The Sports Footage You Won't See Today On TV

Hugh Pickens writes "As sports nerds settle in today after Thanksgiving dinner for NFL and college football Reed Albergotti writes that there is some footage you will never see as he argues that the most-watched game in the US is probably the least understood. During every NFL game there are cameras hovering over the field, lashed to the goalposts and pointed at the coaches, but you will never see a shot of the entire field and what all 22 players do on every play which is considered proprietary information available only to teams and coaches. For decades, NFL TV broadcasts have relied most heavily on one view: the shot from a sideline camera that follows the progress of the ball. Anyone who wants to analyze the game, however, prefers to see the pulled-back camera angle known as the "All 22." While this shot makes the players look like stick figures, it allows students of the game to see things that are invisible to TV watchers: like what routes the receivers ran, how the defense aligned itself and who made blocks past the line of scrimmage and gives fans a 'bird's eye view' of the game to dissect team strategies, performances, and keys to success. Without the expanded frame, fans often have no idea why many plays turn out the way they do, or if the TV analysts are giving them correct information."

Comments

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that was part of what would make it fun to watch a game. But I have never really watched American football.

Re:Wow

[Fluffeh]

Isn't this also the same game where the players stop playing the game during commercials? Yeah, paint me surprised.

I will stick to watching a really tough hitting football game where the althetisism of the players is second to none.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Most American football fans don't watch for the "sport" itself. It's mostly a cover, or a deception. Many of these fans are closeted homosexuals, but are conflicted because they often grew up in extremely religious and homophobic households. Football is touted as the "manliest" of sports, so they play it and worship it in some twisted attempt to crush and obscure the raging penis lust that consumes them.

However, anyone who has watched the game knows that it's blatantly homosexual. Much of it involves men in tight pants kneeling in front of one another, asses in the air. Then they run directly into each other, touching all the way. A small number of the players will be ball handlers (the football perhaps representing a scrotum), and a small number of players on the opposing team will try to grab them and pull them to the ground. The rest are just fat men who run into one another and proceed to grope and touch their opponent.

That's just what happens on the field. Before and after the game they get naked in the locker room, and shower with one another. Who knows what sort of shenanigans might go on during this time! There is a whole lot of penis, and no pussy, so it's hard to consider it a "straight" activity.

(I'm a woman, by the way. The football jocks never picked on me, so I really have nothing against them. I just think they should come out of the closet and be open about their true sexual preference.)

Re:Wow

[reboot246]

Wow! Sounds like you need a shot of vitamin D.

I actually have mod points, but slashdot doesn't have one called "bitter".

Re:Wow

[sapgau]

Do you have a rule book for that?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you hear that? That's the sound of me not giving a fuck.

Re:Wow

[Fluffeh]

Next best thing.

Re:Wow

[artor3]

I only watched a few minutes of the first video, and that was pretty pathetic. Most of those hits aren't even as bad as a home plate collision in baseball.

But more importantly, why the fuck do you consider it a selling point that people get hit hard in a sport with no padding? If you just want to watch people get career ending broken bones and possibly fatal concussions, go watch MMA or boxing. Stop pretending you care about the skill and athleticism, and accept that you'd have been happier living in Roman times.

Re:Wow

[Fluffeh]

But more importantly, why the fuck do you consider it a selling point that people get hit hard in a sport with no padding?

Because AFL is a contact sport. The idea of a contact sport is to have a challenge between the opposing players. It is challenging other players to be as fit, as nimble and as athletic as you are. Yes, AFL has more injuries then other forms of football. That's the game that has been played here, and that's the game that will continue to be played here.

Aussie rules always ruled higher in the opinion of parents’ when compared to rugby-codes. But this opinion stands challenged, as new research has pointed out that Australian football accounts for the highest injuries as compared to all other types of football. // The aussie code seems to have topped the charts of contact sports injuries, the second place being occupied by league , the third by rugby union and the last , being soccer.

A report published today by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that among Australian rules players who are 15 and above, there were 734.3 cases of hospital treatments per 100,000 participants, compared with 677.9 for rugby league. Union and Soccer were way behind to even compete – on 316.9 and 242 hospital treatments per 100,000 participants. Touch football was by far considered the safest, with 121.2 per 100,000 participants. The frequent type of injury was Fractures.

Having said that, do yourself a favour and watch the second video, it forcuses much more some amazing plays rather than big hit ups.

Re:Wow

[artor3]

I understand the point of a contact sport. But usually contact sports involve padding so that the players don't receive any permanent, life-altering injuries. I see no reason to have a contact sport without protective gear, unless the goal of the sport is to satiate fans' bloodlust.

Re:Wow

[Dantoo]

Err that's not Rugby. It's not even anything like Rugby. Continue rant though because other than that I can't feel it in me to contradict the rest of it.

Re:Wow

[0100010001010011]

If you just want to watch people get career ending broken bones and possibly fatal concussions..

Aussie rules and Rugby have less injuries than American Football because you don't have padding. You learn to wrap and tackle properly.

Re:Wow

[F1re]

Haha, AFL and 'really touch hitting' in the same sentance - ROTFL!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66wK9zAppHc

Re:Wow

[artor3]

No, they have fewer injuries because they don't hit as hard. They'd have even fewer injuries if they used padding.

You're confusing correlation with causation. It's a common error.

Re:Wow

[0100010001010011]

And they don't hit as hard because they don't use padding. In American Football you have idiots running into each other full tilt because they're wearing so much padding. But in that 1/20 chance that you hit wrong you get a serious injury.

If I told you to run into a wall as hard as you could and I'd give you $10. You'd do it at a certain velocity wearing no padding. If you strapped on a helmet and shoulder pads you wouldn't hit just as hard as you had been hitting, you'd start hitting it harder. And most of the time you'd be fine, but occasionally you'd hit it wrong or have your hemet at the wrong angle and hurt yourself. Or in Football you'd hurt the other person because you were hitting that much harder.

In addition there are rules to how to tackle in Rugby (Not sure about Aussie Rules). You HAVE to wrap in a tackle. You can't just body check someone out of bounds. You also have to do something the entire game. American Football you burst for 10 seconds then rest for 60. You don't have people hitting as hard because you have to get up and ruck. You have to be there for the next play because play hasn't stopped.

I'd say almost none of these tackles are legal. You have someone picking up and dumping, body checking, leading with the head, etc. They have fewer injuries because of the laws of the game AND because they don't use padding. If they started using more padding they'd hit harder.

Re:Wow

[Fluffeh]

Actually having read through these comments and actually spent more time thinking about it today than probably ever in my life, I think Aussies just generally like a tougher game of football than most other nations. It's not about hurting the other players, it's simply about playing with all your heart. It's a cultural thing, I had a quick look around and found a few insightful comments that might make more sense.

The Australian national character has been forged by the difficulty of subduing the land. Unlike other cultures based on a nurturing landscape that they seek to protect from others, Australian settlers experienced great hardship and had to support each other in order to survive. The battle against the elements led to the nickname of a member of Australia's working class being the 'Aussie battler'.

The need to laugh in the face of danger while battling the landscape has provoked a strange view of the world, with a distinctive upside-down sense of humour. Times of hardship or even disaster are ridiculed, and this extends to the Australian delight in dubbing a tall man "Shorty," a quiet one "Rowdy," a bald man "Curly" and a redhead "Bluey".

As well as the prevalence of the tall poppy syndrome bringing back to Earth the high fliers, the egalitarian Australian society has a traditional Australian support for the "underdog". Australians will show support for those who appear to be at a disadvantage even when the underdog is competing against fellow Australians.

This underdog attitude is most evident in sport, as sport is also a large part of Australian culture. Should an Australian be asked to choose between two unknown competitors, very often they will choose the one least likely to win, such as swimmer Eric the Eel during the 2000 Olympics. The success of Steven Bradbury in the 2002 Winter Olympics who won a skating gold medal after all his competitors crashed has coined the expression 'doing a Bradbury' which underpins the spirit of the underdog, positive thinking and never giving up.

During the 2003 Rugby World Cup, the Georgian rugby team arrived in Perth with a crowd of Perth residents welcoming them with colourful support, and a similar occurrence was noted in Townsville, Queensland where the Japanese rugby team was preferred to that of the French.

And lastly, this little gem from Wikipedia:

Australian rules football culture - Injuries, Health Issues and Prevention
Australian rules football is known for its high level of physical body contact compared to other sports such as soccer and basketball. High impact collisions can occur from any direction. Unlike gridiron, padding is not mandatory and is rarely worn. Combined with the range of activity including jumping, running, kicking, twisting and turning this means that injury rates are relatively high in comparison to other sports.

Australian rules football does not have the range or severity of health issues of American football however players have been known to die whilst playing Aussie Rules, though the most common cause is heart failure. The Victorian State Coroner reported five sudden deaths in that state among Australian rules footballers aged under 38 years between 1990-1997. Three of these deaths were attributed to Ischaemic heart disease (mean age, 31.7 years), and the other two to physical trauma.

(Emphasis mine)

Aussies have a "Harden Up" attitude when it comes to adversity. There are some hilarious comedy sketches that aussies love becuase they are so on the mark for aussie culture. A person who is seen to overcome difficult odds is generally championed. A tough guy (good or bad) can end up being an Australian Icon such as Ned Kelly who we even depicted during the opening of the Sydney Olympics in 2000!

Re:Wow

[demonlapin]

Although those were mostly college tackles, I saw a fair number of similar hits in high school ball - even took a few. (Obviously, the athleticism was at a lower level.) But what is often overlooked is that the bounce-off hits (aka elastic collisions with other players) are usually the least painful and least damaging hits - the painful ones occur when you hit someone and neither of you moves much, or when someone is pancaked.

You're right about the effect of pads, though - once you stop worrying about minor injuries like bruises, you end up causing a lot more big ones like broken bones.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I caught a game of this a couple of years back as I was channel surfing at 3 in the morning. I commented to my wife that the game looked like you threw a bunch of convicts on to a cricket field, gave them a rugby ball, and told them to make up a game as they went along. later I was very amused to discover that it was Australian football. now we are both hooked and watch via dvr whenever we can.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this idea should be applied to automobile safety. People are idiots on the road because they feel so safe inside their cars with high crash safety ratings. If light contact between cars were very likely to be fatal, people would be much better drivers.

Re:Wow

[hostyle]

Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTpXymuwxNs ? :)

Re:Wow

[tehcyder]

I only watched a few minutes of the first video, and that was pretty pathetic. Most of those hits aren't even as bad as a home plate collision in baseball.

But more importantly, why the fuck do you consider it a selling point that people get hit hard in a sport with no padding? If you just want to watch people get career ending broken bones and possibly fatal concussions, go watch MMA or boxing. Stop pretending you care about the skill and athleticism, and accept that you'd have been happier living in Roman times.

Having all the padding/armour, helmets or whatever it is that American Football players wear actually makes it a lot more dangerous in the long run. The more ridiculously hard challenges you receive without immediate injury, the worse you will potentially suffer over your career.

My understanding is that there are a lot of American football players with brain damage, as their (well protected) heads get sloshed about a lot more than in a sport like AFL or rugby where an equivalent hit would probably take you out of the game and is therefore better regulated

Re:Wow

[tehcyder]

You are amusingly knowledgeable about 1970s gay porn.

Re:Wow

[RadioElectric]

See "A Nice Morning Drive", by Richard Foster.

Re:Wow

[tophermeyer]

My understanding is that there are a lot of American football players with brain damage, as their (well protected) heads get sloshed about...

The problem is that American Football helmets do a good job of preventing most head or face injuries, but are very poor at preventing concussions.

On top of that, because the NFL takes concussions so seriously now (in large part because of the stereotyped brain damaged retired football player) players have an incentive to hide and play through minor concussive symptoms so they aren't benched. Obviously, this increases the chance of re-injury.

As an example (for the Patriots fans out there), Rob Gronkowski came as close to breaking his neck as I've ever seen. After that play he showed some wobbliness and confusion so he had to get himself checked out, but later went back into the game. In a post-game interview someone asked him about that play, his response was:

"Uh, I remember the moment and everything. And, if I didn't, I still wouldn't even say I didn't [because] I want to play this week."

Re:Wow

[MrKaos]

What you have said, whilst completely true will never be understood by Americans. Simply put Rugby is a thug's game played by gentlemen and AFL is a gentleman's game played by thugs. Gridiron players are neither thugs nor gentlemen, they are athletes.

What this thread demonstrates is reason why I now understand why I could only watch one game of American Football with a sense of frustration. Americans, when Australians watch AFL, Aussie Rules or Rugby (that right friends we have THREE codes) we see the entire field of play. The absence of padding keeps the game real.

I watched footy for years and it takes so long to get your head around the complexity of a game that is always evolving. It took me a long time to appreciate but when the game is played by good strategic players it's an awesome sport. There is nothing like seeing the grace of a 600-700kg line of forwards with an inflated pig-skin pass a ball and move with accuracy to confront another 600-700kg line of players. It's not an easy game to appreciate but when you do, it's a real spectacle. It's a shame Americans can see there favourite sport from the same perspective. I'm not knocking the American code, it just doesn't seem as exciting as Australian codes. Swapping defensive teams and offensive teams and other such shenanigans denies us seeing the game played to the limit of endurance for humans in peak physical condition.

To me though Grid Iron is Rugby sanitised. The thuggery of the game is removed to minimise injury and the gentlemen replaced with athletes. The thuggery was necessary so that no single player gets to sure of himself, stray too far from the team and the opponents will destroy you physically the lesson; play together to win. Because Rugby is so dangerous you need it to be played my men who are gentlemen and a little thoughtful. AFL in contrast is a game where the game rules the thugs. Full contact punch ups will occur when nerves are frayed and the players exhausted. There is no padding to stop you getting smashed and you will get smashed but the rules of AFL are there to temper the thugs. Do American players get hit so hard they get a fractured skull in the second last game of their career? Happened this season to Lockyer. that's what makes our codes exciting.

I'm kinda glad that Americans don't get into Australian codes of Football because I wouldn't want to see the level of sanitisation that occurs in the American Code to appear in our game. Footy is a dirty, rough, bloody strategic hard game where you get bruised battered and beaten, but sometimes, if you play really well, you win.

Just like life.

Re:Wow

[jpapon]

It's well known that padding in sports, while originally intended as a protective measure, actually just results in harder hits and more injuries. Boxing gloves are the best example; you can't hit someone all that hard without gloves... you'll just break your hand. Strap on gloves though, and you can hit them full force, and consequently give them some nasty concussions.

Re:Wow

[shadowfaxcrx]

There's a book (Traffic) in which traffic engineers say the same thing.

Re:Wow

[michael_cain]

Isn't this also the same game where the players stop playing the game during commercials [wikipedia.org]? Yeah, paint me surprised.

Not to mention all the other times when nothing is happening. Until you've seen a game at the stadium, you don't realize just how hard the TV production team is working to fill up the dead time.

Re:Wow

[GuB-42]

I have a friend who plays American Football. For him, the so called "padding" is not a protection, it is a weapon.

Re:Wow

[Mal-2]

See "A Nice Morning Drive", by Richard Foster.

And the song "Red Barchetta" by Rush, which was based on the above.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to watch gaelic football i think it offers more excitement with reasonable contact. It has the physical contact seen in rugby and skill possessed by soccer players. Aussie rules is a great sport but the physicality is not necessary i think its rooted in Aussie psychy, but i guess that's how they like it in down under. Back to the nfl its has a conundrum of rules that the casual watcher does not understand, its is slow, too many breaks and from a tactical point of view you don't learn anything concerning the plays made. The commentary is over the top with little insight while coupled with statistics that don't prove much the fan (so he threw three interception but they won the game big deal). The fact that in the nfl they consider plays as propriety that is hilarious, they may as well fill Wembley with expatriates and euro-hipsters. The only thing that longer and dreadful to watch would be baseball.

Re:Wow

[MrKaos]

Someone actually modded my coments about footy down??? wtf?

I think that says a lot. We have cattle stations here that are bigger than Texas and ice cream harder than your gridiron players. Toughen up princess, talk about sensitive.

What you have said, whilst completely true will never be understood by Americans. Simply put Rugby is a thug's game played by gentlemen and AFL is a gentleman's game played by thugs. Gridiron players are neither thugs nor gentlemen, they are athletes.

What this thread demonstrates is reason why I now understand why I could only watch one game of American Football with a sense of frustration. Americans, when Australians watch AFL, Aussie Rules or Rugby (that right friends we have THREE codes) we see the entire field of play. The absence of padding keeps the game real.

I watched footy for years and it takes so long to get your head around the complexity of a game that is always evolving. It took me a long time to appreciate but when the game is played by good strategic players it's an awesome sport. There is nothing like seeing the grace of a 600-700kg line of forwards with an inflated pig-skin pass a ball and move with accuracy to confront another 600-700kg line of players. It's not an easy game to appreciate but when you do, it's a real spectacle. It's a shame Americans can see there favourite sport from the same perspective. I'm not knocking the American code, it just doesn't seem as exciting as Australian codes. Swapping defensive teams and offensive teams and other such shenanigans denies us seeing the game played to the limit of endurance for humans in peak physical condition.

To me though Grid Iron is Rugby sanitised. The thuggery of the game is removed to minimise injury and the gentlemen replaced with athletes. The thuggery was necessary so that no single player gets to sure of himself, stray too far from the team and the opponents will destroy you physically the lesson; play together to win. Because Rugby is so dangerous you need it to be played my men who are gentlemen and a little thoughtful. AFL in contrast is a game where the game rules the thugs. Full contact punch ups will occur when nerves are frayed and the players exhausted. There is no padding to stop you getting smashed and you will get smashed but the rules of AFL are there to temper the thugs. Do American players get hit so hard they get a fractured skull in the second last game of their career? Happened this season to Lockyer. that's what makes our codes exciting.

I'm kinda glad that Americans don't get into Australian codes of Football because I wouldn't want to see the level of sanitisation that occurs in the American Code to appear in our game. Footy is a dirty, rough, bloody strategic hard game where you get bruised battered and beaten, but sometimes, if you play really well, you win.

Just like life.

Re:Wow

[Algae_94]

I don't think you have a problem with players stopping during the commercials. If you look at your source at wikipedia, you will notice that all the commercials are worked in to times when the players would have stopped anyway. It sounds like you just want a game where the action doesn't break like this.

The toughness of the hits and athleticism of the players really is quite subjective. It's not like these are two clubs playing the same game that can go head to head to see who hits harder and who is more athletic. Obviously the rules of individual sports will determine what type of raw athleticism is desired in a player of that game, but I think it's hard to argue that the sheer amounts of money American football players (gridiron to some of you) earn is a huge driving factor to find athletes at the highest level possible for what they do.

Re:Wow

[nedlohs]

Australians watch AFL, Aussie Rules or Rugby (that right friends we have THREE codes)

AFL is Aussie Rules. But you skipped Rugby League (assuming by Rugby meant Rugby Union which seems rather likely) so the number is still three :)

Well unless you count soccer, but who does?

Re:Wow

[MrKaos]

League, yes, my bad. that must have been why I was modded down. Totally justified, my spelling is terrible.

This is /.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not ESPN.

Re:This is /.

[SomePgmr]

Well, it is Thanksgiving, so I guess it's forgivable. And I heard the Packers scored lots of home runs today.

Re:This is /.

[AK Marc]

Don't leave us in suspense, any grand slams?

Re:This is /.

[Anonymous Coward]

They lost them in the wickets during a power-play caused by a penalty kick, if only they had done a better job protecting the blern.

Re:This is /.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Thanksgiving? I thought we had that in October.

Re:This is /.

[Zadaz]

No, but there was a hole in one!

Re:This is /.

[Pseudonym Authority]

Don't be an idiot. It was last week.

Re:This is /.

[mortonda]

Nothing but net.

Re:This is /.

[yoyhed]

Slashdot is "news for nerds". You're displaying typical geek closed-mindedness - this post is about footage that would allow one to be as nerdy about football as possible. That would be a great thing.

I build servers, troubleshoot networks, play video games - typically nerdy activities. But are you aware how fun it is to be a nerd about other things?

I'm a huge photography nerd - I love that a deep understanding of the physics of light and sensors, and of optics, can play as big a role in making great photographs as artistic talent.

Similarly, I'm a football nerd - the strategy and depth of the game (should you care to learn) only add to the already inherent excitement, heroism, and emotion in sports. Every game and every play matters.

This news pertains to me as much as it would to see a post on AMD's new processor architecture. Don't write anything off just because the people who beat you up in high school were into it.

Re:This is /.

[Anonymous Coward]

touché

proprietary?

[pinfall]

How do they keep the 50,000 fans who attended the game from seeing the full 20?
Reasons for not showing it on TV are poor at best.

Re:proprietary?

[MachDelta]

Because it's easier to PVR something than it is to sneak in a high quality video camera with a wide angle lens?

Re:proprietary?

[Entropius]

More generally, how do they keep somebody from livestreaming it -- or, at the very least, recording it and streaming it later.

We have cameras that are the size of a pack of cards that record very high quality 1080p video, after all.

Re:proprietary?

[hedwards]

Ultimately, it's silliness. It would change things if coaches had access to other games, but before long things would reach a new equalizer and things would be fine.

Re:proprietary?

[LostCluster]

The point is that the TV coverage is focused on the ball, while there is a lot outside of the 16:9 frame that affects where the ball is going. There are many "official" cameras pointed at static locations that could show all 22 players and all in bounds territory at once, but those aren't available to the fans at large.

Re:proprietary?

[DarwinSurvivor]

More generally, how do they keep somebody from livestreaming it -- or, at the very least, recording it and streaming it later.

We have cameras that are the size of a pack of cards that record very blurry 1080p video, after all.

You can put as many megapixels as you want into a camera, but the 1/4" lens is still going to make it look like it was taken by a disposable camera and digitized at the local 7-11.

Re:proprietary?

[somersault]

We got that. Most people only care about following the ball. Anyone who wants more for "tactical" purposes, can go watch and even record a game for themself. This is a dumb conspiracy theory

Re:proprietary?

[Anonymous Coward]

What stops someone with a RC helicopter and a camera from getting it? Oh, yeah, not caring.

Re:proprietary?

[Attila Dimedici]

What truly makes it silly, is that the coaches do have access to those other games. It is only the fans who don't have access.

Re:proprietary?

[mjwx]

We got that. Most people only care about following the ball. Anyone who wants more for "tactical" purposes, can go watch and even record a game for themself. This is a dumb conspiracy theory

I dont know about Grid Iron, but in Aussie Rules Football (the only true football) being able to see the entire field is very important in understanding what is going on. When a player kicks a ball over 70 metres you need to be able to zoom out and see where the ball is going. As someone who watches an AFL game maybe twice a year, even I understand this.

Re:proprietary?

[BlueStrat]

More generally, how do they keep somebody from livestreaming it -- or, at the very least, recording it and streaming it later.

We have cameras that are the size of a pack of cards that record very high quality 1080p video, after all.

How about using a quadrocopter with a camera as was used at the Poland Independence Day riots?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocIDVaHtcpc

Is the NFL going to install miniature anti-aircraft guns/missiles at stadiums nationwide, or maybe lobby to have laws enacted that ban all civilian model aircraft?

O/T, but can you imagine the crapstorm resulting from dozens of quadrocopters with cameras swarming someplace like the White House, Pentagon, and/or other sensitive government installations, live-streaming video taken through the windows?

Strat

Re:proprietary?

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't want anybody competing with the NFL coaches. That's how a cartel works.
captcha:fumble

Re:proprietary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I wouldn't want to see an AFL game like htis, and I understand why Gridiron is the same.

Zooming out to that level flattens the game, makes it less exciting. I have no interest in watching some defensive guy scratching his arse whilst his team is attacking down the other end.

AFL does a great job of showing probably one third of the field, and giving a great perspective on what is going on between 3, maybe four players at a time. Any more than that and you lose definition, quality and the ability to really follow hte ball.

Re:proprietary?

[Anonymous Coward]

With inside audio too, just get a laser mic and aim at a window.

Re:proprietary?

[mjwx]

AFL does a great job of showing probably one third of the field, and giving a great perspective on what is going on between 3, maybe four players at a time.

Most of the time, But the last thing you want to see is a zoomed in image of a ball flying across 2/3 of the field. This is what the camera mounted at the top of the stadium behind the goal posts does.

Arguably, one does not want to be in this view all the time, but much like the close up, it has a purpose in showing you what happens on a larger scale when that is needed.

Re:proprietary?

[demonlapin]

The NFL owns all video rights. That's how. They can prohibit real cameras from entry. If you ever post any video, expect to be sued.

Re:proprietary?

[demonlapin]

Following the ball in football is a great way to miss most of the game. The struggle at the line of scrimmage is crucial to the success of the backfield, and a ball-focused view often overlooks why the quarterback threw into double coverage - if you can see every player on the field, you can see that the QB couldn't see defensive back #2 because he a 350 lb tackle in front of him.

Re:proprietary?

[st0nes]

Most of the footage we see follows the ball. But every so often, when there's a break in play, the camera zooms in on chicks in the crowd with great hooters, or players picking their noses, spitting or scratching their crotches. Could these folk not get something for their extra performances?

Re:proprietary?

[Entropius]

I'm talking about a camera like the Panasonic GH1 or GH2, the Sony NEX series, or (I believe; maybe it just does 720p) the Olympus E-P3. These are cameras with the same sensors used in very nice DSLR's and can use any lens you care to put on the front of them -- literally any lens, so long as it has mechanically-linked manual focus and iris, since they tend to have very short register distances. Some of the modern autofocus lenses that are native to the Micro Four Thirds format of the Panasonic and Olympus models are very, very sharp.

Since you're trying to get the whole play in your field of view, you don't need a super-long focal length lens. One that comes to mind that would be good for this is the (standard) Four Thirds 40-150mm zoom, which is small enough that they'll let you into the stadium with it but with enough focal length to do what you need, and sharp as hell. (Go check slrgear.com if you want the data.)

Re:proprietary?

[Entropius]

Because lawyers have managed to find the source of every other video that someone rich and powerful didn't want to have shared on the internet... hm.

Re:proprietary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really I want to see "all 22" cheerleaders when they go to commercial. I would actually settle for 1. I quit watching football by they quit showing cheerleaders, or if they do all you can see is their eyes. The rest is covered by a giant bud light logo or similar. Is the NFL mooselim now? Really only the eyes? FU NFL.

Re:proprietary?

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole point of this post is that the A22 tape, or any of the coaches tape, are not available to the public, and that the televised footage (PVR'd or not) is not sufficient for any real game analysis. It's certainly not a conspiracy theory. It's just a business decision made by the NFL of which anyone paying attention to American football knows.

Re:proprietary?

[DarwinSurvivor]

That's quite a bit larger than a "deck of cards"...

Re:proprietary?

[Attila Dimedici]

The only way to compete with an NFL coach is to be hired by an NFL owner, at which point you have the same access to the films that every other coach has.

Whiners

[DeathFromSomewhere]

All 3 comments so far are AC whining about a football article on his precious slashdot. If you don't like it, don't read it. It's really that easy.

Re:Whiners

[Anonymous Coward]

BOOOORIIIIIINGGG

Re:Whiners

[Anonymous Coward]

News for Nerds, not news for jocks. I guess calling them sports nerds somehow makes it OK.

Re:Whiners

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow man what are you, 12? The rest of the world got over the nerds/jocks distinction within a few years of escaping high school once they grew the fuck up and realised other people are people too, and that dumping them into binary categories is completely ridiculous. We'd love it if you could join us someday.

Re:Whiners

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I figured the only reason this was shoehorned onto Slashdot is because of the inclusion of the word "nerds".

But then, it IS an absolutely ludicrously slow news day, so they had to put SOMETHING up I guess. On days like today, you kinda gotta scrape up the dregs at the bottom of the barrel to at least have ANYTHING show up, no matter what.

Re:Whiners

[hedwards]

I know you're trolling, but what about us nerds that were jocks? Having played highschool football, I'm always interested in this stuff.

Re:Whiners

[DarwinSurvivor]

It always confused me that a website that notoriously posts articles that are at least a week old can possibly have "slow days".

Re:Whiners

[mooingyak]

There's a popular thing, called X. The people who produce and market X allow one view of it to their fan base, but deny them another, potentially more interesting and informative view.

If you can't shoehorn that into some kind of 'evil megacorps are destroying our freedoms', you're not trying hard enough.

More seriously, the nerdiest guy I know (and that's saying a lot, I'm a developer and I've worked with a TON of nerds) once considered getting into football for the sheer joy of statistical analysis on all the data produced by it. The additional information from a wider view and how it can be used to interpret what you've already got would be fascinating.

Just because you don't like something doesn't mean no one else does. Just because something isn't traditionally the province of geekdom doesn't mean there are no geeky aspects to it.

Re:Whiners

[Cito]

all these meathead jocks talking about football... I say we nerds band together, get us some trenchcoats... call ourselves a mafia and take those jocks out :P

Re:Whiners

[tehcyder]

News for Nerds, not news for jocks. I guess calling them sports nerds somehow makes it OK.

The point of the fucking article was about technical and copyright restrictions, how is this not news for nerds?

Oblig. John Madden story

[LostCluster]

John Madden said once that the TV people wanted their coverage to look more like his video game, and the video game people wanted the game to look more like TV coverage. This led to the use of the wire-suspended camera for most kicking plays.

Re:Oblig. John Madden story

[RasputinAXP]

actually the wire-suspended camera was an innovation of the now-defunct XFL. Check it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skycam it's about the only thing (other than Tommy Maddox) the NFL picked up from the XFL.

Re:Oblig. John Madden story

[bill_mcgonigle]

This led to the use of the wire-suspended camera for most kicking plays.

Oh, that's really a camera over the field? I assumed they had a few hundred little cameras around the field and some compositing software so they could follow whatever shot they wanted to. Wrong decade, maybe.

Re:Oblig. John Madden story

[Mal-2]

actually the wire-suspended camera was an innovation of the now-defunct XFL. Check it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skycam it's about the only thing (other than Tommy Maddox) the NFL picked up from the XFL.

And HE HATE ME (Rod Smart), though he isn't allowed to wear his tagline on his jersey.

this is ...

[Anonymous Coward]

common knowledge, but geeks don't have an f'ing clue, so it's news

And in Rugby too

[Sussurros]

The same thing happens in rugby. Don't know if it's for the same reasons though. The whole field shot is something that I'd very much like to see from time to time.

Re:And in Rugby too

[JSG]

Well I played rugby (prop - loose and tight head) for 15 years and I've never thought I was missing something when I watch coverage on TV. I can see exactly what is happening. Also there is plenty of analysis with overhead and "reverse angles" etc.

Nowadays, I can compile my own distro ...

Cheers
Jon

Re:And in Rugby too

[Sussurros]

That's a very good point. I never played myself but my nephew captained his nation at the World Cup (he's a lock forward) and I doubt that he misses anything from the TV broadcasts. When it is all forward play then the coverage is really pretty good. What I miss though is seeing why the back chose to kick here instead of there or, less often, why he jinked left instead of right or why they didn't pass or why they did. Some TV stations are better than others and rugby is a layered game that is hard to fit into one size so I shouldn't complain. Especially when you get games like the recent New Zealand Nude Male team playing the Spanish Nearly Nude Female team as happened two months ago in Dunedin, New Zealand as part of the recent World Cup party.

Re:And in Rugby too

[Anonymous Coward]

The article IS about rugby. In American English, football means rugby, and they call football soccer.

Re:And in Rugby too

[Anonymous Coward]

In American English, football means rugby

NOPE try again.

Re:And in Rugby too

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably butt into discussions about brain surgery and gardening with totally ignorant claims, too.

Re:And in Rugby too

[berashith]

just like rugby, but with pads, forward passing and different rules for scoring. Oh, and you take a 45 second break after every play instead of running the entire time. oh, and the time is in 4 quarters of 15 minutes each.

apart from that, yep, we are talking about rugby.

Re:And in Rugby too

[TheRaven64]

It's like rugby, but they wear body armour and the game is scheduled around regular advert breaks.

Re:And in Rugby too

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a distinction that we can all understand:

Rugby is an RTS.

American Football is turn-based.

Re:And in Rugby too

[tehcyder]

Especially when you get games like the recent eam playing the Spanish Nearly Nude Female team

Amazingly that seems to be a true story. Apparently the female team took off an item of clothing for each try they scored, leading to a world record winning score of 500 - 0 (joke).

Re:And in Rugby too

[tehcyder]

I think the common factor is that both American Football and Rugby are games played by people with funny shaped balls.

*rimshot*

Re:And in Rugby too

[SLot]

has nothing to do with cars. I'm so completely lost!!!

Sports?

[Anonymous Coward]

True nerds don't watch sports

Re:Sports?

[Jawnn]

True nerds don't watch sports

Stick and ball games are hardly "sports", when compared to things like motor racing, martial arts, or rodeo. Just sayin'.

Re:Sports?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sports are sports, and real nerds don't watch any of them.

Re:Sports?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The only sports are motor racing, mountain climbing, and
bull fighting. All the rest are games."

                                                                        - Ernest Hemingway

And in case you need any further clarification, American football
is a game only idiots could love. Of course there are an awful lot of
idiots. Makes me wish for a global pandemic of a fatal disease, it does.

Re:Sports?

[larry bagina]

I guess you've never heard of Penn State football! It takes a lot of skill to avoid being raped by Jerry Sandusky.

Re:Sports?

[fyngyrz]

...and sex. Don't forget sex. Best sport there ever was, or ever will be. If done right. Warmups at dinner, pre-game show, endless rematches, mid-game show, after game party, it can even involve cheerleader outfits if you're so inclined... much better use of spandex, lace and leather, oooooh yeah.

Re:Sports?

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes me wish for a global pandemic of a fatal disease, it does.

We await news of your new status as "patient zero".

Re:Sports?

[tverbeek]

Not true. There are many nerds who succumb to the indoctrination that these contests are somehow worthy of attention, and subsequently analyze them with the fascination that other nerds apply to quantum theory, Klingon literature, network engineering, or the former DC Multiverse.

Re:Sports?

[Raenex]

"The only sports are motor racing, mountain climbing, and bull fighting. All the rest are games."

Translation: The only thing that are sports are the things that I like. Besides that, bull fighting is ritualized slaughter, not a sport.

Of course there are an awful lot of idiots. Makes me wish for a global pandemic of a fatal disease, it does.

Just remember that you're an idiot in somebody else's eyes, and they'd be just as happy to see you die in your pandemic.

Re:Sports?

[PopeRatzo]

"The only sports are motor racing, mountain climbing, and
bull fighting. All the rest are games."

                                                                                                                                                - Ernest Hemingway

Despite his being a writer of some talent, Hemingway is notable to me for being someone whose opinions are almost entirely misguided.

So why in the world would I take his word on sports?

Re:Sports?

[Memnos]

But at least to some extent, sex IS a "stick and ball" game.

Re:Sports?

[schnikies79]

There is no such thing as a "true nerd".

Re:Sports?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe for you, it is. For me, it's more of a "stick and hole" game.

Re:Sports?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The only sports are motor racing, mountain climbing, and bull fighting. All the rest are games."

Translation: The only thing that are sports are the things that I like. Besides that, bull fighting is ritualized slaughter, not a sport.

I think the point was: it's just a game unless you can die.
And I can give the man that.

Actually, I would go further with the bullfighting comment: ritualized animal cruelty.

Re:Sports?

[Memnos]

Good point. The stick and the hole. GOOOOALL!! (She'll say something similar I assume.) XX chromosomes are delightful, when used in delight, and they have brains too, sometimes.

Re:Sports?

[dunkelfalke]

Unfortunately not as accessible as many other kinds of sports.

Re:Sports?

[tehcyder]

.and sex. Don't forget sex. Best sport there ever was, or ever will be. If done right. Warmups at dinner,

That's a neat way of describing wanking in front of the TV with a bag of crisps in your other hand.

Re:Sports?

[tehcyder]

Bull fighting is a sport in the same way that raping baby pandas is loving consensual sex.

Re:Sports?

[tehcyder]

I think the point was: it's just a game unless you can die.
And I can give the man that.

In that case, running over obstacle courses while subject to live firing ammunition, landmine-field hopping and torturing rats to death with red hot pincers are sports too.

Re:Sports?

[mrsquid0]

Most people are not as dumb as you think they are, and not as smart as they think they are.

Lemme check

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a moment to check and see if I care...

Nope. I don't care. Please resume your regularly scheduled holiday.

Re:Lemme check

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow - you had to check to see if you cared? I knew straight away I didn't care.

Re:Lemme check

[Anonymous Coward]

It's always best to double check. There might be an opportunity for outrage that will be overlooked unless you check.

Here I couldn't give a damn. I checked and there was just nothing at all I cared about NFL viewing angles.

Re:Lemme check

[PopeRatzo]

Nope. I don't care.

This is like the fourth time you've told us that.

It appears you care a great deal.

ESPN's SC with angles the TV coverage doesn't

[LostCluster]

ESPN's daytime SportsCenter block has a system they call ESPN Axis which is based on a 3D composite taken by multiple cameras that the TV crew that does the game doesn't have time to compute, these things show up on Monday and Tuesday based on when the computers finish the rendering.

Do this in Chess...

[bhagwad]

When broadcasting a chess match, the camera should only zoom in on the piece the player is actually touching at the moment. Allowing a bird's eye view of the board will expose the various strategies the player uses and is considered proprietary information by the player and his or her team.

Re:Do this in Chess...

[DeathFromSomewhere]

Woah woah woah, chess gets broadcasted?

Re:Do this in Chess...

[PPH]

Nah. Keep the camera on the cheerleaders between moves.

Re:Do this in Chess...

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine how much fun that would be if done with Go! https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Go_%28game%29

Re:Do this in Chess...

[Rennt]

A cynical person could be forgiven for guessing the coach's problem with a bird's-eye view of the game - it will expose that their super-secret strategy involves running a line of meatheads at the other team.

Re:Do this in Chess...

[demonlapin]

In my three years of high school football, the offensive and defensive lines (the "meatheads") generated eight National Merit semifinalists (out of a total of about 45 players). None of the backfield made it.

Re:Do this in Chess...

[Anonymous Coward]

In the game of chess, you can never let your opponent see your pieces.

Re:Do this in Chess...

[Andrewkov]

Actually, truth be told, I'd rather watch chess on TV than football.

Re:Do this in Chess...

[Tharsman]

Do that, plus give those pieces holographic animations as they destroy the pieces they "defeat", add some blood too, and give the player an electric shock with fake smoke (for drama) and you will actually get people to watch broadcasted chess matches.

Re:Do this in Chess...

[turtledawn]

Catholic schools don't count, they get to recruit.

Re:Do this in Chess...

[demonlapin]

Wasn't a Catholic school.

I wonder..

[Anonymous Coward]

The money spent on sports in this country...

Could fix the entire country in 5 years. Easily.

All our bitching about budgets and funds are tiny compared to the yearly cash pissed away on GAMES. Alternative energys and everything else we won't do because it's expensive... And yet... lol

I wonder why we do that... I have a theory. but it's not popular i'm sure.

Re:I wonder..

[Tangential]

I wonder how different that is from the money spent on and the energy consumed by video games? Its been estimated that the 2011 spend on video games could be as high as $49B. How more is spent on the hardware and energy to play them? Plus there are the all of the societal costs associated with them. We can't afford alternative energy, but we can spend billions of dollars on video games that consume energy, waste time and accomplish nothing.

Re:I wonder..

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Well, one big difference is that video gamers don't generally get millions of dollars in tax money to build enormous facilities to play video games in.

Re:I wonder..

[Anonymous Coward]

Never heard of Cheyenne Mountain?

Re:I wonder..

[artor3]

Even if every single major league team in the Big 4 sports was the financial equivalent of the Yankees (which most don't even come close to), you'd be looking at less than 50 billion a year - an amount comparable to highway maintenance alone.

Countries are expensive.

Re:I wonder..

[DeathFromSomewhere]

Yeah damn all those assholes wasting their money while actively enjoying their lives. How dare they.

Re:I wonder..

[Raenex]

But they do get millions in tax breaks to game studios. Both actions are done in the name of the local economy.

Re:I wonder..

[Grishnakh]

There's been various studies that show some video games to be very useful for developing mental skills. Games are as old as humans and good for building skills, learning teamwork, and relaxing and relieving stress. Even animals play games; anyone with a cat (or better, a kitten) knows this. Video games are just the latest iteration; before them, we played social games like ball-and-stick games, or individual games like solitaire.

The problem with sports is they aren't games at all, at least not for the spectators. When you play a video game like Mahjongg for instance (one of my favorites), this is good for training your brain and building mental skills. When you play a multiplayer video game, that can help with other mental skills and teamwork. When you sit on your fat ass with a beer and watch a football game, not only are you not helping your body any (like you would if you went outside and played a physical game with your friends), you're not doing much for your mind either because you're nothing more than a spectator.

Re:I wonder..

[hipp5]

The things that make life living are these extra "frivolities". For some people it's opera, for some people it's video games, for some people it's antique auctions, for some people it's sports.

Re:I wonder..

[Missing.Matter]

You know how many people the sports industry employs? Stadium personnel, travel, merchandise, retail, television, radio, newspapers, food, beverages.... it touches virtually everything in this country. I can't think of anything else as pervasive.

Re:I wonder..

[tehcyder]

Nonsense, you're just as much using your brain watching sports as playing most video games. If you're actually interested in the sport, you're constantly planning tactics, seeing what's going on with the players' formation, anticipating what's going to happen next and so on.

Physically, neither watching sports nor playing video games involves any exercise, but then again most normal people don't spend twelve hours at a time watching football on TV.

Re:I wonder..

[codepunk]

Feel free to stroke the treasury a check any time you wish.

Re:So what?

[maxwell demon]

I can say, with no reservation whatsoever, that I don't care about this article in any way, shape or form.

You at least cared enough to post this.

Not too different from baseball coverage

[Tangential]

In baseball, the only thing deemed important to cover is the ball. There may not be as much politics associated with it but you don't really get to see the shifts; what the pitcher and catcher do on most plays, etc.. If you aren't in the ball park seeing it in person, its a pretty intellectually dull sport.

Re:Not too different from baseball coverage

[AK Marc]

It's not any better in person. My wife likes it, but it's even more boring to watch than golf (live or TV).

Re:Not too different from baseball coverage

[artor3]

The thing with baseball is that, as you've said, you really need the whole park view to see the strategy involved. But at the same time, the TV angle lets you see the individual pitches so much better. It's so much cooler when you can actually see the movement on the breaking balls, or see the batter swing to early on a changeup. You miss out on that stuff if you go in person. There really doesn't seem to be an optimal way to view the games.

Re:Not too different from baseball coverage

[berashith]

I once had upper deck seats to a Greg Maddux game, where I was lined up directly with home plate, the mound , second base, and the center field distance marker. I was behind a camera well that wasnt in use, so there was no obstruction at all. I was looking straight down, and could possible call balls and strikes better than the ump. This was an amazing way to watch someone who has that level of control.

Re:Not too different from baseball coverage

[demonlapin]

I beg to differ with your characterization of TV golf. I cannot imagine how insanely boring live golf would be, but TV golf is essentially a nonstop greatest-hits reel as you watch nothing but interesting shots - they'll pull in a tee shot if someone does really well or badly, or they'll go to the greens for the close action.

Baseball, OTOH, is actually pretty fun to play but put-your-eyes-out boring to watch live or on TV.

Re:Not too different from baseball coverage

[AK Marc]

Ends up making a golfer bored. Golf is more about the strategy than the shot. Which club, lay up or go for the green? In person, you can watch them think, follow a hole or a particular golfer (I followed Mickelson at the Colonial in 2000 before it was "well known" that he was going to win and the crowd got too large). But to just see shot after shot isn't interesting. If it were, driving ranges would be a spectator sport.

Re:Not too different from baseball coverage

[tehcyder]

My wife likes it, but it's even more boring to watch than golf

I didn't think that was possible, luckily as a non-American I don't get exposed to baseball much, although I have played rounders in parks, as a chld or when drunk..

Re:Not too different from baseball coverage

[heathen_01]

There really doesn't seem to be an optimal way to view the games.

Broadcast all cameras or PIP.

Re:Not too different from baseball coverage

[hawk]

You need to understand that the only reason that professional golf exists is to make televised baseball look intestiing . . .

hawk

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hugh Pickens appears to be the heir apparent to Roland Piquapaille

Hey, that's hardly fair - Roland at least came from a technical background. Hugh appears to be just slamming articles into Slashdot, to supplement his SSI. Anyone know if he's doing the same elsewhere on the 'Net?

You insensitive clod!

[KazW]

I'm Canadian, Thanksgiving was last month!

Re:You insensitive clod!

[dittbub]

I'm Canadian, does the CFL do the same thing!?

Re:You insensitive clod!

[Anonymous Coward]

and we played Butterballs!

Re:You insensitive clod!

[Intropy]

No, the CFL instead protects its "all 24" video.

Re:You insensitive clod!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been watching the CFL playoffs on ESPN3. Far more enjoyable than the NFL, IMO. If you want to watch a good game, check out the Eastern semi-final, Montreal vs. Hamilton, from 11/3. Not typical CFL (very high scoring), but well played on both sides.

Re:You insensitive clod!

[Beerdood]

I've seen the Skycam used in a few CFL games - i.e. the overhead view from the middle of the field on a moving camera. But I've never seen a birds eye view of all players on a televised game.

Of all the conspiracy theory BS I've ever seen...

[DouglasFWhite]

...this one has to be the single least important.

just an idea

[hsmyers]

seems to me like a perfect opportunity to 'crowd source' the information. sorry, couldn't help myself...

why is it football, again?

[roman_mir]

don't they use hands to carry whatever that thing they call 'ball' around? Why is it called 'football'?

Re:why is it football, again?

[heinousjay]

Just to piss you off.

You know what you should do? You should give it a clever name like "handegg" and then pat yourself on the back for being so amazingly observant.

Re:why is it football, again?

[Maddog Batty]

It isn't called "football" (that is a different game, where the foot is used most of the time to move the ball), it is called "american football". The first word of this should explain everything...

Re:why is it football, again?

[Fluffeh]

Just to piss you off.

You know what you should do? You should give it a clever name like "handegg" and then pat yourself on the back for being so amazingly observant.

Come on mods, this is the funniest comment in this topic now, and it will be the funniest when the last post is added. +1 Funny

Re:why is it football, again?

[roman_mir]

I was thinking hand-dick, but yours works.

Re:why is it football, again?

[Attila Dimedici]

Because it is descended from the same game as association football(originally called soccer by the British--the people who invented the game--it only reverted to being called football when other countries started playing it) is. The roots of american football are the rules variations that the 19th century founders of association football chose to reject.

Re:why is it football, again?

[artor3]

Hurr hurr, you sure are clever! Imagine that, people having words for things!

You know, I've heard cricket doesn't actually involve any crickets! They should call it "bunch of guys standing around on a field for weeks at a time ball"! See, I'm clever too!

Re:why is it football, again?

[rasherbuyer]

Are you being serious? American football is descended from rugby, also invented by us...

Re:why is it football, again?

[rasherbuyer]

They should call it "bunch of guys standing around on a field for weeks at a time ball"!

You exagerate my friend. The bunch of guys never have to stand around for more than 5 days, that's not even a whole week! And they get time off for lunch and tea.

Re:why is it football, again?

[jmac_the_man]

The ball was originally 12 inches long from pointy part to pointy part.

Re:why is it football, again?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, that's what they like to think.

Re:why is it football, again?

[Grishnakh]

As much as I'd like to make fun of American Football some more, Wikipedia actually has a pretty good possible explanation for it ("possible", because like many historical things, it can't be known for sure as the records for many historical things are sketchy). Basically, it has nothing to do with the ball being kicked, it's about the game being played on foot, as opposed to on horseback like sports that aristocrats in Medieval times played. Basically, "football" could be any sport played by peasants, since they couldn't afford fancy horses to play totally idiotic games like tilting (jousting).

Re:why is it football, again?

[Attila Dimedici]

Rugby is descended from the same game as association football.

Re:why is it football, again?

[Waffle Iron]

don't they use hands to carry whatever that thing they call 'ball' around? Why is it called 'football'?

Because it's the only major professional sport in the USA where the ball is *ever* allowed to touch the foot. That's how American sports are named: they go with what unique thing the ball does only a tiny fraction of the time.

Basketball gets its name because it is the only sport where the ball sometimes goes in a basket, even though 99.9% of the time it's being bounced around the court with the hands. Likewise, baseball is named after the bases, even though the ball is only very rarely actually on a base.

Re:why is it football, again?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not to do with the foot touching the ball, it's the fact that it's a ball game played on foot. Thus why so many games have that name (think soccer, rugby, gaelic, Aussie rules etc etc)

Re:why is it football, again?

[bidule]

Thank God you didn't play some others games, or we might have horseball and shuttlecockball.

Re:why is it football, again?

[matthewv789]

Because it is played on foot, as opposed to polo, which is played on horseback.

"Soccer" gets its name from "association football" whereas American football et al are descended from "Rugby" rules football.

Re:why is it football, again?

[rasherbuyer]

As with all evolution

shares common ancestor != descended from

Re:why is it football, again?

[Attila Dimedici]

When did I say that american football was descended from association football? I said that american football was descended from the same game that association football was descended from.

Re:why is it football, again?

[tehcyder]

As much as I'd like to make fun of American Football some more, Wikipedia actually has a pretty good possible explanation for it ("possible", because like many historical things, it can't be known for sure as the records for many historical things are sketchy). Basically, it has nothing to do with the ball being kicked, it's about the game being played on foot, as opposed to on horseback like sports that aristocrats in Medieval times played. Basically, "football" could be any sport played by peasants, since they couldn't afford fancy horses to play totally idiotic games like tilting (jousting).

By that logic, you'd play handball walking on your hands, and netball with everyone in hammocks.

Re:why is it football, again?

[heathen_01]

They should call it "bunch of guys standing around on a field for weeks at a time ball"!

You exagerate my friend. The bunch of guys never have to stand around for more than 5 days, that's not even a whole week! And they get time off for lunch and tea.

The 5 days part is only a recent change.

Re:why is it football, again?

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't called "football" (that is a different game, where the foot is used most of the time to move the ball), it is called "american football". The first word of this should explain everything...

Is that because they don't use Broncos when playing it?

Re:why is it football, again?

[Grishnakh]

There's no "logic" behind it, it's an example of the evolution of language. If the evolution of language was logical, we wouldn't have stuff like there, they're, and their, it's and its, etc.

Obviously, handball was named the way it was for totally different reasons.

Re:why is it football, again?

[BenJury]

This on a day when I don't have mod points!! Damn you slashgods!!

No problem on the camera views!

[Anonymous Coward]

You just need to go all Ender Wiggin that! Stupid Bugger.

Who gives a fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who gives a fuck? Stupid fucking game.

Re:So what?

[maxwell demon]

I can say, with no reservation whatsoever, that I don't care about this article in any way, shape or form.

You at least cared enough to post this.

I did it as a service to Mankind.

Yeah, mankind got so much better from knowing that some random AC doesn't care about sports footage.
</sarcasm>

one problem with football

[ThorGod]

The rules are arbitrarily created to make for the best viewing experience. There's also a zillion of them.

Re:one problem with football

[Mal-2]

Agreed. Football inherently has a highly unstable balance between offense and defense, and the lawyerly rule set exists to try to keep this straight. As soon as one coach finds a suitable way around the rules (and gets copied by everyone else), the rules get changed to restore the balance. That's why football is so damn confusing for newbies. Professional basketball is slowly heading down the same path because it "broke" when Wilt Chamberlain came along and stood in the post where he was almost guaranteed to score once he got the ball. The basic problem is that the game was not originally designed to be played by people in excess of 7 feet tall, it was designed to be played by anyone of reasonable athletic ability and good perception, tall or not.

By comparison, both baseball and hockey have relatively simple rule sets, and basketball also does at lower levels. Size is not particularly advantageous in and of itself in either of these sports (except for goalies), and size REALLY only dominates in basketball when the entire talent pool is at the upper bounds of height such that they can play "above the rim" (which makes me wonder why the basket isn't raised for the NBA -- it would solve so many problems). Strength, speed, stamina, quickness, and smarts will take you a long way in baseball and hockey (and soccer), not so much in basketball (or volleyball), and unfortunately are of limited application in football.

There was another story about genetic testing for fast-twitch muscles, to see what sports a kid might be good at. I think it would be a lot simpler to just LOOK at the kid to see whether they are small, average, or tall for their age group. If tall, steer toward basketball and volleyball. If not quite so tall (but still above average), steer toward football. If average or smaller, steer toward baseball, soccer, and hockey. Obviously other factors may dominate, like being prone to collision-related injuries (which pretty much rules out football and hockey) or having really strong hand-eye coordination (steer toward baseball) or being particularly fast (not so useful for basketball and volleyball, where the small court demands quickness more than speed).

"Sports nerds"?

[jareth780]

Am I that old? Since when could someone be a "sports nerd"? That's like saying you're an "MMA nerd" because you know the best way to kick someone in the face while they're trying to tackle you.

Re:"Sports nerds"?

[artor3]

Ever heard of sabermetrics? The math that those people do as a hobby goes far, far beyond anything a computer nerd does.

Re:"Sports nerds"?

[Anonymous Coward]

We could call them "sports fans", which we did before, but that doesn't quite work. People consider themselves "NHL fans" even if they only follow their own team shallowly, and watch the Stanley Cup finals. A "sports nerd" is someone who tracks the players, the stats, the strategies, the drafts, the trades, and all sorts of details that many people couldn't give a shit about. These people are just as much nerds as any other nerd; just because they're nerding out about a silly sports game doesn't mean they're any less nerdy than that guy who's nerding out about a silly card game.

A sports nerd is not an athlete, and I think you've confused the two. They're not completely exclusive sets, but they're not equivalent either.

Re:"Sports nerds"?

[cavePrisoner]

There are most certainly MMA nerds. If you ever take a class on that type of thing you'll probably meet them. They know every fight in the history of MMA and study the strategies used. I recently went to the video store and looked at the sports section. There were one or two boxing DVDs, a couple for other sports, and a whole rack of MMA fights. If you just want to see a guy get kicked in the face, I'm pretty sure you can find it on youtube. These people actually study it.

Re:"Sports nerds"?

[berashith]

yep, go here, these guys take stats to an entirely ridiculous level.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/info/methods

Re:"Sports nerds"?

[mark-t]

I think that the correct term is "sports geek", actually. "nerd" connotes a particular type of intellectual geek.

And I use "geek" in the commonly understood modern sense, not the sense of a certain type of circus performer.

Re:"Sports nerds"?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I think "nerd" works better. "Geeks" seem to be shallow sorts, the type who leap after every cool new gadget, or gush about some new web framework (while not really doing much with it themselves), and spending copious amounts of time on Tech blogs / news sites and sites like Reddit and Twitter.

Re:"Sports nerds"?

[Anonymous Coward]

far beyond anything imaginable! Pfft

Re:"Sports nerds"?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never witnessed the joy of a UZR. So sad.

Jesus H. Christ,

[Anonymous Coward]

a writer for the WSJ is giving opinions on viewing NFL games??

OK. here's the deal for those of you, including Reed Albergotti, who don't *really* watch NFL or NCAA football.

As the players line up for a play, the camera typically shows all 22 players. As the ball is snapped, the camera begins to zoom in slowly (allowing for some lead room by putting the ball in the rear third of the frame, as it relates to the direction of play) and as the play progresses it may or may not zoom in closer depending on how the play develops. The players can become so spread out during the course of action that to watch it all on a screen would not show much detail, including who has the fucking ball, or the path the ball takes through the air during a pass play. Some quarterbacks can throw the pill for 70 yards, for fucks sake. Pull the camera back to show the entire field and see how easy the game is too watch. You will lose sight of the ball, and won't be able to tell if the reciever caught the ball for a completion, or was nabbed by the defensive back for an interception. The camera operators even lose sight of the ball every once in awhile as it is.

As for being a "student" of the game, there is plenty of opportunity for those who care. Every network that broadcasts football has a staff of former coaches and players who's job it is to teach fans about how the different teams operate on the field, and how effective they are against opponents. There are hours of shows dedicated to this. The film used to dissect play often shows all 22, but it sometimes isn't necessary as some on field play isn't relevent. Sure, downfield blocking by wide receivers on run plays is important, but on a 3rd and 1 attempt, they are sometimes just going through the motions; it's basically a scrum in trying to move the ball forward a yard.

Ok, I'm done being pissed, back to the games!

Re:Jesus H. Christ,

[failedlogic]

Fox Sports once had the glowing hockey puck. Many Canadians were upset at the idea because we are bigger hockey fans than the US. So maybe if American networks implement the glowing hockey pucks again, Canadians will have football broadcast with glowing footballs! I don't know if this will ever extend to other sports. Golf would be my main complaint. Just don't show Tiger's balls glowing!

Re:Jesus H. Christ,

[Anonymous Coward]

the glowing hockey puck (with trail...) was incredibly distracting. I am glad Fox Sports doesn't broadcast NHL games anymore.

Re:Jesus H. Christ,

[TubeSteak]

You will lose sight of the ball, and won't be able to tell if the reciever caught the ball for a completion, or was nabbed by the defensive back for an interception.

Right, because with all the technology used today to highlight the field and overlay graphics,
we certainly wouldn't be able to work out a good system for tracking and highlighting the ball.

Re:Jesus H. Christ,

[hibiki_r]

The camera will probably show the 11 offensive players on almost every snap, but you will very rarely see a safety for more than a quarter of a second. And after the ball is snapped, the camera is stuck in the pocket until a pass is thrown, so you won't know which specific route was ran. Heck, receivers on the other side of the pass probably won't be shown at all.

There are sports where the TV coverage is better than what you'd get on a mid-priced ticket on the stadium, as far as following the action goes. With NFL football, the only way of knowing what is really going on is to go to the stadium: The worst seat beats the TV coverage by a mile.

Re:Jesus H. Christ,

[bws111]

I have a friend who has been to every Giants home game for at least 20 years. After every game, he goes home and watches the game he recorded on TV. His take is that being at the game is a lot of fun, but the one thing you can't really do is tell what is happening with the game. He also says that the new stadiums are better, because they have giant TV screens showing the TV coverage.

Re:Jesus H. Christ,

[Intropy]

That was a short-lived, failed experiment. Yeah I found the glowing puck thing annoying, but I won't fault the effort. As much as I like hockey, it really is at times hard to follow that puck around the rink at speed. That was even more true back when the glowing puck was implemented and broadcast resolutions.

Re:Jesus H. Christ,

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, because properly tracking the ball with realtime video processing is *exactly* the same problem as doing some keying of mostly static graphics. Consider that if you actually watched games (and I know you don't), you would know that the overlays are not always foolproof. In most cases the effect of failure is mostly harmless. It wouldn't take very many failures of ball tracking before people said it was a bunch of crap.

Re:Jesus H. Christ,

[Anonymous Coward]

"The worst seat beats the TV coverage by a mile."

Not.

Re:Jesus H. Christ,

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you even watch football? Football is undeniably better on TV. You go to the game for the atmosphere, to be in the cheering crowds. But especially if you're in the bad seats, there are a lot of elements that are impossible to catch.

Re:Jesus H. Christ,

[Parlett316]

I've heard interviews with NFL players who say they have a hard time watching the games since the commentators have no idea what they are talking about.

Re:Jesus H. Christ,

[eggsurplus]

As a high school football coach I actually would love to see all 22 and yes you can show all 22 on film at once. It is called a wide angle and we use it to break down high school games all the time. Very possible to fit everyone in. We don't care to see details such as the blood and sweat flying off of people. Looking like little ants would be just fine for the purpose.

Re:Jesus H. Christ,

[Beerdood]

I don't think the purpose of this was to display all 22 during the actual play. You're absolutely correct here - you wouldn't be able to make any of the fine details, like an interception vs catch, or a fumble - if you saw it in the "All 22" view.

The question the article is raising, and the point that it's making - is why is it never displayed at all? Football is not a continuous sport - there's a quick play of 5-20 seconds, and at least that much time will have elapsed by the next play. During this time there's usually a replay with the announcer discussing the details of the play. If you're watching any of the major channels (NBC, FOX, etc) , you'll see that there's a lot of time where the sportscasters are discussing strategies galore, whiteboards with X's and O's representing players, and looking at replays of games. *That* is the point here - why is this view never used for the instant replay, or during the breakdown, or during Chris Berman's show?'

With the exception of a kickoff or punt return (where this view IMO would be more useful, because you could actually see the direction of all the players on the field at the time) - this view wouldn't be used during most plays on TV. This would be used during the breakdown, replays, and strategy discussion. Fans were asked if they wanted to see this, and the answer was yes. A quote right in the article is "Without watching the All22, analyzing football is impossible, says Bill Parcells". It obviously has some value and popularity and it's being used extensively by the coaches,

Your argument there for "As for being a student of the game.." - the point isn't whether there are other opportunities. I had no idea this particular view was deliberately blocked (always assumed the skycam was only used for the zoomed in shots) - and it's interesting to read about this and why it's blocked.

Re:Jesus H. Christ,

[Rimbo]

Right now, on over half of the plays, this is what you see: Quarterback drops back to pass. He's looking downfield, which is off-screen. He sees something, and makes the decision to throw/hold on to the ball/dump the ball off/run for it.

We, the viewers, have no idea what just happened. Now that passing dominates the game, without All-22, you can't even tell what's happening in the game any more.

The objections of current NFL folks, and your objections, are heedless of this simple fact, and this overrules all objections. Without seeing what's happening downfield, we might as well not be watching the game at all.

Fortunately, these objections don't translate to the college game (which passes just as much as the NFL does; the Big XII throws the ball even more). You can get All-22 footage in college. And I'd bet good money that a big reason for college football's growing popularity has everything to do with that.

In summary: I haven't posted on Slashdot in a while, and I just came here to say you shut your damn whore mouth. It's about time someone shone a spotlight on this problem, because as a fan of the game, this issue is ruining it for me. I hardly even bother watching the NFL any more because of it. Is that what the league wants? Confusion leading to disinterest?

No problem!

[Anonymous Coward]

You just have to Ender Wiggin that footage, you stupid Bugger.

Sounds ripe for a RC helicopter project

[bogaboga]

...but you will never see a shot of the entire field and what all 22 players do on every play which is considered proprietary information available only to teams and coaches..."

I hope someone can take up this matter to defeat the nonsense. In any case, it sound ripe for a video-mounted RC helicopter project.

I am sure release of such video can make way for serious profits. On the other hand, the so called project manager is likely to attract a barrage of lawsuits as he's labeled an 'infringer' if such a term exists.

Re:Sounds ripe for a RC helicopter project

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah right. DHS would be all over your ass for operating a terrorist device.

Re:Sounds ripe for a RC helicopter project

[Mal-2]

Yeah right. DHS would be all over your ass for operating a terrorist device.

While I'm sure you were going for "Funny" or "Sad Commentary On Society", it's the FAA and TSA you'd be in trouble with if you failed to secure the necessary Airspace Waiver.

Re:Sounds ripe for a RC helicopter project

[Rich0]

TSA, at least, is part of the DHS. Seems like half of the Government is these days...

conflicted

[tverbeek]

I'm actually torn between being outraged at the petty suppression of information, and totally not giving a damn.

Prevents 'spying' except for the spies ...

[tkjtkj]

So, they believe that 'Joe Pizza' and his buddies might make use of this 'wide-field vision' information: info that is totally cam'd by each and every teams staff sitting in the bleachers, etc ???? Where are their brains??? It's sorta like 'copyrighting the image of the moon!' , no?

Re:Prevents 'spying' except for the spies ...

[MrDoh!]

Please don't give the buggers any ideas!

Who fucking cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow the NFL is more paranoid than the USSR Stalin administration regarding its IP (imaginary property)?? Amazing, breaking news. Furthermore, football "nerds" can't see the whole game? Wow I'm so sad. I'm literally crying irl. American football has got to be one of the most boring games on the planet - second only to golf and followed shortly by baseball. It's been so commercialized and professionalized that there exist virtually no plays that have not been tried, tried again, and thrown away because the opposing team had already seen it 30 times. (to be fair, I feel the same about futbol/soccer) I have nothing against sports in general except that most of them are painfully dull to watch, though not necessarily to play. What more is there to see, honestly? Just a bunch of fat faggots humping each other on astroturf. Put this story back in the septic tank where it belongs.

Re:Who fucking cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

lol

Not that exciting

[Anonymous Coward]

The video that you don't see isn't anything special, unless of course you have a video analysis database which you could break down film to play by play and track each player's performance (which is what the NFL has from companies like XoS Technologies). So if your a bookie, you now know what to search for on TBP.

Re:So what?

[PopeRatzo]

I can say, with no reservation whatsoever, that I don't care about this article in any way, shape or form.

And it does not care about you.

See how nicely that works out?

Re:So what?

[Pseudonym]

This is Slashdot. We generally don't care about sport, but we're always up for a meta-argument.

It's not like the plays are a mystery

[qualityassurancedept]

Anyone who has watched for any length of time knows the plays anyway and knows when a given team is running one of them. Its not like the routes the receivers run are somehow more interesting than the blocks. If you watched the game with a full field view showing all of the players, you wouldn't see any close-up drama at the line of scrimmage. Football is more complicated than any one camera angle can show. If all you know about a sport is what you have seen on television, then you really don't know that much about it at all.

Re:It's not like the plays are a mystery

[reboot246]

You're right. What's more is that even when you're in the stands watching from a good seat, you still can't keep up with all the action at one time. You tend to focus on one thing or another, some keep up with the ball and some watch various players.

I've been to too many games to remember in my 58 years, and I've come to the conclusion that I'd rather watch it on television. You can see things on television that you'd never see in person.

It's all about perspective. The players have theirs, the fans at the game have theirs, the television viewers have theirs, and the camera showing all 22 players has its view. One is not "better" that the others; it's all about choice.

Re:It's not like the plays are a mystery

[hibiki_r]

The thing is that, without the 22 player view, It's extremely hard to judge a QB or a coordinator's performance. The TV can't tell you if the quarterback stinks, the receivers stink, or the offensive coordinator stinks.

Now, if a guard is having a horrible game, TV will make it far easier to find out, but that's arguably a far less interesting question unless you've spent half of your young years as a lineman.

So now we know the real reason...

[John Hasler]

...for the no-fly zone over the superbowl.

NFL flushes money down the toilet

[buybuydandavis]

I don't understand why the NFL isn't selling access to video libraries containing all these streams. With all the football fans, fantasy football and otherwise, obsessively analyzing the game, don't you think they could sell subscriptions? I'd buy. Give me a searchable archive. Let me find all targets at a receiver in a given year, or all fumbles of a players, or all INTs, etc.

The problem of delivering video on demand is already solved. They've got the content. It's just money in the street, waiting for them to pick up.

Slashdotters seeing sports footage??

[Anonymous Coward]

This is slashdot. There are like what - 5 sports fans? Rest of us are like gaming and reading nerdy things or watching Eureka..

Re:Slashdotters seeing sports footage??

[bhcompy]

Some people here actually get outside and into the sun on occasion.

Wow just wow

[chrismcb]

We don't see that shot, because we don't want to watch TV like we are in the nosebleed section. Even when watching basketball, you don't always see all 10 players in action. The majority of the population wants to see the action, and see it like they are up close and personal, not watching from the blimp.

Re:Wow just wow

[Intropy]

The discussion isn't around broadcasting primarily the all 22 footage, or at least most people are not looking for that. The discussion is around releasing that footage at all. I would for example like to revisit the occasional play to see everything that happened from the all 22 view. Using it to elucidate the action via instant replay during a game would also be welcome. Even better, I would really enjoy seeing a broadcast set up such that I could arrange multiple views to my liking. I might set a large window to show the current directed-style video while a picture-in-picture type window shows the all-22 and another may follow a specific player I want to see on a given play.

Soccer differs...

[rickb928]

... not just in the rules and play, but in the TV coverage.

Soccer is insanely popular the world over, and TV coverage of soccer seems to provide a wider view of the field, which is crucial. Soccer covers a lot of ground on a regular basis, where American football doesn't so much. And those long plays tend to be easier to zoom into. Zoom into a decent penetration in a soccer match, and you'll miss everything important.

And I love both. I'd love to have a wider view of football.

Re:Soccer differs...

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

and American does not like it because of its single-digit scoring nature. They can never accept a 0-0 tie as a "final" result. (Which, for a league game, is acceptable, but for a knockout bracket, you have the tiebreakers such as extra time and PKs.)

Re:Soccer differs...

[rickb928]

Ties aren't the problem. More than anything else, US spots fans have less interest in national teams and international championships. First, because we have arguably the best national leagues in Baseball & Football, though I would LOVE to see the Word Series winner play the Japanese champion, I just don't know if it would work. Football, of course, is an entirely American invention.

Don't go all basketball on me, cause in case you didn't realize this, we no longer care much about the NBA. Hockey is an acquired taste in the US.

Americans seems to prefer the sports we either invented or dominate. One of our many shortcomings.

Re:Soccer differs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out the World Baseball Classic. Last one was held in 2009--Japan won, and the US placed fourth. The next one will be in 2013.

Re:Soccer differs...

[slim]

Not in my perception.

A shot of the full pitch is very rare in TV "soccer" coverage. It's difficult to develop a real sense for the team tactics, just by watching TV. For that you want to know what the forwards are doing while the ball is the opposite end of the pitch; TV rarely shows you that.

I believe the coverage makes assumptions about your existing knowledge of the game. If a midfielder is dribbling up the wing, the camera shot doesn't show you the forward positioning himself for the pass. You're expected to know he'll be there.

It wasn't until I started going to games, where I could see the whole pitch, that I came to appreciate football.

I don't think people appreciate lenses

[Sycraft-fu]

They are far more important than senors, and hence why even back in the days of SDTV professional companies used big cameras.

Even once you go past cell phones, lenses are often the limiting factor. At work we have a couple of Panasonic HDC-TM900s for videoing classes and so on. Not professional cameras, but not cheap things either. About $1000 each when we got them, full 1920x1080 60p recording at 28mbps and so on. A good bit of their cost are in their Leica lenses.

Well for all that, they aren't good enough for 1080 resolution. When you downsample their video to 720p it looks flawless. You can examine it very close up and everything looks as clear and crisp as the pixels allow. The resolution is the limiting aspect, not the source. However when you view the full 1080p stream, well you can see some minor defects. It isn't huge, it still shows more detail than the downsampled 720p version, but you can see that the resolution is capable of more detail, the source is limiting it (and to a lesser extent, the compression).

To truly get 1080p it would take better lenses (and less compression).

You need a large, quality, lens if you want to get truly high resolution photos, where each pixel actually shows distinct detail.

Re:I don't think people appreciate lenses

[syousef]

They are far more important than senors, and hence why even back in the days of SDTV professional companies used big cameras.

That is like saying air is more important than water for a trip to Mars.

Both the sensor and the lens need to be good amongst a lot of other things. The quality of still or video is limited by the weakest link - the least suited aspect of the equipment taking the photograph and the circumstances it is taken under. That includes the ability of the photographer.

Re:I don't think people appreciate lenses

[Sycraft-fu]

No the thing is sensors are cheap. Making a 1920x1080 sensor doesn't cost much. Heck, making 3 of them doesn't cost much (as the cameras we own have). You can also make them pretty small. You can pack them down in a tiny device.

A lens though, much more expensive. Also much larger. It is a bigger thing to get a good lens than a good sensor. It is easy to get more megapixels than is easily usable (data rate starts to become a real issue). It is not as easy or as cheap to get a lens to get fine detail to those sensors.

Re:I don't think people appreciate lenses

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

They are far more important than senors

That's sexist. Even in a male dominated sport like Football, the señoras are important too.

Re:I don't think people appreciate lenses

[ChrisMaple]

A quality, low f/number, high zoom ratio, sturdy lens is expensive. Cheap lenses on small cameras with moderate optical zoom (4:1) can produce about 3000x2300 (versus their advertised 4000x3000). So if you're seeing something that limits an expensive lens to 1920x1080, then the lens is being used at some extreme where its performance is degraded: fully opened or stopped down at one end of the zoom range. That, or there's something wrong.

Re:I don't think people appreciate lenses

[Entropius]

This is absolutely true. (I'm a rather ardent amateur wildlife photographer.)

In my grandparent post I'm not talking about shitty cellphone cameras; I'm talking about the new generation of mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras that are competing with DSLR's, often using the same sensors and lenses, and doing very well in many respects.

Lenses are even more limiting with stills than with video; 1080p may be the state of the art in video, but my fairly-old-but-still-nice DSLR shoots 4000x3000 images. My crappy lenses -- my 70-300 f/4-5.6 zoom, for instance -- do not look sharp up close. My nice ones are worlds better.

You don't need a large lens, though, unless you also want a very long focal length; you need a quality lens. The best 300mm lens that Olympus sells (a f/2.8) will set you back $5k and weighs 6-7 pounds. But the sharpest lens I own is a 35mm that weighs a couple of ounces. I guarantee it's capable of flawless 1080p.

Go look at Leica's still-camera lenses; the things are miniscule. A 50mm f/1.4 lens needs an aperture about 35mm across, after all. A 300 f/2.8? That's a different story.

Re:I don't think people appreciate lenses

[Entropius]

Most photographers tend to have the attitude that a camera is some thing you bolt on the back of a lens, and they're pretty much right. I did some wonderful wildlife work with a $150 (used) banged-up old DSLR; I finally gave it up after bits started falling off of it.

Re:I don't think people appreciate lenses

[Entropius]

Quality low f/number high zoom ratio lenses are pretty much impossible to find in the stills world. The best one I know of is the 12x f/2.8-3.7 zoom on the Panasonic FZ50, and even that thing pales in comparison to a decent DSLR lens. I've seen some movie-camera zooms that have ratios like 10x that have low f/numbers, but I imagine that 1920x1080 is less demanding than the 4000x3000 of even an aging DSLR sensor.

There you can either get 10x-type zooms that have maximum apertures like f/6.3 that generally suck, or f/2.8 zooms with ratios like 4x that are quite often great.

Re:I don't think people appreciate lenses

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just about resolution though...once you've got a bigger lens you can let more light in, allowing shorter exposures, smaller ISO and therefore you can get a better colour response for the same exposure time, or alternatively you can capture moving images better, because more light is going in per second so again exposure times can be smaller, which means less blur. People get fixated on resolution like it's the only metric of quality of image. I'd honestly rather spend more on a lens and have less blur and better colour at 720p then spend more on a sensor and have a blurry, bland full 1080p.

Re:I don't think people appreciate lenses

[Mal-2]

No the thing is sensors are cheap. Making a 1920x1080 sensor doesn't cost much. Heck, making 3 of them doesn't cost much (as the cameras we own have). You can also make them pretty small. You can pack them down in a tiny device.

True, but smaller sensors are inherently "slower" (less area to detect photons), making them more susceptible to shot noise at low light levels and/or small apertures. Another reason good glass is expensive is that it is BIG, and also more precisely manufactured since aberrations that can be disguised at f/5.6 will show up much worse at f/2.8 and be completely intolerable at f/1.4.

Re:I don't think people appreciate lenses

[Mal-2]

Most photographers tend to have the attitude that a camera is some thing you bolt on the back of a lens, and they're pretty much right. I did some wonderful wildlife work with a $150 (used) banged-up old DSLR; I finally gave it up after bits started falling off of it.

Back in the film days, this was pretty much true. As long as you could get the exposure and focus right (for which you might or might not require the camera's assistance depending on your skill), one black box with a flat film plane is pretty much the same as another of the same size. So long as you find the feature set adequate, you can take just as good a shot with an all-mechanical Nikon F-3 as you can with a largely electronic F-5. They take the same lenses, the same film, and the same flashes, but the F-3 offers you a lot less assistance.

In the digital era, the sensor is the equivalent of film, and it's part of the camera body. Not all sensors are created equal. However, if you take two bodies that use the same size and comparable quality sensor (like the $2300 Canon EOS 5D Mark II and the $7000 EOS 1Ds Mark III), attach the same lenses, and put them in the hands of someone with the skills to use them properly, you're going to be hard pressed to tell the difference in the photos (other than sheer MPixels). In that sense, the old attitude still stands. Pick the quality and size of sensor that you need that accommodates the lenses you need (or expect to need later), THEN start shopping on features and price.

Re:I don't think people appreciate lenses

[Mal-2]

Go look at Leica's still-camera lenses; the things are miniscule. A 50mm f/1.4 lens needs an aperture about 35mm across, after all. A 300 f/2.8? That's a different story.

This is because they don't have to accommodate a mirror box. Rangefinder lenses have ALWAYS been smaller and cheaper than SLR lenses of similar quality, as they don't have to allow for a mirror to swing up behind them. The trade-off is that you cannot look directly through the taking lens.

Re:I don't think people appreciate lenses

[Entropius]

This is true. (Of course, you can mount the Leicas on the mirrorless interchangeable cameras, since they have no mirror box either.)

Re:I don't think people appreciate lenses

[Rich0]

I think you guys are missing each other. The body clearly matters more in the digital realm than it did in the film days. However, the fact is that a good sensor is still a lot cheaper than a good lens. I've got a 12MP DSLR from a few years ago and to really get pixel-level resolution I'm going to need a prime lens that costs $400 or so, or a zoom that costs well over $1000. The latter is more than the cost of the body when it was new, and the former is certainly more than it is worth today.

Likewise, if you like a camera on the market today but don't have a lot of cash if you wait a year or two the body will be half the price. However, the lens will cost the same, if not a hair more owing to inflation.

Now, sensors have been improving, and in particular light sensitivity is a LOT better than it used to be. That means you can get a lot further with a zoom at F5 than you could back in the days that it was noise city even at ISO 800. A modern body that takes decent pictures at ISO 6400 gets you 8x as much light compared to the older ones, which means that you need three stops less out of your less. There is a BIG price difference in a sharp zoom at F5 compared to F2, and in action situations the much larger depth of field is an added bonus.

Sure, the sensor matters on camera, just like the CPU frequency matters on a computer. However, both have tended to been over-emphasized such that most cameras (and computers) are fairly unbalanced in favor of selling points and consumers are well-advised to focus on the other attributes if they really want good value.

Your right!

[onyxruby]

Instead we got /Billions/ of dollars in tax money that subsidized private industry and made it possible for us to play those very video games.

Netflix

[tepples]

ESPN is the biggest thing keeping people from dropping cable TV from the bundle.

Insensitive clod

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm one of the elite few who received kickbacks for making that happen, you insensitive clod.

What are they hiding?

[Anonymous Coward]

As free Americans, we deserve to see this footage. I'll bet there are Kennedy assassinations and 9/11s happening just off screen that they don't want us to know about!

cognitive dissonance

[snowbike]

"sports nerds"?!?! Where are we that this phrase shows up on slashdot?? That's a major oxymoron.

Re:cognitive dissonance

[slim]

I'm always staggered by the stat-heavy nerdiness of US sports coverage.

Excellent point.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe in football and make a point to have a football-free house. I will never forget how unpleasant football culture is in America and how it embodies the worst in the country, nor how much I was bullied by football jocks. NEVER FORGET.

Poor drama

[ChrisMaple]

An overhead view that looks like a diagram isn't nearly as exciting as the views that do reach your TV. Also, it's much harder to follow the football because it takes up such a small portion of the screen. The 9 inch diameter football is only 5 lines on a 1080 screen that covers the full 53.3 yard field width.

The biggest advantage of the top view is that you can see how inside runs work or fail. From the side, all inside runs look suicidal.

Suprised!

[clickety6]

I'm really surprised by this article.

Not by the stuff about cameras.

I'm just surprised to learn that they still find time to show football breaks in between the adverts...

When I saw the title...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it would be about this: http://dreamhack.tv/

There would be a market for this

[Lawrence_Bird]

and I have for a long time thought about it - there is no reason at all why the NFL can't release the video (for a price of course) the day after the game. There is nothing "proprietary" about it once the game is over as every team has access to this footage, only the fans do not. As the original poster notes, a lot can be missed when just using the zoomed in sideline cameras and rarely does a broadcast use one of the high up cams.

You would think the NFL (and NHL as well) would wake up and try to take advantage of this. The cost to do so is minimal.

A game of yards

[JMandingo]

I am an American who played rugby in college and have had a lifetime of watching NFL football. As my rugby coach explained things, the reason you wear pads in American football but not rugby is because American football is a game of yards, whereas in rugby only the end line matters. In rugby they teach tackling by wrapping the legs and letting the ball carrier carry you backwards over your shoulder. Using this technique I was able to tackle runners much larger than I was without injury. In rugby you only try to stop the ball carrier head on if you meet him on the goal line, and that doesn't happen very often. In American football, the goal line is the first down marker which is eternally just a little distance away all the way down the field, so every tackle becomes a "stop him here, stop him now" critical moment.

Sports league confirms nerd beliefs

[Anonymous Coward]

Jocks: We want to see the entire field from home!
NFL: No! You're too stupid to appreciate it.