Super Bowl XLV. As we go to press, the bets are flying fast and furious and there really doesn’t seem to be a consensus pick. On one side we have the arguably indecent yet seemingly rejuvenated Ben Roethlisberger, the talented and stupendously coifed Troy Polamalu, and a killer defense. Across the field we see He-Who-Toiled-Too-Long-As-Favre’s-understudy Aaron Rodgers, a ton of fast-moving targets, and a relatively under-rated defense.
More imporant and - more relevant to the Maximum PC reader - is the technology on, above, and around the field. The National Football League is more technologically savvy than most, so we thought we'd identify and break down 5 key technologies that play an active role in the NFL today.
1. Pill-popping for thermal regulation
Some folks - you know who you are - would argue that football is more important than interstellar exploration. We're not one to wade into this argument, mostly because we really, really want to see what's on all these new planets the Kepler space telescope has been finding. But there’s one place where NASA and football come together. It’s a very small place, not much larger than a vitamin pill. In fact, it is a pill.
You see, a whole bunch of things happen when you squeeze a 300-pound behemoth into 15 pounds worth of uniform and padding and ask him to run a bazillion practice drills, particularly in the heat. And some of those things aren’t very good. We’re talking heat exhaustion, dehydration, and heatstroke here, folks. And yes, as we’ve seen, even death. This is less of an issue in January, but whatever the climate, regulating internal body temperature is key to ensuring optimal performance.
And that’s why a number of teams from both the college and NFL ranks have turned to a most ingenious device – CorTemp's Ingestible Core Body Thermometer Pill. Once swallowed, this 3/4-inch device transmits crucial data to an exterior-mounted receiver and onward to a team's medical personnel for the entire day.
Distributed commercially by Florida-based HQ Inc. (www.hqinc.net), and brandishing technology originally developed by NASA for its astronauts, the pill incorporates circuitry, sensors, wireless telemetry, and, of course, wee little batteries inside its tiny housing, and features a quartz crystal sensor that, according to NASA, “vibrates at a frequency relative to the body’s temperature, producing magnetic flux that” reveals body temperature. No word on the difficulties involved in, um…passing the pill once it’s done its job, but we’d take potential bathroom discomfort over heatstroke any day.
2. Cameras, Cameras, Cameras!
Time was, when even the biggest game of the year was portrayed through but a scant few sideline lenses. This year, you can expect official broadcaster FOX to up the ante even more than it’s already been upped with nearly two dozen manned cameras, almost a dozen fixed “POV” cams, and several more of the robotic persuasion. More on that in a moment, though we should mention first that 3D will once again be a no-show. That’s right – despite oodles of hype, 3D, in its current form, still doesn’t have what it takes for a Super Bowl appearance.
But back to those robot cams, and in particular those that zip to and fro above the action Star Wars-style. Falsely known today as “Skycams” (Skycam was the trademarked name of the original cable-suspended, computer-controlled system, originated in 1984), they debuted in the long since departed XFL in 2001 and graduated to the big time one year later.
The Skycam and all its descendants operate in a similar manner. The camera itself rides on a “web” of four cables. Each cable is suspended from a tower and anchored with a spool, both of which are typically located at or near a corner of the stadium. The camera body sits at the hub, maneuvered via a joystick that extends one or more of the cables and retracts those on the opposite end(s). Video is transmitted to the control booth by fiber optic cable, and the image is manipulated – zoomed, panned, etc. – in much the same manner as a standard high-end camera. Needless to say, an entire squadron of operators is mandatory stuff.
The aerial robot cam concept is already old school, however. Our new infatuation is “X-mo.” Developed by Vermont’s Inertia Unlimited, the X-mo system is capable of capturing an astounding 6200 frames per second at 720 resolution and in excess of 2700 fps at 1080 resolution. Super Bowl Broadcaster FOX will use X-mo at this year’s game to deliver some of the crispest, fluid slow-motion replays you’ve yet to see. Enjoy.
3. Parabolic Sideline Mics
The quarterback barking the plays. The rumble of three-thousand pounds of linemen crushing each other at the snap of the football. The profanity-laced tirade of a losing coach. The inadvertent airing of private team and player conversations. The drunken ramblings of crazed fans. These are all captured by sideline microphones, and boy do we wish that the NFL censors let us hear more of them. We would even pay a little extra for unfettered access to this. (Do you hear that NFL?)
The truth about these mics is that they are no designed-for-sports creation. Nor is it particularly new. A sideline mic is, in fact, a moderately updated take on a device that’s been with us for decades – the parabolic microphone. If you’ve ever found yourself in a natural or man-made amphitheatre, you already have a rough idea of what happens inside a “parabolic reflector,” the concave, sonic-gathering heart of a parabolic microphone (and for that matter, satellite dishes).
Sure, it's not the slickest device for general recording applications because its shape does not lend itself to efficient low-frequency capture. But the parabolic microphone is nevertheless the cat’s meow for collecting distant, unfocused audio. This is why, aside from sideline microphone duties, it’s also the ideal tool for espionage.
4. Steroid-enhanced display screens
High definition is one thing. High definition at 600 tons and 11,520 square feet is something completely different.
When work was completed in 2009 on Cowboys Stadium’s colossal display screen – now often referred to as “Jerry-Tron” in recognition of Dallas Cowboys’ overlord Jerry Jones – it was granted immediate status as the world’s largest high def TV, surpassing the already goliath 8,736-square foot model unveiled a few months earlier at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. And it of course became just one more way the NFL seems to supersize virtually everything it touches.
It is not, however, a JumboTron. Though JumboTron – a Sony trademarked technology – has become virtually synonymous with stadium displays over the years, the monster at Cowboys Stadium is in fact a Mitsubishi Diamond Vision product. Featuring nearly eleven million LEDs that together consume more than 600,000 watts, Jerry-Tron is nothing if not a monument to excess.
The big question: Will either punter in Sunday’s big game purposely attempt to target it? It’s been done before, so don’t bet against it.
5. Augmented Reality broadcasting
When California-based Sportvision launched its “1st and Ten Line” technology in 1998 during an ESPN Sunday evening football broadcast, we're betting that the company knew it would forever change the face of televised sports.
1st and Ten, more commonly known as that really cool yellow line superimposed onto the field to indicate first down distance, has been with us ever since. It’s far from a simple process, involving lots of setup time, multiple cameras, sensors, grids, lasers, CPU and GPU processing, and, of course, manpower. HowStuffWorks has a great walkthrough of the technology involved. The short version, according to them, is:
- The system has to know the orientation of the field with respect to the camera so that it can paint the first-down line with the correct perspective from that camera's point of view.
- The system has to know, in that same perspective framework, exactly where every yard line is.
- Given that the cameraperson can move the camera, the system has to be able to sense the camera's movement (tilt, pan, zoom, focus) and understand the perspective change that results from that movement.
- Given that the camera can pan while viewing the field, the system has to be able to recalculate the perspective at a rate of 30 frames per second as the camera moves.
- A football field is not flat -- it crests very gently in the middle to help rainwater run off. So the line calculated by the system has to appropriately follow the curve of the field.
- A football game is filmed by multiple cameras at different places in the stadium, so the system has to do all of this work for several cameras.
- The system has to be able to sense when players, referees or the ball crosses the first-down line so it does not paint the line right on top of them.
- The system also has to be aware of superimposed graphics that the network might overlay on the scene.
The key piece of hardware is a special camera mount that encodes and processes all of the cameras' movements so that the the computers understand where each individual camera is and what it's doing in real time. This allows the computer to build a computerized 3D model of the field so that it can orient the first-down marker. Surprisingly, the computer also models slope and pitch on the field. (We're still waiting for the cool yellow line to actually appear on the field so that players can see it, but we're patient folk.)
These days, 1st and Ten is just the tip of what is now referred to as augmented reality – in essence the digital layer that lies mysteriously on top of and (hopefully) enhances video images of the real world. From drive charts to pass trackers to virtual goal post extenders, augmented reality is a happening place.
How happening is it? It’s so happening that it’s become the key cog in one of the most complex Super Bowl-associated marketing ploys in recent memory. Put forth by USA Today, said ploy begins when readers download an augmented reality app called Junaio for their smartphone. They then point their app-fuelled smartphone at either the Feb 4th or Feb 7th issues of the newspaper. The result? A three-dimensional stadium tour and an animated sequence of a key play. Let the good times roll!
And now...the Maximum PC Super Bowl XLV Predictions
In an effort to crowd-source this year's Super Bowl predictions, we polled the Maximum PC editors for the winner and score of Super Bowl XLV. Here are our picks:
Jon Phillips: Green Bay wins, 31-20
Gordon Mah Ung: The Raiders will rush the field in the third quarter and defeat a joint effort by the Packers and Steelers. This will settle all family business and see vengeance for both the Immaculate Reception and Super Bowl II. Raiders 28, Packers/Steelers 14
Nathan Edwards: Steelers will win, even though Roethlisberger gets arrested during the halftime show for being a terrible human being. Steelers 26, Packers 22 (that way I win the office pool).
George Jones: Green Bay wins, 26-23, in overtime.
Natalie Jeday: Green Bay 33, Pittsburgh 23
Christopher Rogers: Green Bay wins, 27-20. Reasoning? GB's offensive line slows the Steelers' exotic blitz packages just enough to take advantage of matching up Packer receivers against the average footspeed of the Pittsburg secondary. Simply put - if GB's wily quarterback Aaron Rodgers can find one of his men one-on-one against any PIT defensive back not named "Polamalu," the odds for that play are in the Packers' favor. In a tightly-contested game decided by big plays and big play breakdowns, the Packer offense has one more big play in them than the Steelers do. Titletown brings home the Lombardi trophy, helping to balm the post-Favre pain, and naming a street after Super Bowl MVP Rodgers.
