Interesting Picture
 

http://i.cnn.net/si/multimedia/photo...an-wallace.jpg

I know at least one poster on here works in the TV industry. Any idea on which clock the replay cameras are focused?

Used to work in local tv news and now in city gov't tv, but I don't know. Sorry. I've shot countless college bball games during my time in local tv news, and from that, my guess is the big scoreboard clock, simply b/c the position of the cameras ususally are not in places to get the clocks on top of the basket at the right angle for tv. Just my opinion. I could be right, I could be an idiot. That one is still up for debate:eek:

Nice find, Mark.

For those who don't know the photo comes from last season's NCAA East Regional Final. G'town won the game in overtime after making up a late deficit in regulation, and advanced to the Final Four.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm......
So the scoreboard clock shows 33.0 seconds and the clock above the basket shows either 32.8 or 32.9. I can't tell as the resolution isn't crisp enough.
I don't recall this being a factor in the game though.

Here's the source, which I found today on Digg

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mul...content.1.html

(Apparently SI is mostly interested in ncaa basketball that took place *this* century.)

I agree. Even I'll stipulate that Georgetown won that game fair and square.

I was more interested by the fact that the clocks have a clear offset. It's likely less than 0.1 seconds, but this photo shows that, at least in some arenas, the possibility for discrepancy exists.

Since the clocks are run from a single source at the table it should not be surprising that 2 of them are off by .1 or even .2 second. What is surprising is that there's no way (or if there is no one took the time) to synchronize them.

Maybe we have a business opportunity here? ;)

I thought the clocks ran off the same system, so it seems strange that there would be a difference. Could it be because there's a lot more wire for the signal to travel through to get to the upper scoreboard, and thus a little delay?

Another thing - I don't see the T signaling the 3-pointer; perhaps just another slight delay in the picture?

Yep, you are right about that. I find it of note as well. Thanks for finding this excellent example.

BTW I took out a magnifying glass and the clock above the backboard definitely reads 32.9 in the photo.

Dude.

Great find Mark!

I worked all camera angles shooting hockey games and camera 1 (main camera) or 2 (close up) often grabbed the time from the scoreclock, but we never had a camera focused soley on the clock. Focusing on the clocks near the backboard allow for also seeing the red light and the shot clock, which could allow for "killing two birds withone stone".

For the electronic signal to travel further to issue a start command would take such a small amount of time, it isn't funny.

I could be completely wrong here, but I think the shot clocks provide the most accurate timing because there is less distance (less wire usually) from the scoreboard control to the display. Plus, they are LED displays so I would think they have faster response times than traditional displays.

Also, the difference between the shot clocks and timers on the scoreboard video displays (the ones that are becoming more common in the professional arenas) are even worse, I would guess because of the rendering needed to display the digits. I'll see if I can't snap some photos showing the difference when I go to my next game.

As for the TV insets, aren't they usually the clock from the shot clocks? I've only seen production on the local level (i.e. community broadcast), but I would think they have one camera pointed at the entire display to get the insets for both the shot clock and game timer.

Which display does the timekeeper watch when a basket is scored near 1:00 left? ;)

With the correct timing, one display could read 1:00 and the other, 0:59.9. :cool:

And is this affected by a player standing too far underneath the basket?

No, of course not.

But you can see a blind screen coming .1 of a second sooner.

w00t!
 

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