Digitally Enhanced Dashboards

National Hockey League telecasts introduced a new technique about the time I retired from the business, so I never learned exactly how it worked. But it's amazing.

If a game is being played in a Canadian arena, there are Canadian ads painted on the boards alongside the ice, and that's what TV viewers in that nation will see via the main “game camera.”

However, viewers in various United States markets will see the same camera's viewpoint but with different ads — virtual ones targeted specifically to them.

And the logos can be animated, with the sponsors changing every 30 seconds. (We get a glimpse of the Canadian ads when the director cuts to or replays a different camera, so we realize that the virtual ads aren't actually real. They're magic.)

A British company called Supponor developed the technology for soccer telecasts. Now all NHL arenas have been equipped for Digitally Enhanced Dasherboards, providing an extra way to sell advertising on the telecasts. In DED's first season, 2022-23, sponsorship revenue increased more than 20%.

Here's how it works, I'm guessing.

Remember the turn-of-the-century glowing pucks? They emitted infrared light so that TV technology could tell where they were and superimpose an artificial halo and a red wake. Then folks like me could locate the tiny fast-moving discs.

Well, infrared light is apparently now being emitted by NHL dasher boards so that Supponor will know where the dashers are. I call this information the stencil.

Before the action begins, the game camera pans around to show Supponor where the boards are and what local signs are painted on them.

From this, Supponor produces an updated version of the stencil.

Later, during the action, this stencil is compared to the actual live video from the game camera.

There are discrepancies from what was seen earlier: parts of the boards are obscured by objects in front of them, like goalposts and players. Therefore, those pixels are cut out of the stencil in real time.

Then, for audiences in other markets, Supponor uses the modified stencil to insert various virtual ads from its library, such as these logos for North Carolina Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Because the stencil has been modified, the insert will hide the painted ads but not the foreground objects.

I've said this happens in real time, but actually the computing requires one or more seconds. That means the video is delayed. The audio has to be delayed by the same amount to keep the announcers in sync with the action.

My grandmother would have said, "I'd have cried my eyes out before I ever thought of that!"