NBA Replay Center Shortlisted for IBC 2015 Innovation Award

The NBA’s Replay Center has been shortlisted as a finalist for an IBC2015 Innovation Award in the category of Content Creation. Evertz, a global leader of IP-based infrastructure equipment, worked closely with the NBA to launch the state-of-the-art facility at the start of the 2014-15 season, changing how game content is created and reviewed.

The NBA leveraged Evertz’s IP-based replay technology for the innovative replay center, developing a dynamic system that meets the needs of the game by improving the performance of NBA referees and reducing the average time of reviews to enhance the fan experience.

In January 2014, the NBA decided to create a centralized, multi-angle instant replay review center as part of its state-of-the-art broadcast facility in Secaucus, New Jersey (NJ), USA.   The project’s objective was to build a fully integrated capture, monitoring, replay, control and media management system that would enable NBA officials to perform their replay review operations at the NBA broadcast facility in Secaucus, NJ, and simultaneously provide real-time concurrent support to any combination of NBA games from any of the 29 connected arenas.

The NBA Replay Center features a software defined data center that is based on the Evertz’ DreamCatcher cluster.  In a single game night, the DreamCatcher cluster can monitor 15 concurrent games with nine camera angles at each site for a total of 144 simultaneous feeds being ingested in the NBA Replay Center. Officials in the NBA Replay Center use Evertz’ VUE interface to provide multiple camera angles to the in-venue official to make conclusive calls when a play is reviewable.

The NBA provides feeds of a live camera looking into the NBA Replay Center and an output of the DreamCatcher while the NBA Replay Manager is conducting the live review with the referee at courtside for the broadcasters and the center hung video for in-venue viewing by fans.  The video of the review is clipped within DreamCatcher, encoded and delivered to NBA.com and social media.

The new groundbreaking review capabilities of the NBA Replay Center has significantly enhanced the performance of the NBA referees and accelerated the replay review process by dramatically reducing the average time of reviews by more than 50 percent from the previous year to 42.1 seconds for the 2014-15 season.