By Andrew Lippe 

Sports teams are always watching video to prepare for an opponent and the Boston Celtics, closing in on an NBA Title, are using Jelco's ELU-42R RotoLift Case to make the road locker room feel like home. The system allows the Celtics to bring a Toshiba Plasma display into visiting locker rooms where, traditionally, video monitors are not available, making it more difficult to study game video.

“We decided at the beginning of the year that it was time to start traveling with either a Plasma or an LCD flat screen,” says Jay Wessel, vice president of Technology for the Boston Celtics.  

In the past watching video on the road was a difficult process. The Boston Celtics would rent projectors and plasmas at the road arenas or hotels, but the TV sets never gave the same video output the coaches and players received at home. Also the process of renting plasmas was quite pricey. “To rent plasmas in the hotel could range anywhere from $500 to $1,000 a day,” adds Wessel. The Boston Celtics purchased a RotoLift Case for around $3,000 that has been used on every road game this year.  

“The Celtics had been struggling with using projectors and screens, and they asked if we could help them,” says Edwin Elliott, President of Jelco Inc. The Celtics carrying case was specifically modified for them.  

Jelco Inc. also created a carrying case for the Miami Heat and provided carrying cases for the NFL’s HD field replay systems. “Teams do not have to worry about cords and cables. It is all self wired,” adds Elliott.  

The RotoLift offers a quick set up in that all the Celtics have to do is simply pull a release handle and their plasma rises up into position. “Brian Adams does all the editing using XOS tools on his laptop and when he is ready, he plugs the laptop into the Video Graphics Array (VGA) of the plasma,” says Wessel. Brian Adams, Boston Celtics video coordinator edits plays on his laptop utilizing XOS Technologies, XOS Basketball 2007 software. “For game footage we record games directly into the laptop or we can download them as windows media files from the league,” says Wessel. 

The RotoLift case has been a success this season despite its weight requirements. “The case is bulky and generally takes two people to move it around,” says Wessel. “However it helps get the job done."