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Weekend


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February 20, 2004

Strange But True!

  • A weekly column of incidental information, off-the-wall observations and other random facts about the world.
    • By BILL SONES and RICH SONES, Ph.D.
    Special to the Journal

    Q. What's the digital video technology behind TV football's yellow "virtual first-down line," marking where the ball must be advanced for the down?

    A. Beyond the human spotter and operator manually inputting the correct yard line into the system, a special camera mount holds the cameras and encodes their movements, such as tilt, pan, zoom and focus, so the system knows what every camera is doing in real-time, says Howstuffworks.com.


     
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