Hey, Daktronics (NASDAQ:DAKT)! I've changed my mind about you.

Way back in 2006, I called Daktronics out as the worst investment you could make in 2007. The Daktronics scoreboards at Mile High Stadium seemed a perfect fit for the sky-high valuation the company had racked up. By late April, 2007, Daktronics had lost nearly 40% of its value, and it stayed down there until the Great Panic of 2008 came along -- to give it another 60% haircut. In total, the company’s down nearly 80% from the highs it experienced when I wrote my article back in late 2006. It's not always good to be right.

Today's first-quarter earnings report won't restore Daktronics to its former rocket-stock greatness, either. Sales fell 30% year over year to 113.5 million, and $0.03 of earnings per diluted share is a far cry from last year's $0.24 per share. Future orders are also slow in every one of Daktronics' reportable segments, from scoreboards for school sports to advertising and pricing signs.

But I believe that the worst is over. If Daktronics was an exceptionally bad investment in 2007, it could be one of the best right now.

High-quality digital video screens of unusual size are catching on. You may have seen digital billboards showing advertising inventory from Clear Channel Outdoor (NYSE:CCO) between Newark and L.A. Lamar Advertising (NASDAQ:LAMR) is installing them from Daytona Beach to Boise. And Daktronics is the market leader in this type of large-format digital video screens.

Daktronics CEO Jim Morgan noted that the company is redesigning those outdoor displays from the ground up, with a mind to reduce manufacturing costs and increase reliability. It'll take another three quarters to push the new designs out to customers, but that might be a good thing. By then, infrastructure budgets should have stabilized across schools, municipalities, football franchises, and what have you.

And Daktronics, despite competing against such giants as Philips (NYSE:PHG), Toshiba, Mitsubishi, and Panasonic (NYSE:PC), continues to succeed and innovate in delivering the most technologically advanced high-margin, high-end contracts for itself, including sports stadium contracts. This leaves the company poised to reap the rewards of the confluence of trends now creating new digital display opportunities.

I'm a Daktronics shareholder now, and I expect my investment to keep pace with the other growth-stock stars in my portfolio -- Hansen Natural (NASDAQ:HANS) and Universal Display (NASDAQ:PANL), to name a few -- over the next two or three years.

If you think I'm nuts, set me straight in the comments box below. But I really think Daktronics is about to light up the scoreboard in the short to medium term.