Tech Talk / By Martha Knight

I don’t wager. But I love horse racing, especially Thoroughbred racing. Especially the Derby—but the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes too.

Back in the day, we listened to radio broadcasts of the races, and that was plenty exciting. The descriptions of the action by the announcers sounded the same as what we hear now, but now we see the race from many vantage points, the television cameras capturing the action, and close-ups of horses and jockeys and trainers and owners and their families. There I am, from about 4 p.m. on if I can find the time, sitting right in front of my little TV, watching all the preliminaries, seeing the odds change, boggled by the engineering of those hats, doing my own handicapping.

This year there was something more to watch, from out here in TV land, and for those at Churchill Downs: the world’s largest ultra-high-def 4K video screen.

It towers over the back stretch, jarringly at odds with the tradition all around: the twin spires, the juleps, the tote board and betting windows, the parade of horses and riders to the paddock, the careful insertion of each set into the gate—19 this time—the dazzling silks

There were 2,200 television sets on the site, plus a handful of large video screens, in recent years. But nothing could give all the spectators or even the owners and other biggies the kind of view the Big Board does. The crowd numbers about 150,000. Getting close to the action in one place means being farther from the rest of it. Now it all looks way closer, on that monster screen.

“What is this 4K stuff, anyhow?” I hear some of you ask Ah, Grasshopper, read and know.

4K is the short, catchy term for 4K Ultra High Definition. .That’s a digital cinema standard. When you watch a movie in a multiplex you are seeing “native” 3840 by 2160. The consumer format is 3840 by 2160.

Full High Definition, HD, boasts a resolution of 1080p. With some math, that is 2 million pixels. 4K provides four times as much, or 8 million pixels.

Greater resolution means greater clarity and fine detail. We need lots of resolution even in our homes, for blissful viewing of games, of the grass on the greens and the sand in the sand traps at golf matches, the insects and feathers and fur on “Nature,” the diaphanous gowns being almost worn by the lovelies on the Red Carpets.

4K isn’t an exact standard, not yet, but the term means a whole lot of itty-bitty elements that can be broadcast and assembled on screens to provide incredibly realistic images, with no detectable lags or interlacing or pixelation.

Panasonic partnered with Churchill Downs to create the Big Board. It is 90 feet wide and about 170 feet tall. It weighs 600 tons, and has a 170-degree angle. Literally an LED screen, the Big Board has 9 million of them. There are 750 speakers to distribute the audio.

The Big Screen was seen by television Kentucky Derby viewers May 3, but it had gone into use on opening day of the racing season at Churchill Downs, April 26. There was a full card of racing that day. As night fell the screen brightened. By the end of the last race, about 11 p.m., it was bright enough that some spectators resorted to sunglasses.

Other such projects by Panasonic have included a high-def screen at the Texas Motor Speedway at Fort Worth, one at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia and another at Safeco Field in Seattle. Dimension-wise, the one at Texas Motor Speedway is even larger, but pixel-wise, it is only high def, not ultra (4K).

How did they manage to get the Big Board in place? With a lot of work and money, for those who consider drilling 45 feet down to place the steel rods in bed rock a lot of work, and $12 million a lot of money. The Big Board is designed to withstand 90 mph winds.

As for the cameras, it takes special 4K models to capture the full motion video images shown on the Big Board. Imagine the miles of wires for the board and the speakers!

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Google has been talking about modular smartphones for a year or so. Now it has announced its first Project ARA smartphone development kit. There will be three sizes of chassis, various choices of radios and batteries to insert, and selections of other gadgets that the consumer/builder can add, from lighters to blood sugar testers.

Owners will be able to swap out components for different needs and occasions. Sometimes spare batteries may be more important than the front-facing camera for selfies. Also, it will be possible to upgrade components, such as cameras or radios, without buying a new camera.

Data storage modules with their own security arrangements could be among the swappables. That feature would appeal to enterprises where Bring Your Own Device policies could call for swapping in the corporate brain for enterprise use, and the personal brain for private use. An enterprise standardizing on Ara models could have their versions of processor and storage modules, which would be owned by the company and retrieved when employees quit.

Fascinating developments out there. Meanwhile, we have to keep an eye on the FCC and Net Neutrality issues. I’d hate to think Al Gore will have to start all over and reinvent a free and equal internet.