by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
Football games at Alltel Stadium are bigger, brighter and more vivid than ever thanks to new scoreboard video boards.
Randy Goodwin, president of PRI Productions, said Alltel Stadium upgraded its video boards this summer as an effort to bring the stadium up to speed with other NFL venues.
“We are excited that we now have this,” said Goodwin. “A lot of other NFL teams have already done this.”
New Daktronics Pro-Star boards have replaced the smaller Sony Jumbotron units in the north and south end zones. At 1,200 pixels wide by 320 pixels high, Goodwin said the new end zone boards are much larger than the old units and offer more presentation flexibility.
“The old boards used to be very choppy,” he said. “Now you will see more action and the versatility is much greater than it has been in the past. We can now take a more creative approach to presentations.”
Besides replacing the end zone displays, the stadium now features several Daktronics Pro-Ad units along the ledge of the stadium’s second level. Goodwin said the Pro-Ad boards will also add new visual options to the stadium.
“We never actually had anything like (the Pro-Ad boards) before,” he said. “We now have two- and three-dimensional animation during the game.”
Because the new end zone boards are much wider than the previous displays, Goodwin said viewers will be able to experience more motion from on-screen presentations He also said the stadium will be able to convey more information with the Pro-Star boards.
“This will really add to the excitement of being at an NFL game,” he said.
Goodwin compared the new system to looking at two wide screen televisions placed side-by-side.
“You see a lot more now,” he said. “It gives a pretty huge ‘wow’ factor.”
Because the boards are so much larger than before, some printed advertising in the end zone display area facing the field had to be removed during the installation. Goodwin said everything has been worked out with the advertisers and now certain advertisements are displayed on-screen during the game.
Besides being physically bigger, the new Alltel boards differ from an average home television set because of its display ratio. Goodwin said the Alltel boards have a 4-to-1 ratio while most televisions have a 4-to-3 ratio.
Also unlike a television, which uses a picture tube or computer monitor technology, the display face of the Daktronics boards is comprised of thousands of LEDs, or light emitting diodes, which make the boards extremely bright.
Goodwin said he and his team have not experienced any major problems with the new system during the preseason home games, but said it took a little while to adjust to the new equipment.
“We are getting accustomed to the change but we have done quite well with this new system,” he said. “I am very proud of how everyone handled it.”
Goodwin also said he was grateful to SMG, Alltel Stadium’s management company, and SMG’s Nick Dornford for help with the new system.
“They oversaw implementation of the new program,” said Goodwin. “(Dornford and his team) really did a great job making sure that everything we needed was taken care of.”
Overall, Goodwin said he is excited about the new system and is sure the fans will enjoy the new displays.
“The whole purpose of this thing comes down to two words: fan enhancement,” said Goodwin. “We want the fans to have the best experience they can have.”