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Have you been watching the 2006 Ashes Cricket series? If so, you are unlikely to have missed the TV advertising promotion of “Boonanza” and the “Battle of the Tashes”. The idea is that you purchase two figurines of David Boon and Ian Botham, set them up in front of your TV and they will then make comments during the televised cricket matches. So how do they do it? The technical story of By LEO SIMPSON siliconchip.com.au January 2007  87 T his must be one of the greatest marketing ploys of all time. You go and buy a couple of “slabs” of VB (Victoria Bitter beer for the uninitiated) and this gives you the codes you need to buy a pair of plastic figurines of popular ex-cricketers David Boon and Ian Botham. Set up in the room where you watch television, these will then make loud comments pertaining to cricket and VB. In other words, you pay money to buy a pair of dolls that will then advertise beer! There’s even a web-site (www.boonanza.com.au) to promote the promotion and newsgroups have sprung up to log Boony’s and Beefy’s (Botham’s) comments and remarks. Their remarks are apparently spontaneous and they do interact. For example, if Boony asks Beefy to “Throw me a VB”, Beefy answers, “Nah, you’ll only drop it”. We saw a press story on these figurines which indicated that the figurines were reacting to data signals sent during the TV broadcasts using a proprietary technique developed by US company Veil Interactive Technologies Inc. (www.veilinteractive.com) “Very interesting,” we thought – and we set out to find out more. Our first step was to contact the Nine network to see if they would give us the inside story on this technology – but we could not get any comment. So we did the logical thing: obtain a pair of figurines. But no, we didn’t get them from the local liquor shop – we already had enough VB! Instead, we purchased ours on eBay. Well there is more than one way to skin a cat so we thought we would observe the TV screen when ever Boony or Beefy was moved to make a comment. This would give the clues to the signal being used in the Veil Technology method and we could even use our 200MHz digital scope to analyse the recorded signal. The scope can display any line of a TV frame and so it should be an easy matter to recognise a data stream. Possibly we could even duplicate the signal and send it to Boony to get him to speak. In more detail, the “veil” in Veil Technolgy stands for “video encoded invisible light” and we thought that this might also be a useful clue as to how the data signal 88  Silicon Chip might be incorporated into the TV picture. So perhaps the signal is modulated straight into the picture and not in the blanking interval and is done in such a way that it is invisible to the normal viewer. After watching many hours of the second Ashes cricket match in Adelaide (all done in the interests of science, of course), we came to the conclusion that a “veil” was indeed being rapidly wiped across the whole screen at the beginning and end of each action replay in the match broadcast. These wipes are very rapid and consist of three of four diagonal white stripes of differing widths – presumably 100% peak video modulation and thus most readily picked up via any optical sensor within the figurines. Was this the method being used? What a great scheme! Presumably the Nine Network could send a different data stream each time there was an action replay and Boony and Beefy could then make comments as to whether someone was out, whether it was great bowling and so on. Well that was the theory but in practice Boony and Beefy never responded to these great cricket moments. In fact, their remarks never seemed to relate to the game or the picture on-screen. Furthermore, they Boony and Beefy. They talk to each other – but is there a TV trigger? seemed to make comments just as frequently if the TV was off! So what was going on? Was this a likely explanation for Veil Technology and was it not being used during the Adelaide Test? Or is something entirely different going on? It was time to take the screwdriver to these locquacious little loudmouths! And they didn’t protest one little bit. Upturning the base of the figurine reveals one small screw which retains the lid of the battery compartment which holds three AA cells. Another four screws retain the base of the green plastic pedestal. Inside is a small blue PC board measuring about 40 x 40mm and an 8W loudspeaker about 30mm in diameter. Components on top of the PC board include a button cell (presumably for memory backup when the AA cells are flat or being replaced), a watch crystal (at 32kHz?), two electrolytic capacitors, a momentary contact switch and what appears to be a 455kHz ceramic resonator (marked 455E). Significantly, there is what appears to be a 3-lead infrared receiver/decoder chip (similar to that used in our infrared Remote Control Extender project featured in the October 2006 issue) and a companion clear LED – presumably also an infrared emitter. These two infrared components “look out” through the dark infrared filter window on the side the base – so the figurines can talk with one another. On the other side of the PC board is a host of surface-mount components which evidently include a microcontroller, amplifier circuitry and so on. Also present is another momentary contact switch (used in production setup perhaps?). Incidentally, this board is quite different in component count to those used in Boony for the 2005 Ashes series. Some details of this previous Boony are to be found on a number of newsgroups. One other piece of evidence is that our Boony’s PC board was labelled “Ocean Unicorn Ver A Jul 11 06”. Ocean Unicorn, as far as we can ascertain, is a small Hong-Kong siliconchip.com.au The only way (at least that we can see in our Boony and Beefy figurines) for the two to communicate with the outside world is via a small infrared window moulded into their bases. This was further borne out when we disassembled both and found what was lurking behind those windows. . . It’s an infared receiver, with an infrared LED alongside, (seen here right in the front centre of the PC board). There’s no microphone here, so it’s not picking up audio signals, as has been suggested on various websites. (Incidentally, last season’s Boony did have a microphone). No great surprises on the underside of the PC board either! The black blobs hide the CPU and presumably some form of ROM, while other devices of interest have had their markings removed. You can also see the small 8W speaker up inside the base of the figurine in this shot. based electronics design house/manufacturer. So what are our conclusions? Based on the fact that the main sensor appears to be an infrared receiver/decoder, the figurines seem unlikely to be able to respond to any data embedded in the TV pictures being broadcast during cricket matches or at any other time. This seems borne out by the fact that the figurines never sounded at critical times and could just as easily sound when the TV was off. Nor do the instructions accompanying the figurines make any mention of them being placed near a TV set. So much for Veil Technology in this particular case. The remarks made by Boony and Beefy are probably in response to a time/date counter in the microcontroller – hence the particular date code on the PC board and the need for a backup battery which would be necessary to maintain time-keeping. So if you have been intrigued by the “Battle of the Tashes” and “Boonanza”, you probably should not spend too much more time wondering how it is done. However, you cannot help admiring what must be one of the greatest marketing ploys ever. Not that we were taken in by it for a minute. After all that, I am feeling pretty thirsty. I wonder if there is any cold VB left in the fridge? SC TAKE YOUR PIC Picaxe.com.au DISTRIBUTOR: MicroZed.com.au Developed for students, & professional performance makes PICAXE the most easy-to-use micro ever: PICAXE “programmer" is two resistors and a 4.5V battery! PHONE (02) 4351 0886 8.30-4.30 AEST Mon-Fri FAX (02) 4351 0889 24 Hours ALL PICAXE ITEMS ON OUR SHELVES! STOCKISTS siliconchip.com.au In AUSTRALIA: altronics.com.au (Retail and Mail Order) oatleyelectronics.com School Electronic Supplies In NEW ZEALAND sicom.co.nz surplustronics.co.nz (School orders only – John - 03 8802 0628) January 2007  89