This fall, when a Big 12 football replay official peers into the screen to look at a close call, he’ll see images in high definition for the first time.
It is a significant improvement in what is expected to be a growing trend in how conference officials review plays.
Years ago, instant replay gave referees the ability to overturn calls made on the field. This season, they’ll be able to be even more precise.
The XOS HD Replay system was created with the simple belief that clearer is better. If replay officials can see the play better, it should reduce errors.
Recently, fans at home had a sharper view of replays because of HD television. Not anymore.
“As more and more games were being captured in HD, it was important for us to put out a system that would capture that content and allow us to show officials a much clearer image of what it is they are viewing,” said Mark Hudgins, president of Integrated Solutions Group, XOS Digital. “So the new system is an uncompressed HD system. And it provides a much clearer image and allows officials to have more information to make the correct call.”
Replay officials will be able to see replays at 25 times the clarity that Blu-ray provides. In addition, other improvements might make the process of reviewing a play faster.
“We’ve added a lot of new functionality that allows them to get to the information and allows them to manage the camera angles from a greater number of cameras and to be able to present that information to the replay official in a much more streamlined fashion,” Hudgins said.
Officials specifically asked for advancement in replay technology.
“The officials, during a game, they would be looking at an SD (standard definition) system,” Hudgins said. “Then they would go home and watch an NFL game on Sunday, and they were seeing HD video. So they absolutely wanted to have the best video quality possible to look at when they were making their calls.”
The Big 12 has added the system for the 2010 season — along with the Big Ten and SEC — but stadiums had to be ready to handle the technology. There was a need to replace wiring and feeds into the press box for all member schools. With that, HD video replays went from a nice concept to a reality.
“The biggest hurdle was making sure that the production truck that showed up to the games was an HD truck,” Hudgins said. “The next step was we had to provide a system that had all the capabilities of our SD system, but able to handle the HD format. We have developed that, and it’s in place.”
Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe is excited about the technology. He lauded his conference for “paving the way for a new generation of officiating. As one of the first to implement the XOS HD Replay system, our conference is leading the advancement of the emerging HD trend for officiating. This strategic investment demonstrates our level of commitment toward providing our member schools with the most technologically advanced resources.”
Chris Dempsey: 303-954-1279 or cdempsey@denverpost.com
