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Sports Broadcasting Technology

ESPN2 Test-Drives '4D' TV that You Can Feel

October 04, 2013

(SPORTS TECHNOLOGY)

The National Hot Rod Association will be delivering the first-ever tactile-enhanced sports broadcast on the ESPN2 network soon. Viewers who have ButtKicker brand hardware in their home are actually able to feel the actual vibration that the driver and fans trackside feel - live and real time - at home. The NHRA is calling it a “4D broadcast.”


The technology is from Guitammer, and it’s based on low frequency audio transducing. In March of 2011, the company was issued a U.S. patent for the "capture and remote reproduction of haptic events in synchronous association with the video and audio capture and reproduction of these events."

The resulting new product - initially dubbed “ButtKicker Live!” and now known as "4D Sports powered by ButtKicker" - was then quietly tested over the ensuing quarters and years by numerous professional sports including an NHL hockey team for in-arena use in one of their luxury boxes.

As part of the agreement with the NHRA, Guitammer is running 15- and 30-second commercials during the Sunday NHRA shows and sponsoring the Sounds of the Strip segment.

SoundView Technology Group recently released a report, “An Emerging Play on Tactile Broadcasting,” which said that there are 200,000 ButtKicker devices already sold and present in households around the world. But the company hopes to sign an OEM deal with a major hardware manufacturer to make its technology more widely deployed.

"With over 65 million cable TV subscribers and 20 million satellite TV subscribers, the market for ButtKicker technology is potentially enormous,” the company said. “There are also relatively low barriers to entry given that all digital television, over-the-air, cable, satellite and IPTV broadcasts are in 5.1 surround sound, which provides an ideal environment for ButtKicker encoding. And in the sporting segment alone, ESPN (News - Alert) alone reaches nearly 100 million households.”

It added, “Capturing just a fraction of this market could generate significant value for The Guitammer Company and its shareholders. With movie theater venues driving awareness, home purchasing on the rise, and increasing competition for subscribers among broadcasters, the company is well positioned to not only build market share, but could become a takeover target of its own as a way for these broadcast companies to differentiate themselves from others."




Edited by Alisen Downey