LED Light Fixtures finally make it to the NFL

[slebans]

Phoenix is the first NFL franchise to use LED fixtures for its stadium lighting - replacing existing MH.

http://www.ledsmagazine.com/article...eak-into-nfl-at-phoenix-football-stadium.html

 

[Steve K]

from the article: "Ephesus said the 312 luminaires used in the Phoenix stadium total 310 kW compared to 1240 kW used by the previously-installed 780 metal halide (MH) fixtures — a 75% reduction. "

I didn't realize there was that large of a difference in energy used between LED and metal halide. I would have sworn they were in the same ballpark (only a slight pun intended).

No mention of the color temperature or CRI... considering how much this is discussed in this subforum, it seems remarkable to not find it mentioned in the article. Probably similar to the MH lamps they replaced??

 

[wws944]

After the lighting fiasco at the Superbowl a couple of years ago, I have heard that a number of venues have been looking to replace their stadium lights with LED.

However apparently the newly built Levi's Stadium here in Silicon Valley decided not to use LED stadium lights. From http://www.mercurynews.com/science/...stadium-is-it-really-environmentally-friendly: "To conserve electricity, the 49ers are installing LED bulbs in 40 percent of the stadium lighting. But team officials canceled plans to put the high-efficiency bulbs in the huge field lights because of concerns from broadcasters that the technology might alter the color of the players' uniforms on TV.
Nobody wants to see a pink-shirted linebacker, no matter how many greenhouse gases his team is offsetting."

 

[Steve K]

.. "To conserve electricity, the 49ers are installing LED bulbs in 40 percent of the stadium lighting. But team officials canceled plans to put the high-efficiency bulbs in the huge field lights because of concerns from broadcasters that the technology might alter the color of the players' uniforms on TV.
Nobody wants to see a pink-shirted linebacker, no matter how many greenhouse gases his team is offsetting."

I would have thought that they could adjust the white balance of the cameras to compensate for a modest change in light spectrum.

 

[CoveAxe]

I would have thought that they could adjust the white balance of the cameras to compensate for a modest change in light spectrum.

My guess is that they could compensate for color temperature, but LEDs are not perfect blackbody radiators, so white balance adjustments will not be perfect. You could end up with some colors coming through more strongly than others, giving unnatural tints. This seems easy to fix via computers now (especially since all of the footage is post-processed in real time anyway), but I guess they wanted to play it more conservatively.

 

[DollarIn]

Modern high end LED lighting can easily match metal halides for colour temperature, it's not 2005 anymore.

I'm surprised at the energy consumption of those metal halide floodlights, they must be using some very inefficient ballasts supplies.

In English football (soccer), most teams use high efficient metal halides. Only one team has switched to LED this year, Chelsea. The LED system they switched is actually slightly less efficient than the previous metal halide system, but it was more economical as they have to be replaced every 10 years, instead of every 3 with metal halide.

 

[AnAppleSnail]

I didn't realize there was that large of a difference in energy used between LED and metal halide. I would have sworn they were in the same ballpark (only a slight pun intended).

Consider the skyglow. The fat-can Metal halide lights put a lot of light above the horizon where it goes to waste. The LED light may be designed to do this less. Less light in the sky is always more efficient.

 

[FRITZHID]

I hope it works and starts a trend for MH replacement standards. Video may have some issues if the lamps are pwm tho. Will have to wait and see. Tnx for the link slebans