Mark Schlueb of the Orlando Sentinel reports:
Since the $480 million arena’s conception, Magic and city officials have made technology an integral part of the project, from the 1,100 flat-panel video screens throughout the building to an advanced telecommunications network not much different from the one that controls America’s air traffic.
The state-of-the-art technology means more flash for fans, who will be bombarded with images and sound before they even walk in the door. And just as important for the team’s owner, it also means more advertising cash for the Magic.
“The Magic and the city have the ability now to generate dramatically more revenue than they ever have before,” said Karl Williams, a vice president for Harris Corp., the company responsible for much of the technology.
Perhaps the best example is the video screens, so many that they’ll be unavoidable. They will be hooked to a sophisticated IPTV — Internet Protocol Television — feed that will allow the Magic and the city to control what’s seen on the screens to an extraordinary degree.
If there were a need, technicians in a sophisticated behind-the-scenes control room could make every screen in the building display a different image. More than that, each screen can display multiple different feeds — a sort of picture-in-picture on steroids, with a mosaic of images, video, animation and text.
