Levi’s Stadium To Debut First Fully 8K Video Replay System

Levi’s Stadium is going 8K with its video replay system. By partnering with Foxconn Industrial Internet, the San Francisco 49ers have installed the world’s first-ever full-field 8K video replay system. It makes a debut Nov. 5 during Thursday Night Football when the 49ers host the Green Bay Packers. 

Foxconn and the 49ers announced a partnership in September 2019 and since then the two have worked to install five 8K cameras, positioned inside the stadium to provide full-field coverage — including “incomparable” digital zoom without pixilation — and clear views of all goal lines and sidelines.

“What started out more than a year ago as a dream for Levi’s Stadium, our 8K video replay system is finally complete and we can’t wait to showcase it to the world,” says Aron Kenney, 49ers vice president of game day production and broadcast operations. “It is an amazing feeling to see a project as advanced as this through from the brainstorming stages to the final tests and completion. We are very fortunate to have Fii on our team as a corporate partner who shares our commitment to enhancing the fan experience.” 

The new technological advancement allows the 49ers video replay system to ingest the highest amounts of data for an existing stadium to produce video in 8K. This data is sent to the Levi’s Stadium scoreboard control room, the hub of the system. There, the game day production team can route and distribute the signals to different areas of the stadium. Most importantly, those areas include the two 200×48-foot video boards, designed to make even the smallest on-field details “crystal clear.”

The resolution on an 8K camera is 33.18 million pixels, up from 8.29 million pixels on a 4K camera and 2.07 million pixels of Full HD. That type of resolution allows for viewing a single hair or a single blade of grass to determine if it is green or painted white. The increased pixels not only allow for intense clarity but can also improve depth and color.

Fii has partnered with others to deploy 8K camera technology to enhance the fan experience and change the way coaches and players capture and evaluate game-time footage, says Foxconn. With the closest officiating calls coming down to the smallest of margins, the 8K camera has four times the image resolution of the human eye to help fans — or referees — determine whether the football broke the goal line or if a receiver was still in bounds, Foxconn says.

The 49ers conducted an initial two-camera test run last year during a Dec. 21 home game against the Los Angeles Rams. Those two cameras provided a proof of concept for the capture-to-consumption plan and validation that the project was on track. This year, additional tests and demos were completed at San Francisco 49ers home games between Oct. 4 and Oct. 18 against the Philadelphia Eagles, Miami Dolphins and Rams. Insights from the test runs have pushed the project forward, according to information provided by the 49ers, making it easier and more cost-effective to transmit 8K compressed video.