Rogers Teams With BT Sport on First NBA Game Telecast in 4K

Rogers Communications, in what it called a “global first,” beamed the first-ever live NBA game in 4K to customers with a NextBox 4K set-top when it aired the Toronto Raptors vs. Orlando Magic game Thursday from the O2 Arena in London. Rogers cable customers who tuned their NextBox 4K set-top to Channel 999 at 3 p.m. EST would be able to get the game “at four times the pixels of HD for stunning picture quality, higher resolution and improved motion video,” Rogers said in a Wednesday announcement. The production was in cooperation with BT Sport, which launched Europe's first live sports 4K channel, BT Sport Ultra HD, last year and also was to beam the game in 4K to customers in the U.K., Rogers said. Rogers claims to have made the largest commitment to live sports broadcasting in 4K in North America, with plans to do more than 100 live sporting events in 4K, including every 2016 Toronto Blue Jays home game, plus “marquee” NHL games, it said. In 2016, Rogers customers also will have access to stream 100 hours of 4K movies, series and TV shows through Netflix and other services, it said.