It has been only three years since New Orleans hosted the NBA All-Star Game Weekend, and, typically, when a sports event returns to the same city that quickly, the production philosophy remains the same. That is not the case for Turner Sports this weekend.
This is a very different show than it was three years ago, says Chris Brown, senior director, technical operations, Turner Sports. The big difference is the deliverables and a compelling basketball game that uses as much technology as we can cram.
Chris Brown says Turner's NBA All-Star game presence has changed a great deal since the game was last held in New Orleans, three years ago.
Among the biggest changes? Turner's NBA on TNT road show, a 70,000-sq.-ft. fan-activation effort that includes a set for the Inside the NBA studio show, concerts, the final of the Dew NBA 3X three-on-three tournament, interactive fan experiences, basketball clinics, pop-up stores, and more. It will be located at Champions Square, about 1,500 ft. from the Smoothie King Center, which will host the Rising Stars Challenge on Friday, All-Star Saturday Night on Saturday, and the All-Star Game on Sunday.
This allows us to have a big-event feeling without having to go through all the steps of creating an entirely separate production, says Brown. Everybody is happy and excited about the fact that it's here.
The Champions Square activities tip off tonight with a concert and the first Inside the NBA broadcast. Even though All-Star weekend begins tomorrow, there are still games tonight to give the Inside the NBA team plenty of action to discuss. Aerial shots from the Square will be available, thanks to a point-to-point Spidercam system.
By the time coverage winds down on Sunday night, the production team will have delivered more than 24 hours of content to viewers on TNT and NBA TV. Events like the media availability on Friday afternoon, All-Star practices on Saturday afternoon, and the G-League All-Star Game provide additional fodder for coverage. In addition, more than 36 hours of content will be live-streamed across Facebook, Twitter, and NBA.com, proving the growing power of the Internet as a content-delivery platform.
We have Facebook, Twitter, and quick hits for social media, says Brown. And now we have content being created specifically for Facebook and Twitter.
A Facebook Live control room is in one of the NEP production units in the compound, and a LiveU cellular transmission system will send live interviews with players and other guests from around town to that control room. The incoming video will be integrated with graphics before being encoded for distribution via Facebook.
NEP is playing a big role in Turner's production of the weekend's activities with SS24 at the center of the game coverage, NCP10 for All-Star Saturday night, NCP 11 for the studio show, NCP8 for the entertainment and halftime elements, and ND1 for transmission and more. The use of ND1 continues to evolve at the All-Star game.
We've taken the use of ND1 to the next level as we come up with more ways and methods to use the horsepower of this four-truck facility, says Brown. The C unit has been turned into four edit bays with server storage and content managers to manage the files and the EVS network. And the D unit has three edit bays and a 5.1[-surround] audio-sweetening room.
Turner Sports will also use a small flypack inside a suite in the Smoothie King Arena for the Area 21 show. Hosted by former NBA player and All-Star Kevin Garnett, the show will feature Garnett and his guests discussing the ongoing action.
We're using a very small flypack for that production, notes Brown. Signals from that flypack will also pass into the studio truck so that segments can be integrated into the studio show, and it will be made available to the game-production team.
Turner will put 58 cameras to use inside the Smoothie King Center for both the on-the-court and TNT studio coverage (the world-feed production will also have unilateral cameras because the game will be seen in 215 countries and territories and in 49 languages).
One exciting new production tool is the addition of a Spidercam for coverage of the All-Star Saturday Night activities: the slam-dunk contest, three-point shooting contest, and skills challenge. It will be the first time a cabled camera will fly over the court during on-court action.
The philosophy is to always look for new things that will be compelling for viewers and will move the needle on our coverage, Brown explains. The Spidercam gives us a unique perspective that we have never had before, and it took a lot of work and coordination with the NBA as the All-Star Game has a lot of rigged lights and moving stages.
One workflow improvement this year is the onsite presence of 11 editing bays with Adobe Premier (three also have Adobe After Effects). Those editing systems are on the same network sharing 100 TB of storage and are also attached to four EVS IPDirectors to pull clips from 29 EVS servers.
This never feels just like a game, says Brown. The players were chosen by the fans, and this is their dream team.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
Latino Film Institute Fellows Screen Their Short Films at the Egyptian Theatre
The Inclusion Fellowship and Spark Animation Grant uplifts 15 ...
29/05/2026
GLOOKAST LAUNCHES CINNAFILM TACHYON PLUGIN FOR MEDIA PRODUCER AND MEDIA SERVICES
This release first appeared here.
Visit our Tachyon product page or contact...
29/05/2026
May 29 2026, 09:00 (PDT) Dolby and rednote Bring More Immersive Storytelling to...
29/05/2026
Something fundamental has shifted in how people consume media. Audiences aren't abandoning television or radio content; they're just expanding how, wher...
29/05/2026
Youtube exclusive special drops today
Watch now
UKTV today announces another e...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
The Official Trailer of Physical 100 Italy, on Netflix From Se...
It has been only three years since New Orleans hosted the NBA All-Star Game Weekend, and, typically, when a sports event returns to the same city that quickly, the production philosophy remains the same. That is not the case for Turner Sports this weekend.
