Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
By SHARON GINN
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 30, 2001
When CBS debuted its instant-replay system EyeVision at the Super Bowl, the technology proved both nifty and useful. Thanks to 30 robotic digital cameras stationed 250 degrees around the Raymond James Stadium field, viewers -- and officials -- were able to see rotating views of nearly a dozen plays, including two key Ravens touchdowns.
CBS will bring back EyeVision for the men's Final Four, and it's hard to say how it will add to the broadcast. As of Thursday, the network hadn't tested it for basketball.
"Because it's so expensive to set up and so time consuming, we really don't have the luxury of tests," said Ken Aagaard, CBS's senior vice president for operations and production services. "Our test is going to be (today) when we're (practicing) running the courts.
"We'll kind of experiment in the first game of the Final Four on Saturday. It's going to be a little bit of a different look."
While EyeVision had a large field to scan at the Super Bowl, at the Metrodome its cameras will be focused on a few key areas to which operators can switch with the touch of a button. And because of the dome's configuration, cameras will be stationed only about 220 degrees around the court.
As with the Super Bowl, the result will be a kind of crude version of special effects from the movie The Matrix. Officials say it's also a crude version of EyeVision.
For months CBS and its EyeVision co-developer, Princeton Video Images, have been working on a development called "tweening," where a computer fills in the gaps between the EyeVision cameras to give a smoother look to the replay. That would provide more bang for the buck: While The Matrix is said to have used about 200 still cameras to shoot its fight scenes, CBS finds 30 to be a far more practical number. Tweening should be ready in a few months.
"A year from now, people are going to look back at (EyeVision's debut) like it's Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie," Aagaard said.
WEEKEND RATINGS: Locally, Fox's Winston Cup coverage Sunday was again a big winner (8.2 rating/18 share), beating NBC's Players Championship (8.1/16) and CBS's two NCAA Tournament games (5.5/14, 6.5/11, respectively). When the events went head-to-head from 2:30-4:30 p.m., NASCAR drew an 8.8 while golf, essentially highlights from Saturday because of rain, got a 5.1. Rating is the percentage of households with TVs in the Tampa Bay market; share is the number of TVs tuned in that are turned on. Nationally, Fox's NASCAR coverage drew a 6.2.
And a note to angry skating fans: ABC's national rating for Saturday night's World Figure Skating Championships was a 6.9, while local affiliate Ch. 28 drew a 2.8 during that time slot after pre-empting the skating to air the movie Robin Hood.
WRIGHT STUFF: Todd Wright, ESPN Radio overnight host and St. Petersburg resident, was one of a few people nationwide to get an interview with Gerald Meyers, the Texas Tech athletic director who hired basketball coach Bob Knight last week. (Wright is a longtime Knight defender.) Meyers called at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday and said a parent of a player told him he "felt his son would be a better person (under Knight), more prepared for life after basketball, and he was thrilled. ... Out here in West Texas, people like discipline."
FINE TUNING: Former WTOG-Ch. 44 sportscaster Rob Stone, now host of ESPN2's MLS ExtraTime, will call the first three away games for the Mutiny this year for Ch. 38. Also, the Tampa Bay Mutiny Soccer Hour begins at 6 p.m. Thursday on WWBA-AM 1040. ... Fox Sports Net Florida's Regional Sports Report becomes the Florida Sports Report on Monday, when it moves from 11 p.m. to 10, pitting it against Sunshine's Florida Sports News. FSN's show will air later on nights the network carries live programming.