Reproduced with permission from Business Insider

PANINI AMERICA UNVEILED its new Panini Highlight Reel Xperience video trading card this week.

That’s right, video. These first-of-their-kind cards will have up to 30 minutes of hi-def quality video embedded in them.

The card is still in prototype form, but Panini stressed that it’s far past the phase of “concept.” The collectibles maker has partnered with media tech company Recom Group to help pull it off.

The first series of cards will feature young NBA superstars Blake Griffin, John Wall, and Kevin Durant, along with Kobe Bryant.  Each will be individually autographed by the athlete and be accompanied by highlights and other clips on the mini-screen.

Although they haven’t specified the dimensions, the card seems a bit thick to really be considered a trading card.  But we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, since it’s the first of its kind and still a prototype model.  We’ll see how its final form looks when it’s released with the 2010-2011 Totally Certified NBA basketball in June.

Hopefully, it’ll be more trading card than trading brick.

For an extended look, here’s a video (via PaniniAmerica) of Blake Griffin checking out his own card. Skip to 1:50 to see the card in action: