Super Bowl XXXV featured two football teams fighting to be crowned world champions. But this NFL showcase game in Tampa Bay's Raymond James stadium was also the venue for the introduction of a new technology in sports replay. CBS' "EyeVision" provided a unique three-dimensional view of selected plays in a 270-degree stop action image. And at the heart of the unique system was Sierra Video's Yosemite 64x64 digital video routing switcher.
High Quality Components Sierra Video Systems received a call in mid November that caught them by surprise. "A system integrator called and started asking some very strange questions", reports Mike Morgan, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at the firm. "They wanted to know how quickly we could send video switching commands to our router. In fact, their requirement was to switch the router thirty times per second, or once every 'frame.' We discussed it with our engineering department and told him we could do that without any problem, although we weren't aware of any application that required such precise and frequent switches.”
The customer was happy with the answer, but didn't offer an explanation. To make matters more intriguing, they wanted delivery of the large, digital video router in three weeks. "They let us know that they couldn't tell us what it was for, which made it even more puzzling", adds John Cosenza, Business Development Manager at Sierra Video Systems. "We assumed it was a military program".
A few weeks later, the customer contacted the firm again, this time ordering some video distribution equipment to accompany the routing switcher. They asked to have the equipment sent to Tampa Bay and the clues started to add up.
For Super Bowl Sunday, EyeVision implemented 33 cameras spaced approximately 6 degrees apart (30') around the rim of the stadium. The cameras were precisely controlled to point at the same spot on the field at all times. Video from the cameras was quickly routed through Sierra's Yosemite digital router to individual video servers that stored the images for individual recall when assembling the 3-D image. The Eyevision effect gives viewers and referees a unique and definitive view of what actually took place on the field.
CBS developed "EyeVision" at a cost of $2.5 million. The development team consisted of engineers from Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute and Princeton Video Systems. The control software to switch the router was developed by Buf Technology in Southern California, the same company that developed the more traditional instant replay system used by referees during the game. CBS has assembled a product team to offer this new technology to other networks and future sports events.