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EVENTS
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
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'Sports enhancement' Video first-down marker company hopes advertising pays off
LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. (AP) -- Football fans can't imagine watching the game without that magic on-screen marker showing where the ball has to be for a first down. The computer graphics company that pioneered the technology now hopes that familiar video line joins another gridiron tradition: Super Bowls and super ad revenues. American television viewers won't see them, but international broadcasts of Sunday's game will feature advertisements and company logos inserted in the yellow line that itself is inserted into the game's telecast. In a Super Bowl first, Princeton Video Image will provide four versions of the first down marker.
CBS will broadcast one without ads, while viewers in Canada will see paid promotions from General Motors of Canada. In Mexico, Banca Serfin, the nation's third largest bank, paid to post its image on screens in that country. FedEx will be featured in all other international broadcasts. Company officials hope Super Bowl hype helps broaden the market for PVI's brand of virtual advertising. "It really is, in a way, a kind of impressive display of the wizardry of this technology," company president Dennis Wilkinson said. The first down line is the company's most visible example of what Wilkinson and his engineers call "sports enhancement." The same computer programs and controls that create the first down line allow PVI to highlight race cars and insert virtual billboards along the track. Ice skaters glide over corporate logos and skiers fly past more ads. Baseball viewers can spot a soft drink ad behind home plate where a virtual bottle cap turns over to show the speed of a pitch. PVI officials say viewers don't mind because the graphics provide real-time information about the event. "There is an ad back there, but it adds value to the game," engineering director Kevin Harney said. To create the first down line, PVI attaches a small computer to cameras covering the game. For a network NFL broadcast, three sideline cameras are usually used, one at midfield and one on each 25-yard line. Programmers need information about the exact location of the camera and precise measurements of the field itself. Attached computers constantly measure the camera's position, while other instruments collect measurements about what the camera sees. Before a game, designers program into another computer a three-dimensional gridwork. By combing the camera details and that preset grid, another computer system places the desired image -- first down line or FedEx logo -- into the video signal sent to viewers. It took nearly eight years before PVI was able to meet broadcast standards for its first game, a Thanksgiving 1998 contest with the Detroit Lions. The challenge has been to make the images more realistic so viewers aren't jarred by glaring images. Advertisers however want their materials to stand out in a broadcast. "Everyone knows the line is fake," said Gene Dwyer, the company's chief technical officer. "But when it really looks fake, they'll reject it." Dwyer's team works constantly to improve occlusion -- the mix of real objects and PVI's imaginary products. They want the first down line to disappear when a referee steps on it, but still be seen as it stripes across other parts of the field. At the company's suburban headquarters about five miles south of Princeton, a television camera points out a window. Across the asphalt is another nondescript warehouse, complete with Dumpster against a cracked beige wall. Video monitors instead show a large Coca-Cola logo implanted on the plain wall. A closer look at the screen and cracks in the wall show through the Coke red circle. Dwyer said engineers needed to learn "lots of little tricks" that turn imaginary ads into real profits. But PVI isn't being paid nearly as much as CBS will for its 30-second ads, even though the first down line is visible longer than that between each play of the game. The company's task now is to sell the technology to advertisers. "They are buying it, but they aren't buying it in droves. It's just too new," Wilkinson said. Engineers and advertisers might be limited only by their imagination, but Wilkinson said viewers think differently. "We're not going to do anything that would put an ads or logos into the game itself," Wilkinson said. "That would kill us and that would kill the advertisers. People don't want it."
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