What do you get when you cross a Carnegie Mellon University computer engineering class with Pittsburgh Penguins hockey? You get a new mobile video service known as Yinz Cam. Though the service name might be a bit cheeky -- "yinz"' being the Pittsburgh equivalent of "y'all" -- the actual service is anything but a joke.

Yinz Cam delivers free, live, close-up video of the action at Penguins hockey games to fans in the stands of Mellon Arena via Wi-Fi-enabled devices. The service was developed by Priya Narasimhan, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and computer science with the Carnegie Mellon Mobility Research Center, which she then incorporated into her classes as a project for the students. Their task: to implement the service throughout the arena and make it available and useful to attendees at the Pens games. Yinz Cam went live on Feb. 6, 2009 -- in time for the season that culminated in the Pens winning the Stanley Cup. If ever there was a trial by fire for a class project, this was it.

Yinz Cam allows hockey fans to display the live video from multiple cameras placed around the arena on their handhelds devices. Now a fan in the nosebleed seats can call up the camera in front of the players' bench and view the real nosebleed that resulted from the rough action on the rink. Then he can switch to the action just in front of the net to see the goalie fend off the shot. Was there a penalty on the play? The fan can bring up a replay of the action to check it out for himself. With a wide variety of camera angles available for instant viewing, the fan can get more involved in the game.

Complementing the live camera action, Yinz Cam also has biographical information on the players, schedules for future games, video clips from previous games, and -- most practical -- "Food Cam" and "Restroom Cam," which show how long the lines are at these respective stations. The hockey fans have embraced the system, and Dave Soltesz, Pittsburgh Penguins senior vice president of sales, says it provides a unique customer experience.

Aside from amusing the fans, Yinz Cam has been a practical learning experience for the computer engineering and computer science students. They learned the networking techniques to install the Wi-Fi to cover the entire arena, with capacity enough to support as many as 17,500 users demanding streaming video. Security was a concern as well, to ensure that anyone outside Mellon Arena could not access the live content. Allowing outside access would cause a conflict with the companies that owned the broadcast rights to the games.

Linda Musthaler is a principal analyst with Essential Solutions Corporation.