When most people talk about a big-screen TV, they mean something with a diagonal measurement on the order of 40 to 50 inches. When Mark Foster talks about a big screen, he means something on the order of 40 to 50 feet, or larger.

Mark Foster is general manager of Diamond Vision Systems, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Electric Power Products. Diamond Vision, located in Thorn Hill Industrial Park in Marshall, manufactures some of the world's largest video displays -- giant screens that are made to order for customers such as the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys.

Cowboy fans who attend the team's opening game in September will find that the new stadium has been outfitted with a four-sided scoreboard that will include the world's largest high-definition LED displays. The two main sideline displays will be 72 feet high by 160 feet wide, or more than 11,500 square feet. Put another way, they will be taller than a seven-story building and more than half the length of the football field.

The scoreboard's endzone displays are not exactly tiny, either, measuring 29 feet by 51 feet.

So what does it take to get such larger-than-life displays in a stadium?

The first step, Mr. Foster said, is "designing the structure that's gonna hold this thing." Sometimes that structure has been designed into the building where the display will be placed; at other times "we have to start from scratch."

Then comes the work of making sure that the facility has the power needed to run the displays. The light-emitting diodes (LEDs) used in today's monitors require much less power than the cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) of old, but when a single screen comprises scores of thousands of LEDs, "these big boards still use a lot of power."

Then comes designing the actual screen or screens to be used in the display.

The next stage is manufacturing. At the Marshall facility, the company beefs up its 20-person employee base with temporary hires for a project. The building blocks, if you will, are shipped to their destination and assembled on site.

Because creating a clear image on a screen thousands of square feet in size requires an extremely precise alignment of thousands of parts, the installation process "can be a bit timeconsuming," Mr. Foster said.

"The last piece of the puzzle is integrating it into the video system" of the facility, he said, making sure that the display has all the connections needed to show the flow of player and team statistics that viewers have become accustomed to, along with "the in-game scoring and timing, advertising content, replays and fan entertainment."

Whew.

From the time that Diamond Vision receives an order to the time that the completed display is turned on, the construction, delivery and installation process can take anywhere from two to eight months, depending on the size and complexity of the installation.

Diamond Vision's history as a producer of giant video monitors goes back to 1980, when it produced a monitor for Major League Baseball's All-Star Game, played at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Back then, the company did only sales and installation; it has since expanded its scope to include engineering and manufacturing. It became a part of Mitsubishi Electric six years ago during a companywide reorganization. The division was based in Atlanta then, and moved to Pittsburgh four years ago.

During the company's 25-plus years, both the expectations of sports fans and the ability of technology to deliver on those expectations have grown. The monitor that wowed audiences at Dodger Stadium was 24 feet by 32 feet, with a "pitch" of a little more than five feet (the pitch of a display is the distance between the centers of two points of light in the display; the smaller the pitch, the sharper the picture). Now, that screen size would be ordinary, and the resolution unacceptable for viewers who have experienced high-definition television in their living rooms.

"They expect what they have at the ballpark to be the same as what they have at home," said regional sales manager Todd M. Stih.

The record-setting installation at the Cowboys' new stadium comes only three years after a high-definition display that Diamond Vision built for the Japan Racing Association's Tokyo Race Course began operation as the world's largest, at 8,000 square feet.

Is there a limit to how large a display can get?

"There are physical limitations just from the structures," Mr. Foster said, "but we have not come close to those limitations yet." He said Diamond Vision has built displays as long as 230 feet and as tall as 160 feet, so it is at least theoretically possible to build one combining those dimensions, totaling 36,800 square feet.

Other than sports venues, the company's most high-profile installations are likely the five that it has placed in Times Square for Reuters, ABC, MTV, Nokia, and Clear Channel. It also provides smaller displays for everything from building lobbies to cruise ships.

Then there's the 34-foot by 110-foot display at the Coliseum at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas that provided backdrops for Celine Dion during her extended engagement and has remained in place since then for shows by Bette Midler, Elton John and Cher.

Major league franchises in football, baseball, basketball and hockey occupy nearly 100 stadiums and arenas in the United States and Canada. Many of them are newer facilities, but most of them are not. For Diamond Vision, that spells opportunity.

"The retrofit market is huge for us," Mr. Stih said.