, and RCD Espanyol de Barcelona already deliver multi-feed virtual LED perimeter and virtual camera carpet solutions to more than 25% of all top flight LaLiga matches each season with further growth planned.
James B Gambrell, CEO of Supponor, said: “The opening of the office in Barcelona demonstrates our commitment to our clients and partners in Spain. Despite the uncertainty caused by COVID-19, Supponor continues to invest to support growth in the Spanish market to support further European expansion and as the foundation for our larger growth ambitions in the Spanish speaking world.
The new office will be headed up by Casper Siewertsen who will oversee commercial activities with strategic account partners, and Ben Arnold, who will provide local support for continued product & solution development. Casper joins Supponor after 5-years at FC Barcelona where he worked as part of the Business Intelligence on the development of the commercial offering of virtual advertising. Ben returns to Supponor after many years working for Mediapro on the initial development and deployment of Supponor’s virtual advertising operations in Spain.
Casper Siewertsen commented that: “The importance of Supponor’s successful commercial deployment in Spain with Mediapro, its long term broadcast production and rights partner, along with FC Barcelona, underpins LaLiga’s importance as a global reference for innovation in virtual advertising and Supponor’s proven technology leadership with key industry players in Europe and around the world.”
AY Productions Turns to Pliant Technologies’ Crewcom for a Range of Popular Live Events
AY Productions, audio and coms specialists, turned to Pliant Technologies’ CrewCom wireless intercom to provide robust communications for a range of live productions including Thursday Night Football (TNF), the AFC Championship, the Democratic Debate in Charleston, the Masters, U.S. Open Golf, PGA Championship, World Series, NFL Draft, and the Super Bowl. Aaron Young, coms engineer at AY Productions, and Andy Rostron, freelance coms engineer, began their partnership working on Thursday Night Football (TNF) back in 2013.
As technologies advanced and productions grew more complicated, the duo found they were outgrowing their traditional analog wireless system, which was difficult to deploy and did not provide enough coverage. During their search for a replacement wireless intercom, they found exactly what they were looking for with the CrewCom 900MHz system.
For TNF, AY Productions deploys 16 Radio Packs (RPs) and 14 transceivers (antennas) to provide a reliable and extensive coverage zone. “Our entire RF coms system is CrewCom—we don’t need any third-party networking equipment,” said Aaron. “Everything is included within one ecosystem, which is a big advantage. The antennas connect via a single strand of fiber, so we place those all around the stadium, wherever coverage is needed—and we know it will always work. Users can walk around from zone-to-zone with seamless coverage including the tunnels, locker rooms and truck compound.”
A standout feature for Young and Andy is the system’s ease of deployment, which is especially important for mobile productions. “CrewCom really streamlines the setup for us – it’s essentially three products in one: intercom, audio transport, and wireless PL,” said Andy. “In our old configuration, we had to transport analog audio to sets both inside and outside the stadium where there would be racks of different RF equipment. Now the only thing we deploy away from the truck is the transceivers. The control units and all interconnections are positioned within the compound, which is a huge advantage for us. Additionally, the CrewCom packs have far superior audio quality to other manufacturer’s intercoms.”
According to Aaron, another benefit of CrewCom is the ability for the system and packs to all be centrally controlled from the production truck using the supplied CrewWare software. “We deploy this system throughout all departments of the production team. Each individual user has their own profile and I can manage everything I need live from my desk. Being able to control everything from the truck provides us with a multitude of benefits, especially not having to run out and make physical adjustments directly on the radio packs or base stations.”
During their time working with the CrewCom system, Aaron and Andy have been both impressed and appreciative of the customer service they receive from the Pliant team. “Art Gonzales from Pliant Technologies has been a huge help to us,” adds Young. “We work very closely with him and his team to deploy this system for TNF, and the support we receive from the manufacturer is unparalleled.”
During the Houston TNF game, AY Productions was also part of the first large scale synchronization of two CrewCom systems, where two fully independent systems were deployed simultaneously using Pliant Technologies’ sync function. A CrewNet connection was sent from the existing NRG house system, used for game production activities, and connected to the AY Productions control unit. This allowed for the RF frequency hopping to be synchronized and coordinated, ensuring both systems could work in conjunction with each other.
The team plans to continue to rely on the CrewCom system for all of their live production needs. “We’re looking forward to integrating CrewCom on future shows. The ability for us to pre-configure the kit for each show saves us a lot of time on these complex projects,” said Andy. “Overall, CrewCom offers a huge improvement in coms technology—we couldn’t be happier with our choice to deploy this system.”
Hitachi HDTV Cameras Help Bring Top-Tier Athletics Productions to National Audiences
Spanning a 130-acre campus in historic Florence, Alabama, the University of North Alabama (UNA) – the state’s oldest public four-year university – hosts over 8,000 students and is home to the NCAA Division I North Alabama Lions. When the university’s Athletics department needed to upgrade and expand its video production capabilities in preparation for ESPN+ streaming broadcasts, it purchased four Z-HD5000 HDTV cameras from Hitachi Kokusai Electric America (Hitachi Kokusai) to meet its goals.
UNA’s 14 renowned collegiate athletic programs have collected more than 60 conference championships, dozens of number-one national rankings and seven national titles. After competing in NCAA Division II for over 40 years, the school accepted an invitation from the Atlantic Sun (ASUN) Conference to transition to Division I. With the move came the requirement for the school to begin broadcasting their games on ESPN+, which necessitated a significant overhaul of the Athletics department’s production operations.
“For our previous streaming initiative, the now-discontinued Lion Vision, we used just a single basic camera,” said Eddy Forsythe, athletics broadcast/video coordinator at UNA. “We needed to upgrade all of our production equipment, from the cameras to the switcher and graphics system to properly represent our Athletics program on EPSN+.”
The department commissioned the build of a mobile production trailer, which spends most of its time in the basketball and volleyball gymnasium – known as Flowers Hall – but moves to other venues as needed. For the cameras, Forsythe looked first to his successful past experiences with Hitachi Kokusai.
“I had used Hitachi cameras many times throughout my 33 years in the broadcast industry before coming to UNA,” he explained. “They were always very good products, and very durable. I knew I could count on Hitachi cameras whenever I needed them. I just fire a Hitachi camera up, and it works.”
UNA’s four Z-HD5000 cameras were first used on a November 2018 women’s volleyball game, and are now used to cover baseball, basketball, football, soccer, softball and volleyball matches. In addition to ESPN+ broadcasts, the cameras feed large video boards within Flowers Hall to drive fan engagement, as well as recording footage for highlight reels and melts that are sent to the ASUN conference office.
Forsythe praises the Z-HD5000s’ exceptional ease of use as valuable, particularly with his frequently changing crew of student volunteers. “Most of our volunteers are not in a related program, but just kids who want to learn the business,” he explained. “The learning curve on these cameras is next to nothing. I can take a new student volunteer, and within five to ten minutes I can turn them into a camera operator.”
Further aiding that ease are the cameras’ consistency and minimal maintenance requirements. “Once you sent them up, you don’t need to keep adjusting them; just turn them on, and they’re ready to go,” described Forsythe. “I don’t even remember the last time I had to adjust the white balance except when we move them between venues.”
The visual quality enabled by the Z-HD5000s has also lived up to Forsythe’s high expectations, while the cameras’ ability to adapt to varied lighting conditions has proven valuable for the university’s wide range of sports and venues. “We’re very pleased with the quality of our resulting productions – it’s second to none,” he said. “Of course, with cameras, the picture quality always comes back to lighting. For a daylight football game or in our LED-lit gym, the quality is just beautiful, and the Hitachi cameras handle low-light situations such as evening softball games much better than our previous cameras.”
Overall, the department’s equipment upgrade and new streaming outlet have elevated both their production results and the university’s public exposure. “Using the Hitachi cameras in our trailer has improved the quality of our productions, while broadcasting our games on ESPN+ has given us nationwide recognition,” summarized Forsythe. “We’ve always had a very good athletics program here at the University of North Alabama, but when we put our product out there on ESPN+, now we’ve got folks all across the country watching. That’s pretty sweet, and the Hitachi cameras are a key part of it.”