Graphics Giving Telecasts a Look Like Video Games by Ricahrd Sandomir
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April 15, 2001 © 2001 The New York Times Graphics Giving Telecasts a Look Like Video Games By Ricahrd Sandomir Inside Fleet Center in Boston one tion. To show a play seconds day last month, seven National Hockey after it ended dramatically League players were under surveillance. altered how sports are seen on Wherever they went on the ice, they television. were being followed. As cameras and micro- Embedded in their helmets were phones got smaller, networks lightweight flat patches that emitted amassed a creative arsenal that radio signals picked up by antennas could bring viewers onto an clipped atop the protective glass boards America’s Cup yacht or inside around the rink. Those signals swiftly Dale Jarrett’s stock car, see the reached a cramped white van parked view from inside a outside the arena where they became quarterback’s helmet or hear a television graphics and data for ABC player kick dirt as he slides Sports. into second base. Inside the van, Rob Wallace and Graphics bearing all Bob Buffone of Trakus Inc. monitored manner of statistics popped the information on player location, regularly onto screens, speed and distance as it built up on the informing but sometimes video and computer screens arranged cluttering the viewing experi- before them. ence. How fast was Boston’s speedy Fox developed the corner Sergei Samsonov? 19.3 miles an hour. scorebox, which has been How far had Colorado’s Joe Sakic widely imitated, adapted and traveled by midway through the second refined. period? 2,424 yards. Nascar telecasts evolved Buffone summoned a “hot spot” from hours of left turns into a graphic for Ray Bourque of the Colo- carnival of in-car views from rado Avalanche onto a screen. Like a banked turns, enhanced sound Doppler weather map depicting an area from the 750-horsepower cars of greatest rainfall, the Trakus showed and data about miles an hour an animated blue rink with a bright and revolutions per minute. yellow section showing where Bourque ESPN viewers can take spent his time when Boston had a man viewers through the path of a advantage. bat in the strike zone and “I’ve got a hot spot for Bourque on measure home run distance. the power play,” Wallace told an ABC NBC distinguished one producer working in an adjacent truck, Olympic swimmer from Source: Trakus Gorka Sampedro/The New York Times through his headset. another at the 2000 Summer Moments later, viewers saw the Games by their nations’ flags digitally than ever, stir debate about their cost colorful Bourque graphic, with com- inserted beneath them in their lanes. and necessity. mentary from the analyst Bill Clement: Olympic viewers have seen Marion “We want to be cautious,” said Jed “You can see he spent a lot of time near Jones race alongside a “rail cam” that Drake, a senior vice president of ESPN. the net and how much the Bruins tracked her step for step, and last “There’s a natural overexuberance that pressured them.” season, football fans watched game can pervade rational thought when it As they watched ABC use their action from tiny cameras attached to comes to these new systems. We have to device, a gathering of expectant Trakus umpires’ caps. sit back and say, “Does it really help?” executives, on hand from their office in Now, engineering muscle is taking One of the most notable innovations nearby Medford, Mass., banged on the TV sports even farther, into realms that came in 1996 when Fox introduced the van in celebration. make sportscasts look increasingly like glowing puck — and red comet tail for Once, instant replay was a revolu- video games. These innovations, more slap shots — for NHL telecasts. Purists hated it, Fox fiddled with it, then junked FoxTrax technology at Nascar broad- it has been used at golf academies and it. casts: a system from SportVision that was available on- line before its owner, But three years ago, came one of uses computerized cameras, antennas, CompuSport, of Pittsburgh, took it to those rare, deceptively simple inventions in-car sensors and satellites to track the NBC. In recent weeks, it has analyzed that made the industry wonder why it precise location and movement of every the swings of Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, had taken so long to create: the com- car as it races from green flag to Jim Furyk and John Daly. puter-generated first-down line, which checkered flag. “We’ve analyzed the swings of 120 made its debut on ESPN, then CBS, With that information Fox identifies top Tour players and put their movement ABC and Fox. Created by Sportvision, up to three cars at a time with arrows patterns into a computer program to find of New York, and followed by a version and graphics that illustrate speed, rank the best way to hit a golf ball,” said from Princeton Video Image, of and time between cars. Ralph Mann, who developed Lawrenceville, N.J., the stripe is inserted “Based on our experience with the ModelGolf, which customizes swings by digitally beneath the players to show first down line and the hockey puck, we body types and skill levels. He said it where they need to get for a first down. had the technology of the image can analyze all golf shots, and create “I haven’t seen a lot of technical overlay,” Stan Honey, the president of models of the ideal pitching and toys I’m real impressed by,” Ed Goren, Sportvision, said. “So whether it’s quarterbacking motions. president of Fox Sports, said. “But the computing the location of a car or a On NBC, GolfPro’s models were first-down marker has a real editorial puck, we can layer graphics to enhance superimposed over tee shots by Woods, reason for being.” the view of the real world.” Singh, Furyk and Daly to detecttheir An advanced cousin of the first- That real world may not be ideal- flaws and to see how they corrected down stripe is EyeVision, which was co- ized — just rendered in new ways, like a them at impact. Woods’s swing was created by Princeton Video and intro- technique developed by InMotion closest to the model, Furyk’s the furthest duced at the Super Bowl on CBS, which Technologies, of Fribourg, Switzerland, from it. brought it back for the Final Four, to less and used ABC Sports and ESPN. Unlike other technologies, stunning effect. “StroMotion” uses a stroboscopic effect ModelGolf is not used to enhance Employing 30 robotically-con- to separate a figure skater’s movements action, but as a segment away from the trolled cameras affixed on the periphery into side-by-side, freeze-frame compo- course. Still, said Tommy Roy, executive of Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, nents. producer of NBC Sports, it fits his Fla., EyeVision’s Super Bowl replays Doug Wilson, who directs ABC’s rationale for adding a toy. “If it’s whirled 260 degrees around the field, figure-skating programs, said: “If we visually dazzling and presents informa- feeding information by fiber-optic cables used all the images they gave us, we’d tion that hasn’t been seen before,” he to 33 video disc recorders. If not three- have a blur, because skaters revolve said, “then I think it’s worthwhile.” dimensional, the result produced a faster than the 30 frames per second we Ultimately, the best of the new different dimension of reality by work in. So we select frames to see arc, technologies could form the digital and blending multiple angles into a merry- distance, body position, moment of video underpinnings of interactive TV, go-round of imagery. takeoff and the edge they’re coming off producing games that would enable “There was a lot of trepidation of. It shows, in some cases, what went Nascar diehards to drive against their going into using it at the Super Bowl, wrong.” heroes in real time, or letting a hockey wondering if it would work well out of Like “StroMotion,” the ModelGolf fan punch up a highlight when he wants the box,” Sam McCleery, a senior vice technology used on NBC’s golf telecasts it, not when a network shows it. “People president at Princeton Video, said. is a tool that illuminates athletic skills want control,” said Eric Spitz, Trakus’s “Now, for premium events, we think this but is also a teaching tool. ModelGolf chief executive. “They may not know it, will have a place.” employs biomechanics to create a but once they get it, they’ll never want Soon after, Fox deployed its computerized model of a perfect swing; to give it back.” 10 Cabot Road suite #303 • Medford, MA 02155 • phone: (781)393-0333 • fax: (781)393-9033 • http://www.trakus.com • ©2000 Trakus, Inc..