JumboTron

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The JumboTron is a large video screen typically used in sports stadiums and concert venues to show close up shots of the action or band. Although "JumboTron" is a registered trademark owned by Sony, the word "jumbotron" is often used by the public to refer to any such device regardless of its manufacturer or brand name.

Sony Jumbotron at World's Fair 1985

Manufactured by the Sony Corporation, the JumboTron is recognized as one of the largest vacuum fluorescent displays ever manufactured. It is not an LED (light-emitting diode) display — each display element is composed of 3 or 6 small CRTs (cathode ray tubes), each of which is one color of a pixel (Handbook of Display Technology, Joseph A. Castellano, 1992). Sony displayed one of the earliest versions at the 1985 World's Fair in Tsukuba. Sony creative director Yasuo Kuroki is credited with the development of the JumboTron.

In Dallas, Texas there is one of the largest eight-sided (octagonal) JumboTrons in the world. While the JumboTron and similar large-screen displays are physically large, they are often low in display resolution. The JumboTron at Tampa Stadium in Tampa, Florida, USA measured 30 feet (9 meters) diagonally with a resolution of only 240×192 pixels. Screen size since then varies depending on the venue. The display introduced in 1985 was 40 meters wide by 25 meters tall. The largest JumboTron in use was located at the Rogers Centre (formerly SkyDome) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and measured 33 feet tall by 110 feet wide (10 meters tall by 33.5 meters wide) at a cost of USD 17 million. The Rogers Centre JumboTron was replaced in 2005 by a Daktronics ProStar as a part of a stadium revitalization project. The Western Hemisphere's largest high-definition display is a Daktronics ProStar at the University of Texas Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium known as Godzillatron.