High-definition TV tested at spring training here

[Gregg Lengling]

ESPN sends expensive gear to Tucson Electric Park. Viewers at home will see results later.
TEYA VITU
Tucson Citizen
March 15, 2003
HDTV is going to TEP.
ESPN will test its new high-definition television equipment Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at spring training games at Tucson Electric Park.
It will be the first look the sports network gets at how HDTV works for baseball before broadcasting for real on opening day of the baseball season March 30 in Anaheim.
"These (production) trucks are coming off the assembly line," said Bryan Burns, ESPN's vice president of strategic business planning. "This is their test drive."
ESPN is bringing two production rigs, 16 hand-held cameras, 20-some lenses, five robotic cameras and more than 100 crew members from various baseball crews and some international crews.
The network's senior National Football League producer also will be in Tucson.
This is the first time a major network production team has gone to TEP, said Tom Moulton, Pima County's director of leased assets.
"We keep letting people know we're a state-of-the-art facility and broadcast-friendly," Moulton said. "This shows the design elements we put in place in 1998 are paying off."
High-definition television provides a wider and clearer image and is quickly becoming the standard way television signals are broadcast.
Still, the ESPN crew doesn't know exactly what it will see in its Tucson coverage.
"That's why we're coming to Tucson. I will want to see if ... you can see the ball spin," Burns said about the camera behind home plate at near ground level. "You are going to see things in periphery you haven't seen before."
The signals will not be broadcast publicly. They will be seen in closed-circuit fashion only by ESPN's people at TEP, and the signals will be sent to ESPN's headquarters in Bristol, Conn.
ESPN plans to use its HDTV equipment for 18 to 20 Sunday night baseball games this season as well as National Basketball Association playoff games and Sunday night National Football League games in fall, Burns said.
"This is like going from black and white to color," he said.
ESPN has two HDTV production units, each consisting of two trucks.
The network conducted indoor tests a week ago at the University of Pittsburgh during the Pitt- Seton Hall basketball game and mock sports events to give ESPN hockey, basketball and other indoor sports crews a feel for how HDTV works.
"We were watching the game differently," Burns said.
He was drawn to watching a coach in the background of the basketball game because the coach was so clear with the new technology, even as the camera focused on the action.
Burns said he was amazed by the views from the high-definition camera on top of a backboard.
"You could read the word 'Spalding' as the ball was spinning," he said.
The production rigs house the producer, director and technical director as they monitor a wall of television screens and tell the camera crews what to do, as well as add illustrative effects.
The rigs also house the audio and replay equipment.
ESPN bought more than 100 cameras and lenses at an undisclosed cost to stock the two HDTV units.