A video slam-dunk for the NBA

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"The infrastructure of the Net has gotten to where it can now support these kinds of models," Lahr said. "We couldn't have done this just a few years ago."

The way it works is that media from the NBA is first changed to the format used by Synergy. It's then distributed over a private network to Synergy's loggers. Once they edit the video, they use their own computers and bandwidth to send the results to Synergy's data center. The data is linked up to high-resolution video where it's made available to customers on the company's Web site.

It was Barr who recognized the need for statistical analysis to be paired with video. While numbers largely define baseball, statistics for such important tasks as setting picks or challenging shots are not widely recorded. In the NBA, numbers don't tell the whole story.

Barr understood this and after putting together video for the Suns, he knew if he found a more efficient way to process video, teams would come running. "It was just obvious to me how much easier it would be if someone were tagging clips for every play," said Barr, 54.

After floating the idea past many of his contacts on other NBA teams, Barr quit his job with the Suns and went to work developing Synergy. For his company to receive permission from the NBA to access game footage, he needed to sign up at least one club as a customer. The league will only grant video rights to companies doing business with at least one NBA team. He sold the Miami Heat on Synergy, and that opened the door.

Now some of Synergy's NBA customers believe that the system will soon be adopted by the rest of the league.

"There is an unlimited amount of analysis that can be done combining video and stats," Cuban said. "Every team is looking at the same information and video differently, which leads to unlimited perspective and opportunity."

The NBA could be just the start for Barr. He recently began offering college basketball games on Synergy, and branching into college sports could mean big bucks for the company. While there are 30 professional basketball teams, there are 334 universities competing at the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I level. And don't forget about football, where watching films is a requisite for game preparation.

"Football will be the mother lode for Synergy," said the Suns' Griffin. "The NFL spends so much money and time on video."

[zeroplane]

Isn't this like sharing music?

So when are the media outlets going to sue this company into the group? I'm sure there isn't a fair use law that will be shown that the company must pay for the rights to "distribute, copy, or broadcast" the media ****** content.

[KsprayDad]

No...

If you actually read the story...they are an authorized user of the video as they have a contract with an NBA team.

Also...this is exactly what the PORN industry has been doing for years. This is how they pump out feature videos of any act you want. They have video loggers (at least Vivid does) that go through every film.

Then when they want a compilation they just call every clip up on a database.