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4K Capable

When a new videoboard and display was installed at the University of Phoenix Stadium—home to the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals; it hosted college football’s 2015 VIZIO Fiesta Bowl, the 2015 NFL Pro Bowl and Super Bowl XLIX—additional video support was needed. Spearheaded by the Arizona Sports & Tourism Authority, the stadium’s roster of Vista Systems Spyder image processors was expanded with five more units for the new South Board, a 165×59.5-foot Daktronics 13HD LED display in the south endzone, and a large Christie MicroTiles digital display in the team’s Draft Room.

“We went from small videoboards to much larger displays, moved from SD to HD, including 4K technology, and overhauled our control room,” reports Michael Conner, director of video board and event production for the Arizona Cardinals Football Club. “Now we use Spyders to do all the pixel mapping for the new South Board, the North Board, the MicroTiles wall, and all the TVs in the building.”

“The South Board is the equivalent of 4K resolution in width and 2K in height,” Conner says. “We needed to display two 1080p signals side by side on the board. We knew Spyder would be able to design how the images are displayed on all the different aspect ratios of our boards and TVs.”

Shane Gavin, event and system engineer, says the original Spyder system at the stadium is a 200/300 series unit. “We have four frames total: one 240, two 380s, and one 326 all-connected to function as one unit with 22 inputs and 6 outputs.

“That system runs at 60fps and is limited to 6.6 million pixels, which wasn’t enough to handle the new South Board plus the North Board,” he explains. While the original Spyder remains on hand for other show uses, two new Spyders are used to achieve the needed pixel count on the South Board.

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