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The Technology Behind the Magic Yellow Line

CurtMonash writes "Fandome offers a fascinating video explaining how the first-down line on football broadcasts actually works. Evidently, theres a lot of processing both to calculate the exact location being photographed on the field — including optical sensors and two steps of encoding — and to draw a line in exactly the right place onscreen. For those who don't want to watch the whole video, highlights are here."

3 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. Re:My Idea For a Football Field by Ihmhi · · Score: 5, Funny

    You're thinking a bit too far ahead, I think. I say we just hack some Roombas with spraypaint cans and GPS and let them sort it all out.

  2. Flamebait +1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought Football was a game played with your feet! What the article discusses is a bastardised form of Rugby.

  3. Re:My Idea For a Football Field by Kickasso · · Score: 5, Funny

    Lessee. The football field is 360 by 160 feet. You need a resolution of at least 1 inch This is very coarse, really, but let's say it's 1 inch. This means your field is a giant 4320 by 1920 color screen right here. Which is, like, quad HDTV or something like that. You know what? Fuck the game, let's see some movies.