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Visualized: Seattle Mariners unveil 'largest screen in Major League Baseball'
This week, the Seattle Mariners showed off a new 3,840 x 1,080, surface-mount LED display at Safeco Field -- one the team's PR department touts as the "largest in Major League Baseball and among the largest in all of sports." At 201.5 feet wide by 56.7 feet tall, its surface area of 11,425 square feet places it behind massive screens at Charlotte Motor Speedway (16,000 square feet) and Cowboys Stadium (11,520 square feet). That's good enough, the team said, to rank as the third-largest sports-venue display in North America and surpasses Kauffman Stadium's HD scoreboard as the largest in baseball. Roughly 1,200 individual panels make up the screen, offering a total of 4,147,200 pixels -- more pixels than the 2.6-megapixel Cowboys Stadium display, the team pointed out. To feed their new HD beast, the team revamped its video control room and upgraded to high-def cameras throughout the stadium. A 64-bit operating system called VisionSOFT allows the team to mix in multiple video sources, from in-house animations and HD video feeds to out-of-town footage from broadcast partners. All told, the HD upgrade required about 3,000 feet each of power, video coax and Cat5 cables. Along with showing ads, stats and replays, the team will take advantage of the HD resolution to display social media updates from fans during games via Twitter, Google+ and other sources. You can check out more shots of the new screen in action after the break.
DirecTV quickly signs up the first baseball 3D broadcast
After being left out of the Masters 3D presentation, DirecTV isn't missing out on this one. It's teaming up with FSN Northwest and YES Network to bring home two games between the New York Yankees and Seattle Mariners on July 10 and 11, although they will only be viewable by customers in the normal home footprint of both sports networks. Unfortunately it looks like the flyover states will miss out on the games, but those with a 3DTV and DirecTV will already have enjoyed plenty of World Cup action, and can look forward to the All-Star Game on July 13. Multichannel News indicates YES Network COO Ray Hopkins said other networks will have the "opportunity" to cut deals regarding the games, so if you're on another broadcaster but live in the home areas there's a possibility you will see them as well. Expect six to eight 3D camera angles, including a few from lower than usual positioning, to bring the game home. Whether it's an exclusive or not for a couple of regular season games probably isn't that big of a deal, but it will be interesting to see which, if any, of the other broadcasters snap up ESPN 3D ahead of the World Cup next month.
Nintendo to promote Mario Super Sluggers at Safeco
Seattle residents, Nintendo is going to be promoting Mario Super Sluggers this Friday at Safeco Field, where the Mariners will be taking on the New York Yankees. There, Mario will throw out the opening pitch, as well as kiosks to demo the game. What's even better, though, is that Nintendo will be randomly giving away a Wii console and copy of Mario Super Sluggers during each inning. For those of you unfamiliar with the sport, that's nine consoles and copies of the game. That is, if the Mariners and Yankees don't go into extra innings.%Gallery-24326%
Video walkthrough of the Nintendo Fan Network
For the majority of you, our write-up long ago about the DS Fan Network service at Safeco field provided more than enough information on what it's about and what you can expect. But, we understand there are some of you out there who don't like to go over tons of screenshots or read long, desriptive passages (uh, what are you doing now?) and want an in-your-face video showing off some of the features of the newly-free service in real time. Well, thanks to the community over at GameTrailers, someone has done just that, as they've labored through the pain of watching the Seattle Mariners (they're not that good, we hear) all in the name of DS education. Check out the video above to see some of the features in action, then hit up our gallery below if you find you want to see more.%Gallery-4854%
Nintendo offers free Fan Network access for all Mariners home games
Nintendo is making it worth your while to be packing your dual-screened beaut when you attend any Seattle Mariners home game this year, as the company has announced the Nintendo Fan Network is free for use at Safeco Field. Now you can check live stats and partake in some baseball trivia, as well as order food and have it delivered to you!Some of you may remember the service itself was pretty cheap ($5) before, but now it's considerably more cheap. And considering how cheap general admission tickets at a baseball game are, we'd suggest you attend a game and see what it's like for yourself. %Gallery-4854%[Via press release]
Seattle Mariners DS: exactly what the US market needs
If you happen to be a Seattle Mariners fan, and you're in the area, rush down to Safeco Field to pick up one of these bad boys -- this is a US-exclusive Lite with the team's logo embedded into the shell. This is exactly the kind of thing we need to see more of in North America if Nintendo wants to continually rock out US sales like those in Japan. More cool stuff like this, less commercials during kiddie cartoons. Mainstream, here we come! There are only 2000 of these special edition Lites, and this is everywhere on the 'net today, so we expect a few fans may end up trolling eBay with tears in their eyes in a few weeks. It's too bad Nintendo doesn't own a sizable interest in the St. Louis Cardinals -- then we'd finally be able to convince a certain mother unit that the DS is even more awesome than the Wii![Via NeoGAF]
