[harmmonica]

Anyone able to explain the technical reason this doesn't exist yet? Maybe technically feasible but NBA thinks it would cannibalize tickets sales?

If it did (does?) exist it would be nice if it could be "all" courtside views (pick the one you want or switch between them as you're watching). And when I say all it doesn't have to be literally every seat, but there could be one at each baseline and then maybe one each side of the scorer's table and then 2 opposite those so 6 in total.

[asadotzler]

Yes, because no one is going to spend the money to add another 30-60 cameras to the NBA broadcast platform to cater to fewer than 100K Vision Pro users. Even Quest's 10M actives doesn't come close to warranting that kind of financial outlay.

[harmmonica]

Ok, it's totally technically feasible today, but the return is not there given the lack of viewership. If you can expand a little on the 30-60 cameras so I can understand better, is that to stitch together the various views when a AVP user moves their head? Or were you using that number to represent the number of viewpoints on the floor? Like if it was only one view at the scorer's table, do I understand you would need multiple cameras for one view?

[asadotzler]

The NBA uses 30-60 cameras to give you a truly immersive view with all of the angles in high definition. This "VR" app uses one view and a bunch of shitty animation. If the NBA was going to truly embrace the Vision Pro, they'd need to replace most of all of their stadium rigs with new gear that could feed both the live TV broadcast and the server farm crunching it for VR. Not doing so means fewer high quality angles and more "fake" bits, less dynamism, and more low-poly, laggy garbage like this demoware that, despite claiming to be immersive, simply cannot compete on immersive-ness with boring old 2D broadcasts.

[harmmonica]

You mention the 2D broadcast. Maybe my expectations are too low, but as a step in the direction of a more immersive experience, I'd love to be able to watch an NBA game, even in 2D, where the perspective is courtside and the players are "life size" based on where I'm "seated" (so obviously adjusting size based on the perspective of the camera as players come closer and move farther away just like if you were there in person). And in case I'm not being clear I mean just a stream of the game itself, not using some derivative of the game as I understand this tabletop view (which seems really dumb actually, but not sure I get it).

You sound like you know a lot about the NBA in particular so you probably know this, but the NBA has been giving that courtside perspective periodically during games on the broadcast. Being able to watch a full game that way or at least toggle between that and the broadcast at will would be great. The very few times I've sat up close at an NBA game have been mind-bogglingly better, particularly when you can feel the size and speed of the players. Maybe this VR-light 2D view I'm talking about wouldn't simulate that very well, but I think it would do a pretty good job and could be done with one extra view (still hear you that even one view courtside would require multiple cameras and is not worth the investment, but I feel like it would be sensible to offer that as a step to something even more immersive).