As the main attraction of one of the most prominent New Years Day celebrations in the world, the New Years Eve Ball received a new design for its 100th birthday! Focus Lighting in concert with Philips Lighting and Waterford Crystal developed and organized the new arrangement. 2008’s edition is more than "twice as bright as the previous year's ball..." The newest LED technology from Phillips along with enhanced color variation and control from the house of e:cue surpassed the expectations of everyone involved. 9576 Philips Luxeon LED's (controlled per DMX512), provide the ball with a unique appearance, and a significant energy savings. Additionally, for this project e:cue developed a remarkable show- and patchfile which allows for a pixel-based mapping of the sphere. During the show, the patchfile could be modified in real-time thereby facilitating 360° video rendering both horizontally and vertically in an infinite number of positions. One of the featured sequences enables a simple and very comfortable selection and programming of each and every sphere sector. The specialized e:cue visualization software tool e:view underwent sophisticated modification allowing 5 different perspectives of the ‘Ball' in real-time 3D. Additionally the front-end selection of video content has been greatly simplified; as well offline programming is also enabled for the show. On "New Years Eve", 2 CS-1 servers (for failsafe redundancy) using time code synchronization with television stations play back the complete show. A truly brilliant visual spectacle not soon to be forgotten; brought to you by e:cue!