NCAA Men’s Final Four semifinal and Championship Games in 3-D
Live 3-D Broadcasts Available in up to 100 Cinedigm Certified(TM) Digital Cinemas Nationwide and in Indianapolis at NCAA Bracket Town(TM) and Lucas Oil Stadium
CBS Sports teams up with the NCAA, LG Electronics USA and Cinedigm Digital Cinema Corp. to present for the first-time ever the 2010 NCAA Men’s Final Four semifinal and national championship games in 3-D. The broadcasts will be available live in up to 100 Cinedigm Certified(TM) Digital Cinemas nationwide. Fans attending the festivities in Indianapolis also can view the games in 3-D on LG’s LCD HDTVs at locations throughout Lucas Oil Stadium and at the NCAA’s interactive fan event, Bracket Town refreshed by Coca-Cola Zero.
The games in 3-D on Saturday, April 3 (6:00-11:00 PM, ET) and Monday, April 5 (9:00-11:00 PM, ET) will be a fully-produced CBS Sports event with CBS COLLEGE SPORTS NETWORK announcers Dave Ryan and Steve Lappas calling the action. Together with LG Electronics USA, which is the Official 3-D Sponsor for CBS Sports’ NCAA Tournament broadcasts and Official Corporate Partner of the NCAA, Cinedigm is bringing the excitement of the NCAA Men’s Final Four in stunning three-dimensional realism to tens of thousands of NCAA basketball fans in theaters across the land.
“CBS Sports has always been on the forefront of new technology to enhance the viewing experience,” said Ken Aagaard, executive vice president operations and engineering, CBS Sports. “Through our partnership with the NCAA and LG, and the technological innovations of Cinedigm, we are excited to be able to present Men’s Final Four weekend in 3-D offering fans an exciting and different way to view a major sporting event.”
“Bringing the Men’s Final Four to consumers in 3-D is a prime example of how LG strives to deliver something better – superior technology combined with an unparalleled viewing experience – for consumers,” said Peter Reiner, senior vice president, marketing, LG Electronics North America. “As the Official 3-D Sponsor, we are excited to partner with CBS Sports to bring consumers this immersive 3-D viewing experience and tap into the passion of college sports fans throughout the country.”
This unique sponsorship builds upon LG’s leadership in this emerging technology. LG Electronics, which introduced the first 3-D LCD sets in Korea last year, will be introducing this new feature in an extensive line of 3-D-enabled LED HDTVs and Blu-ray Disc players in the United Sates beginning this May.
“The theater experience is changing dramatically,” said Bud Mayo, chairman and CEO of Cinedigm. “The Men’s Final Four is a signature event, with millions of fans clamoring to be among the few who get to see it in person. Cinedigm’s experience, having brought the 2009 BCS Championship and the 2009 NBA All-Star Saturday Night events to theaters in live 3-D, has shown us that fans who attend will feel as though they have courtside seats. We’re proud to work with our technology partner SENSIO and with our growing national network of top-quality theaters to help bring fans one step closer to courtside.”
Cinedigm’s robust digital cinema network has unparalleled experience in bringing the best in LIVE 3D entertainment to the widest number of 3-D cinema screens. Audiences at the first-ever live 3-D sports broadcasts last year hailed the revolutionary impact of seeing sports in 3-D, especially when seen in a movie theater. No other cinema network has the technological infrastructure and distribution know-how to enable this kind of large-scale, nationwide, 3-D event in U.S. theaters.
CBS Sports and LG Electronics also are working with NEP and 3-D expertise will be provided by world renowned 3-D innovator, Vince Pace, to deliver the broadcast in 3-D. Pace, has worked on the blockbuster movies Avatar and Titanic.
Baltimore Orioles Go 3-D – Virtual Birdland enables fans to virtually view Camden Yards and surrounding areas
Fans planning to visit the Baltimore Orioles’ famed Oriole Park at Camden Yards can now take a realistic virtual 3-D tour of the area – including the ballpark, surrounding attractions, traffic routes and parking options – from the comfort of their own homes. The Orioles are the first professional baseball team to employ this new virtual 3-D geospatial visualization technology to enhance their fans’ experience.
Harris Corporation , an international communications and information technology company, created multiple 3-D flyover videos of the Camden Yards vicinity, which are now available on the Orioles’ Virtual Birdland web site (www.orioles.com/virtualbirdland). The videos provide visitors with realistic views of the ballpark and surrounding areas, which are visited annually by millions of fans. The 3-D videos allow anyone with a computer and Internet connection to ‘virtually’ fly over the park, adjacent parking lots, entrance roadways, and the nearby Inner Harbor.
“Virtual Birdland provides Orioles fans with a clear view of what they will see prior to arriving at Oriole Park, and helps familiarize them with traffic patterns, ample parking options, and other area attractions surrounding the ballpark,” said Greg Bader, Orioles Director of Communications. “This is especially convenient for first-time visitors who are unfamiliar with the area and want to become more comfortable with where they are going, and how to get there. We are confident that Virtual Birdland will demonstrate the ease and convenience of attending a game at Oriole Park at Camden Yards and we’re very excited to offer this capability to our fans.”
Harris, which provides geospatial visualization technology and models to business, government and military customers, used its patented geospatial RealSite(R) solution to transform aerial data and ground-based imagery into an extremely accurate model and videos of the ballpark and neighboring downtown Baltimore area. Along with Camden Yards, Harris also recently produced 3-D virtual models and videos of Washington, DC, the Presidential Inauguration Parade route, the National Memorial Day Parade route, Arlington National Cemetery, and the U.S. Marine Corps Marathon route.
Built from ground, aerial and satellite imagery using technology developed for government customers, 3-D urban models like the one of Baltimore’s Camden Yards are geospatially accurate. Harris has developed nearly 500 global 3-D models during the past five years as a prime contractor for the U.S. government. These applications are used in a number of important areas:
- Mission Site Familiarization and Planning Regions that are difficult to access can be modeled and analyzed quickly and affordably, with minimal risk to personnel and resources.
- Facility and Event Security Planning and Monitoring Accurate, photo-realistic data provides the knowledge necessary for planning the location of security cameras, sensors, motorcade routes, and other vital security information.
- Disaster Mitigation Planning and Response Modeling and simulation can be used to forecast, simulate and prepare for events in advance. Complex situations can be evaluated using real- time data integration to promote a quick and comprehensive understanding of what is happening as events take place.
- Communications Network Planning and Monitoring Placement of satellite communications equipment can be preplanned, effectively lowering installation costs and reducing miscalculations.
Source: Harris Corporation