Jumbotron Question

But those boards are damn clear. I actually found myself watching the screens rather than the game at points...

The screens are HD and big making them perfect for watching replays or the game itself when the play is on the far side.  The picture is very clear, I love them.

The screens are awesome. I always thought that looking across the stadium, the screen was too small and turning around, the screen was too blurry. I was really impressed that you can see across the stadium perfectly and you can see the details very clearly, even from close up.

It was certainly loud, but it's hard to judge how much of that may be due to properties of the stadium and how much of that was due to night game/epic comeback/etc.

The new scoreboards are awesome.  They're huge, they're sharp, they're bright.  I don't see how anyone could possibly think they "suck".  Sour grapes is all.

The speakers sound a lot better, but being on the North Endzone screen and not the South they create a lip-sync delay if you're in the South End of the Stadium that you didn't get when they were on the Press Box. I'm a little surprised they didn't put them on both, but it might have created an echo effect with as loud as they are (I can barely talk on the phone when they start playing the RAWK during the warm-up time pre-game).

They don't suck at all.  The software that is running on them?  Different story.  I am sure it was much worse for WMU, but it still wasn't good for ND.

IMO, the software setup on the left hand side is a bad idea.  Should have it on the/ bottom and make the screen have a resolution similar to a TV at home (you know - longer width / shorter height than the old tube TVs).  

The new screens are 100% pure Colombian Awesome. They definitely live up to all the hype been given to them. They've crystal clear and a huge improvement over the old ones

The picture is outstanding. However, the statline is still off. I just started looking at the first down markers on the field. It was consistently wrong or a play behind. It would say 2nd & 7 when it was 3rd & 1 and so on. BUT, the picture was amazing.

I like the new screens but I was embarrased on how many issues they had with them in the first quarter.  They couldn't even put up the 7 points when Notre Dame scored first and they couldn't change the down and distance for a while.  All I could think is if you can't get the score/stats area working then take it off the screen until you get it fixed.  They finally did this in the second quarter.  Maybe that is what ND fans were talking about.  Not trying to defend them but I was not happy how it looked like amatuer hour on the new scoreboards in one of our biggest home games of the season.  

The statline is the biggest bummer, as my eyes are terrible I have to resort to looking at the giant TV board in front of my face and yeah...those down and distances were a little off.

Both the picture and the sound are top notch.  There are still some bugs for displaying the stats, but my guess is that a few games from now, this will be solved.  

As I posted on another thread, when some of the action wasn't close to me, I found myself watching the screen as the detail was amazing.  Lots of players and Hoke were watching the scoreboard for replays.

the stats were off, or at least severely delayed. During much of the game they would turn off the stats too, which if by design, isn't that great. I think the scoreboards are definitely still a work in progress. Many of the Domers in my area were commenting on that. The picture is very crisp though and watching replays on them was awesome.

I was in Section 13 and many people were just turning around to watch the giant screen behind us - which, wow, that was a site to see how huge it is up close.

I wonder if they would be better off putting up two additional scoreboards with just some key stats such as score, down, yardage, etc.  They could put them on each side of the field on the blue areas of the suites.  I know Comerica park has multiple scoreborads.

I was born in 1961 so I'm up there in age, so take my perspective with that in mind.

1. It is a LOT louder - so much so that I was tempted to yell "Turn down that music". The amplifiers are all up in the columns so if you are sitting higher up you'll definitely hear it.

2. Down low, the crowd noise really funnels down, so when the team was driving towards the north endzone and the student section side, it was a solid wall of noise.

3. The new displays are really amazingly clear and sharp. The criticisms are valid to some degree - need to display down and distance, time outs left and some basic stats better - and more often. I know it is cute to have pictures of people enjoying the game, but I'd rather see some stats at that point.

4. The displays just need work and the powers that be need to figure out what to show and how to best display it. Think of it like a webpage - there is a lot of space on a typical monitor screen - and often a few basic layout changes can make a huge difference.

5. Rather than just complain, here are some solutions. If I were athletic czar:

a. More stats, more often. First downs, rushes/rushing yards, pass completion/attempts/yards, time outs left, total yards, would be the basic set. Be sure to put this up during change of possession, end of each quarter.

b. Clearly show down and distance - give up a strip along the top or bottom  for this purpose.

c. Turn down the rock music at pre-game to a decibel level under commercial jet engine level. One of the signs of being old is not knowing what the popular music is and not caring that you don't know. So I know the kids like to hear pop music played by the band and probably the band likes to play those pieces, but that music was not written for a marching band. It was written for a combo with guitars, and synthesizers. Either play more marching band music (there are a lot of possibilities here) or get better arrangments.

d. Continue to show public service announcements and weather reports. Add traffic maps or traffic flow diagrams - especially when some streets are coverted completely to one-way - it helps new visitors understand what is happening.

e. Move the paid announcements to appear on the big screen or at least half of the big screen. They charge $250 for those - right now that little telex strip at the bottom just isn't worth the price.

f. Show the lyrics for the Victors, The Yellow and Blue and the Star Spangled Banner when they are played, so that more people can sing along.

I wear glasses that give me perfect vision, so if I have problems seeing things, then its a real problem.

They are only using a small vertical strip on the left side of the scoreboard to show score, down, and yardage stats.

Early in the game the "down" and "yards to go" were two to three plays behind what was going on on the field, making that worthless. This coupled with the fact that the person holding the line of scrimmage yard marker stick on the sidelines doesn't know how to align himself in the same plane with the other ends of the chains, making it impossible to extrapolate how much yardage was needed for a first down.

The Score is too big.

Logos of both teams under the score were too large.

down, yards too go and stats are too small and hard to read.

They have the entire right side hand vertical strip of the scoreboard to use, but don't.

Public address announcing was too loud in the middle of the game! It hurt my ears! I had to cover one ear for it to be tolerable. I think they turned it down a little at the end.

The video screen was superb and clear!