Though I’m not much of a techie (I still don’t own an iPhone), I can certainly cast an appreciative nod of affection at occasional electronic innovations that happen to cross my path. Past pieces on the Infinity Tub, Saturn’s TV Tub, and Seura’s TV Mirrors remind me that it’s quite easy to appeal to our visual apparatus and that live image media is (potentially) omnipresent.

Integrated High Definition Daktronics LED Video Displays at Gillette Stadium.

HD technology promises a visual experience that’s so clear, so graphically dense, so downright fast that it threatens to trump actual life, becoming, in a sense, more real than real. HD achieves this hyper-reality by dramatically increasing the number of pixels (up to two million pixels per frame, which is five times that of Standard TV) as well as the frame rate (number of continuous images per second). All this will certainly amp up your home viewing experience of Iron Man or Lost or this summer’s World Cup, but just think of how it could augment on-site replays of New England Patriots football.

The latter is precisely what The Kraft Group and Daktronics have in mind with their new matching set of HD Video Boards, a pair of 41.5 x 164 foot scoreboards, with new integrated LEDs (five million of the little suckers, in fact), offering enhanced brightness in direct sunlight, better color (4.4 trillion shades, so they say), and superior wide-angle visibility.

The size of the screens must be seen to be believed, but you’ll have to wait till September’s opening kickoffs to do so, at which point the “6,800+ ft. of digital real estate” will unveil a vicious ferocity of live action, instant replays, out-of-town scores, and, of course, advertisements–principally, one might conjecture, for Daktronics home HD systems. Though perhaps not.

One objective of the new technology is to lure “couched” fans back to the stadium. This strikes a personal chord with yours truly, since, some time ago (exactly January 31, 1999, in fact, the date of John Elway’s final performance), I unofficially retired from personal attendance, preferring the sanctity and relative comfort of home viewing to live action. Might Daktronics gigantic Video Wall be enough to rouse me and countless others from this spectator malaise? The Patriots are certainly betting on it, though they’re not the only ones.

Though Gillette Stadium’s new Video Walls represent the latest and greatest incarnation of HD scoreboard technology, they’re certainly not alone: “Daktronics has equipment in 29 of 31 NFL venues and 10 of the 16 MLS venues. In addition to the New England Patriots, the Washington Redskins, Baltimore Ravens, and New Meadowlands Stadium will also be turning on new, state-of-the-art Daktronics integrated display systems in time for the start of the 2010 season.” Good news for fans on the Eastern Seaboard, but what about my (formerly) beloved Broncos? Doesn’t young Tim Tebow deserve 6,800 sq. ft. of digital real estate too? Only time will tell.

Via Columbus Dispatch.