
Big step forward: EMG Italy unveils basketball Instant Replay Center By Roberto Landini, Italian Correspondent
Friday, January 27, 2023 - 09:45
Print This Story
The Instant Replay Center is part of a wider remote production project for championship rightsholder Eleven Sports
EMG Italy has created a centralised remote basketball refereeing service in a new control room within its production centre in Cologno Monzese, Milan.
Officially inaugurated on the 16th day of the championship, before the second round, and called the Instant Replay Center, the control room is being used by Lega Basket Serie A (LBA) and the FIP Italian Referees Committee. It is part of a wider remote production project for championship rightsholder Eleven Sports.
All incoming signals from the fields of play are received in the centre, allowing precise control of the action to support the decisions of referees, who are connected live via audio and video from courts around Italy.
Building on experience
While the Instant Replay Center is new, it builds on the solid basis of EMG Italy's experience in remote production and the systems installed derive from those already widely used by EMG for other sports.
EMG Italy proposed a centralised arbitration control centre after seeing a similar setup for the NBA in the US. From a technical point of view, this is an enhanced structure that required investments in infrastructure and connectivity: in fact, dedicated connection lines were installed with Fastweb, which created a 1GB A link and a second 200MB B link, explains Francesco Donato, CTO of EMG Italy. In addition, at the Cologno headquarters, two 10GB links were installed to guarantee the management of [up to eight] matches at the same time. This has allowed us to enhance the contribution loops to and from the playing fields.
The project also involved the fixed fibre optic cabling of 16 arenas. In practice, EMG Italy has created a network dedicated to basketball instant replays which handles eight signals coming from each of the basketball arenas to connect these to the Cologno Monzese production centre.
How it works
The installation is full IP , continues Donato. In fact, we start by taking the signal from the cameras in the field, which is conveyed through a system architecture which then allows us to use the content both to feed the instant replay solution and to supply signals to the remote production centre.
In the Instant Replay room each operator for each of the stations is in constant contact with a spotter' on the field, a person in charge of the judges' table who facilitates communications.
The request to intervene in a match can be made by the coach or the referee, who can ask to review game action. The operator in the Instant Replay room collaborates with both.
Each of the stations receives signals from all the cameras on the court using a monitor and multiviewer to operate the system. At the centre of this mosaic of simultaneous images, a further picture-in-picture box shows the scoreboard so the timing of the match can be checked.
The Instant Replay Center is a big step forward for this great sport
The instant replay operator has a control panel and a hardware interface to move the images forwards and backwards at various speeds, frame by frame, and they can share one or more shots with the referee in real-time, depending on the request.
Each referee on the field receives a service signal in audio and the images requested in the video. These images are also available for airing.
Dario Marra, head of graphics at EMG Italy, says: System latencies and two-way remote communication were some of the potential difficulties to face in remote production. So we launched the appropriate technical standards, trained the instant replay operators and added a project manager, who is a dedicated project leader and co-ordinator.
He takes care of the co-ordination of the service, maintains relations with the clubs, takes care of the preventive installations at the arenas, the alignment of all the signals, and verifies a dedicated checklist pre-match.
Furthermore, thanks to his technical preparation on the system, he is able to help the refereeing team by proposing the best shots to the operator and becomes the reference for the customer in the project, to update staff in a co-ordinated way.
Leading from the front
The instant replay service has been used in Italy for many years, operating locally on courts and often managed by personnel delegated by the host clubs. However, EMG Italy wanted to lead the way in Europe and improve the level of operations.
We wanted to improve the whole structure of the arbitration control from a technical point of view, increasing the quality standard, and from an operational point of view with a new level of preparation and management, adds Marra.
The system has all the functions required by FIP for federal approval and is a crucial tool for referee management.
EMG Italy's Cologno Monzese production centre
Umberto Gandini, president of Lega Basket, says: After being the first European basketball league to use instant replay in all matches starting from the 2014-15 season in agreement with the Italian Basketball Federation, we continue to introduce technological improvements giving clubs and referees increasingly advanced tools to ensure certainty and uniformity of decisions at each match.
Luigi Lamonica, commissioner of the Italian Referees Committee, adds: The new system will facilitate the work of the referees above all by speeding up the time taken to reach decisions subject to verification. The hope is that this work will continue and that, thanks to technology, further possibilities may be developed to increasingly facilitate the decisions of referees.
It's certainly big news, underlines Donato, because we have introduced
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK Short-form vertical video has exploded across platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, but a new survey commissioned by Media.net, a provider of c...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK YES Network, the regional sports network home of the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets, and CAMB.AI have struck a partnership they said will leverage ...
19/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has issued detailed guidance on filings that were disrupted by the government shutdown. While many of those fil...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK The popularity of NFL games is largely responsible for continued seasonal momentum in TV viewership into October (measured Sept. 29-Oct. 26), according...
19/11/2025
DirecTV has announced that its MyFree DirecTV streaming service has added seven new channels. Those include four sports services, NBA FAST, Red Bull TV, DAZN Ri...
19/11/2025
SURREY, U.K. Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) has launched Flair Bridge, a compact device that transforms how operators control the company's motion-contr...
19/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission, which is continuing to rapidly ramp up its operations after the end of the federal government shutdown, has se...
19/11/2025
IRVING, Texas Nexstar Media Group and Tegna filed applications on Nov. 18 with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking its consent to transfer broad...
19/11/2025
Scripps Research scientists receive $1.1 million to advance AI modeling for HIV vaccine development New AI system helps scientists rapidly pinpoint the most pro...
18/11/2025
Independent media across Central America are operating under intensifying financial pressure, yet there is a clear appetite for models that can sustain both ind...
18/11/2025
NBA Debuts New Comms Infrastructure and Systems for RefereesTwo-phase rollout is intended to improve game flow, enhance officiating accuracyBy Dan Daley, Audio ...
18/11/2025
Platinum White Paper: How Aggreko Delivers Certainty For Broadcasters On The Wor...
18/11/2025
Kiswe Extends DTC Products With Kiswe Core Cloud-Based Tool for Distributing Con...
18/11/2025
Spanish Basketball Federation partners with ScorePlay to power digital transform...
18/11/2025
HBS selects BBright encoders and decoders to connect ST 2110 live production wor...
18/11/2025
Ashes to Ashes: Inside TNT Sports' hybrid and maverick' production plan...
18/11/2025
SVG All-Stars: Mimi Fotopoulos, Director, Talent and Production Operations, Tenn...
18/11/2025
SVG LIVE! Conference Explores the Tech Side of Sports and Entertainment ConvergenceLive sports and music productions increasingly share gear and infrastructureB...
18/11/2025
LPGA Ups Its Production Game in 2026 With 50% More Cameras, SSMO's & Drones,...
18/11/2025
ESPN's Dunk the Halls Real-Time Animated NBA Game Set to Return for Christma...
18/11/2025
By Jessica Herndon
When Chilean filmmakers Diego C spedes and Giancarlo Nasi ar...
18/11/2025
Earlier this year, we announced the BAPE x SPOTIFY x SYNA by Central Cee (aka Cench) capsule collection, a collaboration that blends sound, style, and street c...
18/11/2025
Our mission to make Spotify the ultimate home for all things audio continues. St...
18/11/2025
SGL Carbon and the renowned Link ping University inaugurated an advanced coating...
18/11/2025
CANBERRA, Australia, Nov. 18, 2025 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) has launched a new, next-generation software device called NETCASTER - the NETwork Contr...
18/11/2025
Pictured are L3Harris ISR President Jason Lambert and Waleid Al Mesmari, EDGE President-Space & Cyber Technologies, signing with Carlo Igniades, L3Harris Region...
18/11/2025
During October, streaming's share of TV viewing in Mexico settled at 23.7%, a marginal shift of -0.8 share points from the previous month.
Disclaimer: YUMI...
18/11/2025
Broadcast Builds On Lead Over Cable, Driven by Football and Drama Programming Ga...
18/11/2025
CINCINNATI E.W. Scripps has issued a statement responding to news that Sinclair has acquired about 8.2% of the outstanding class A (nonvoting) shares in the com...
18/11/2025
TYSONS, Va. Tegna has announced that its shareholders have voted overwhelmingly to approve the proposed $6.2 billion merger with Nexstar Media Group....
18/11/2025
NEW YORK Short-form vertical video has exploded across platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, but a new survey commissioned by Media.net, a provider of ...
18/11/2025
SHENZHEN, China DJI today unveiled the Osmo Action 6, an all-in-one action camera featuring a variable aperture with a range from f/2.0 to f/4.0, the company...
18/11/2025
In the high-stakes world of film sound, there's no room for second chances. When an actor whispers a line with the weight of an entire scene, or lets loose ...
18/11/2025
Sonnet Technologies is having a sale on a selection of popular products, including a Thunderbolt 4 dock, an eGPU chassis, SATA and M.2 SSD PCIe cards, and mor...
18/11/2025
Amagi, a cloud-based SaaS technology solutions provider for broadcast and streaming TV, today announced the launch of 4Fangs, a new Free Ad-Supported Streaming ...
18/11/2025
Women In Media (WiM) announces its honorees for the 2025 Holiday Toast. The annual celebration recognizes legendary creatives whose work uplifts and inspires th...
18/11/2025
Cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra ( Good Fortune , The Bear , Euphoria ) emerged from the 2025 Emmy season with a statuette celebrating his Outstanding Cinem...
18/11/2025
Atlanta-based gaffer and lighting programmer Quinton Thomas brings the same practical, problem-solving instinct of a board op to every set he walks onto. With a...
18/11/2025
Suitelife Systems, a division of NFB Consulting Group, headquartered in California, has announced the appointments of Charles Sotto as Director of Media Technol...
18/11/2025
Sound Director and Audio Product Manager Scott Kramer has built a career around shaping stories through audio, guiding projects across film, television and stre...
18/11/2025
iWedia, a global leader in software solutions for connected TV devices, announces its participation at the APAC TV Summit 2025, taking place November 18 20 in B...
18/11/2025
Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) is proud to announce the launch of Flair Bridge, a groundbreaking solution that redefines how operators control MRMC's in...
18/11/2025
Over the summer, world famous musician and rapper Drake continued the rollout of his new album Iceman, by live streaming the second and third episodes of a seri...
18/11/2025
KEIZER, Ore. Municipal broadcaster Keizer City Television, K23 TV, has deployed four Telycam PTZ cameras to upgrade the visual quality of its live meeting cover...
18/11/2025
STAMFORD, Conn. NBC Sports and Peacock have announced that they are working for the second consecutive year with the National Football League, EA Sports and Gen...
18/11/2025
LONDON A new Ampere Analysis study finds that familiar franchises are successfully driving kids' TV consumption on Netflix and that the streamers big bet on...
18/11/2025
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. TV viewers continue to find it challenging to find relevant programs in the fragmented universe of streaming content, according to new findings...
18/11/2025
20 Bob Dylan Songs That Reflect a Legacy of A-Changin On the heels of Bob Dylan receiving a Berklee honorary doctorate, we take stock of one of the most singu...
18/11/2025
Timed with the Microsoft Ignite conference running this week, NVIDIA is expandin...