A
Jumbo Tron is a large-screen television using
technology developed by
Sony, typically used in
sports stadiums and concert venues to show close up shots of the event. Although
Jumbo Tron is a
registered trademark owned by the Sony Corporation, the word
jumbo tron is often used by the public as a
genericized trademark. Sony Jumbo Trons ceased being sold in 2001, when the company decided to exit the business.
Design
Manufactured by Sony, the JumboTron is recognized as one of the largest non-projection video displays ever manufactured. Originally, it was not an LED (
light-emitting diode) display — each display consisted of multiple modules composed of 16 or more small flood-gate CRTs (
cathode ray tubes), each of which included two to 16 pixels composed of green, red, and blue phosphors. Sony displayed one of the earliest versions at the
Expo '85 World's Fair in
Tsukuba. Sony creative director Yasuo Kuroki is credited with the development of the JumboTron. Eventually, even JumboTron Systems adopted LED technology as it phased out CRT based systems. LED based systems have about 10 times the lifespan of CRT based systems, a key reason for the changeover.
Deployments
One of the largest eight-sided (octagonal) JumboTrons in the world is in
Dallas,
Texas,
USA. The largest non-octagonal JumboTron is located at the
Atlanta Braves Turner Field and the largest one for a high school in the USA is located at
Lassiter High School in Marietta, Georgia. While the JumboTron and similar large-screen displays are physically large, they were often low in
display resolution. The JumboTron at the now demolished
Tampa Stadium in
Tampa,
Florida, USA, measured 30 ft (9 m) diagonally with a resolution of only 240×192 pixels. Screen size since then varies depending on the venue. The display introduced in 1985 was 40 meters wide by 25 meters tall. Newer, LED-based large screens have 2 or 3 times this early JumboTron resolution at a fraction of the cost.
The largest JumboTron in use was located at the Rogers Centre (then called SkyDome) in Toronto, Ontario, and measured 10 m tall by 33.5 m wide (33 ft. × 110 ft.) at a cost of US$17 million. By comparison, a similar sized LED system sold today would cost around $3.0M. The Rogers Centre JumboTron was replaced in 2005 by a Daktronics ProStar as a part of a stadium revitalization project.
WWE makes frequent use of a JumboTron, which has been coined the "TitanTron", named after WWE's former parent group Titan Sports.
Similar devices
Displays similar to the JumboTron include:
Akami Super Vision LISA
Barco LED Screens
D3 LED's Dynamic Digital Displays
Daktronics ProStar
Mitsubishi DiamondVision
Panasonic AstroVision
Philips Vidiwall
Toshiba TechnoRainbow
References
Category:Sony products
Category:Video
Category:Vacuum tube displays
