http://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/ Engadget HD Comments for University of Minnesota orders up 108- by 48-foot HD scoreboard from Daktronics http://hd.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://hd.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2009 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/
and oh yeah we are a Division I-AA team!!
Granted we were ranked #1 at the time, North Dakota State University.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/recap?gameId=272930135

lol, 30,000 people drove down from fargo, nd to the metrodome.
somebody should fire brewster, guy is an idiot.]]>Mar 4th 2008 2:45PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/Oh, and when did they get the internet in North Dakota? Pathetic.]]>Mar 4th 2008 4:42PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/
glenn you just made an ass of yourself, smooth.
that kid from north dakota was actually smarter than you.]]>Mar 4th 2008 5:22PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/
I don't see what spending a ton of money on a jumbotron (or whatever you want to call it) has anything to do with whether a team is good or not. It is there because it is a big school, U of MN has one of the largest student bodies in the country, and will in turn be a big stadium. It is pretty much a standard to have a large jumbotron in a large stadium, it would kind of be stupid to not do it.

On top of that, as far as the money. The money was raised, TCF Bank putting up a large portion along with a lot of private funds coming into pay for the stadium. The school is not pay too much for it. As far as scholar ships go, that money is locked up and also regulated by the NCAA. It is not like because they had a bunch of extra money laying around, they can toss it at kids for scholarships.

Sure, jumbotrons are not going to bring in the fans or make the team great, but it is going to add to the atmosphere to being at a big sporting event in a big stadium. That right there is the point for the jumbotron.

As far as NDSU, they are not a Division II school for Football (they made the switch a few years back) or Hockey. So a Division I school beat a Division I school. It is all gravy, the Gophers sucked last year and have not had a good program for a long time, is it really something to be proud of to beat a bad team? Maybe the new administration and coach can change that, only time will tell. All I know is I will be enjoying a game or too in the new stadium to cheer on my Gophers for good or bad.]]>Mar 4th 2008 6:07PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/
The big inflatable toilet (Metrodome) sucks. It is horrible is a baseball stadium, which really seems like a second though and is almost as bad for football. I really don't like going there and can't wait until it is gone.]]>Mar 4th 2008 2:53PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/
You from the area? I graduated from the U of M in '98. :)

]]>Mar 4th 2008 9:39PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/
Born and raised in the great Gopher state! I attended the U of M, but like 10+ years after you. Regretfully, I have also never bothered to finish up my college degree due to a good full time job offer. Luckily, I hasn't hampered me... yet, but I do plan to finish up, especially since my current work has a great tuition re-reimbursement program.]]>Mar 7th 2008 8:15AMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/Mar 4th 2008 3:16PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/
A bigger problem is that this screen has an aspect ratio of 2.25:1. Either 16:9 (1.77:1) video is going to be really stretched, or part of the screen will be reserved for graphics, etc. Hopefully it will be the latter!]]>Mar 4th 2008 4:52PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/
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You can argue if a team doing well or not should or should not spend that kind of money on a video board...however if it's a Daktronics board then it's a waste of money even if they spent $1.50 on it.

U of Min is going to seriously regret that purchase.]]>Mar 6th 2008 10:39AMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/Mar 6th 2008 5:39PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/
Laughable that you're bitching about our new 288 million dollar stadium.

GO GOPHERS!]]>Mar 6th 2008 6:26AMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/
The problems I have seen are the boards scrambling during games, they replaced about 1/2 of the modules cause they all failed, their game clocks freezing, the video boards downright crashing (with full screen scramble and then cut to black), their cheap computers and servers catching fire in the control room, the boards often flicker during transitions, Computers controlling the signs crashing, board goes to static, ribbon board can't do full 30 frames per second, Color quality is poor, they can't calibrate modules from ones they have replaced, color is off and tiled, they use cheap ass computers that fail. Their Stats software package that does more crashing than does keep track of the game.....shall I go on?

And speaking of stocks, Daktronics stocks have dropped from $35 down to $16 in just the past six months.

Also, they have to have a technician at every game because something goes wrong during every game. I have seen them mouth off to supervisors when they complain about the boards not working, their software crashes all the time and then blame it on user error, and even their scoreboard the don't even have the teams written in the right order and despite that there is a standard layout for professional sports their answer was "oh well we thought it looked better this way."

I have not seen their products at other stadiums so I will not speak for those, but these video boards compared to what the stadium used to have (an old 20 year old standard def jumbotron), are highly inferior and do not work properly.

Again, this has just been what I have observed while freelancing at games. Lord only knows how much more is going wrong behind the scenes.]]>Mar 13th 2008 11:03PMhttp://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/http://hd.engadget.com/2008/03/04/university-of-minnesota-orders-up-108-by-48-foot-hd-scoreboard/Mar 7th 2008 9:53AM