A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year

NBA All-Star Weekend hits Sin City this year, and as if the glamour and excitement wasn’t enough already, the NBA is taking this year’s festivities to the next level. The All-Star Saturday Night and All-Star game which are slated for this Saturday, February 17th and Sunday, February 18th, respectively will be breaking technological boundaries as it will be the first live sports events to be broadcast in High Definition 3D. Yeah, you heard me right - 3D.

Now before you get too excited, the broadcast is only going to be available to special guests of the NBA at Vegas’s Mandalay Bay Hotel since the NBA is saying it is an “experiment”. Either way, it’s a pretty cool concept and may be the first step in delivering this service to regular Joes around the world. Here’s an excerpt from Variety.com explaining the process.

Technology company Pace has designed five 3-D HD camera systems that will cover all of the action at the Thomas and Mack Center. The Pace blueprint calls for two HD cameras to be built in to each of the five systems, working together to transmit the 3-D images. Invitees will need glasses to get the full 3-D effect.

A special director will take charge of the 3-D coverage, said Steve Hellmuth, senior VP of operations and technology for NBA Entertainment, “but the widescreen depth of field is so immersive that there’ll be far fewer cuts than in the standard-definition version, and the cameras won’t have to move as much.”

Hellmuth bills the experience as “about as close as you can get to having courtside seats.”

This technology might be exactly what I need to get back the feeling of watching a Raptors game at the Air Canada Centre that I miss so much….without having to pay $8 for a hot-dog.

You can read the full article at Variety.com here. Engadget also covered the story here.