OTHER TECH

Still, ESPN's Powers That Be knew that they would have to upgrade its studio facilities if it hoped to maintain its pole position in the HDTV derby. When the network first brought a high-def camera onto the old SportsCenter set, it revealed a host of previously unnoticed imperfections. "Dirt, things with the lighting - you name it," recalls Bob Eaton, senior vice president and managing editor. Factor in complications with the wiring and power, and the investment in the new facility began to seem more a necessity than a luxury.

Walking through the Digital Center, I quickly understand why ESPN execs almost trip over themselves in their eagerness to point out its features - a monitor wall here, special German-made rubber flooring there. They wax euphoric about the building's 5 million or so feet of cabling, all of it color-coded (the purple ones are for high-def, the orange ones are for standard-def, and the white ones with a colored stripe carry control-related signals).

One of the facility's most impressive creations was still under construction at the time of my visit. Just a few yards from the SportsCenter set is a cavernous 9,000-square-foot room that, since early September, has housed the network's top trio of football studio shows - Sunday NFL PrimeTime, Sunday NFL Countdown, and Monday Night Countdown. By the start of the 2005 baseball season, a new Baseball Tonight set will occupy another corner of the room.

Writer Larry Dobrow (right) talks to Rick Paiva, executive director of creative services and studio directing, outside the Digital Center.

Between the two areas for sets will be enough space for demonstrations and whatever other out-of-desk experiences the producers can dream up. How will it compare with the demo area on Fox's NFL studio set? "Ours will be a whole lot bigger," immediately boasts Rick Paiva, executive director for creative services and studio directing. And Ted Szypulski, director of engineering, special projects, excitedly calls attention to the studio's power capabilities: "We can get rock bands in here."

The Digital Center was originally slated to open in the spring, but execs concede that the schedule was too ambitious. The early June date made more sense, since ESPN had just concluded its coverage of NBA and NHL playoff games.

Was Syzpulski ever nervous that the revamped SportsCenter wouldn't be ready for its high-def debut? "Hell, yeah!" he says in a squeaky, exaggerated voice. "We've been running like crazy." Much of the effort involved teaching the ESPN techies how to operate the new gadgetry. The problem was that these same people had a show to do several times a day. "I'm just playing linebacker right now," Paiva adds. "Read and react."