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The Technology Behind the Magic Yellow Line

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the don't-eat-the-yellow-line dept.

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."

10 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. New trend by plankrwf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hmmm... A new trend? No longer reading 'have not RTFA' but 'have not Viewed TFA'?
    Dear oh dear, what is /. coming to.

  2. Watch the video by Baricom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I already knew in pretty significant detail how all this works, but there was a lot of additional information in the video that never made it to the PR-sanitized behind-the-scenes descriptions of the technology.

    Plus, you get to see the ugly UI that appears to have been built as an afterthought - just like the UI of all the other industrial television software I've operated.

    1. Re:Watch the video by direktorxxx · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Plus, you get to see the ugly UI that appears to have been built as an afterthought - just like the UI of all the other industrial television software I've operated.

      It's true, 90% of software that I've used in a television studio has a poorly designed, or worse, broken, user interface. Gets the job done but in the most convoluted way. The only well made interfaces are the ones by major companies who have been around for a while, ie Newtek, Adobe, Pinnacle, Chyron.

    2. Re:Watch the video by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, when you have a user base in the dozens, and operating the UI is the user's entire job, it doesn't have to be intuitive or even easy. It's cheaper to teach a few dozen guys how to use a bad UI than it is to design and program a really good UI.

      Honestly, the UI in the video didn't seem too bad though (from a 10-second impression). Sure it was ugly but it seemed to have useful features for the operator; did you notice when the guy dragged the line of scrimmage past the first down marker it automatically reset the first down marker to +10 yards?

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
  3. 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.

    --
    Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. Re:unreality TV -- digitally inserted ads by Ihmhi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That's true, but I was always more fascinated by the stuff they did for NASCAR. Not only do they use on-screen tech, but they also make use of GPS to do those fancy graphics showing info on the cars while they're moving on the road.

    There was an article about this particular tech NASCAR uses in some magazine, but I can not for the life of me remember it, nor can I find any videos demonstrating it...

    --
    Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
  7. Re:The reason for SI units by hal2814 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "First of all, when someone writes "football" on slashdot. Is he referring to what is commonly known as "football" all over the world, i.e. "soccer" or what is commonly referred to all over the world as "american football"?"

    Sometimes a single word has more than one meaning, especially among different cultures. When that is the case, you have to use something called context to derive which meaning the word has. So "football" could mean a few different things when written on Slashdot depending on who wrote it. Lucky for us, we're given a LOT of context here. Given that we're talking about first down lines and there's ample video showing the sport in question, the context should be pretty obvious. But since you're confused, what they're referring to would likely translate to "American football" in your vernacular.

  8. Re:The reason for SI units by xaxa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The traditional system of measurement that exists here rarely causes significant difficulties in every day life.

    200g of steak mince per person. 17 people. I'll have 3400g please.
    6oz of steak mince per person. 17 people. 102oz... but I can't ask for that. How many pounds?

    Large bottle of vodka: 1 litre. 1000mL. Double measure: 50mL. Bottle has 20 double measures.
    Normal bottle: 0.75L. 15 double measures.
    I think you buy vodka in a "fifth", a fifth of a gallon, and I think a double measure would be 2 fluid ounces. Erm...

    My wall: 4.37m by 2.39m. Area: 4.37m*2.39m = 10.4m^2. The can of paint covers 10m^2, damn.
    Your wall: 14 feet 4 inches by 7 feet 10 inches. Area... 172in * 94in = 16168 square inches ~= 112 square feet. The paint covers 10 square yards, is there enough? (No)

    I don't really see how the benefits would outweigh the costs of forcing people to switch over. Many things are already labeled with both sets of units anyways.

    Due to pressure from the EU ;-).

    I have a set of SI wrenches and a set of "standard" wrenches.

    That's twice as many wrenches as you'd need if everything came with one system of fixings.