Video compression technology from V-Nova was deployed by Mediapro’s Overon for visually lossless contribution of the 21 November El Clásico match between Real Madrid and Barcelona at the Santiago Bernabau stadium in Madrid, Spain.
This was the first ultra HD transmission of the El Clásico match, broadcast on the Canal+ Liga channel via Telefonica’s Movistar+ fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) service.
The Mediapro managed project saw ultra HD live footage encoded at the stadium by a V-Nova Perseus-powered P.Link solution and contributed visually lossless content with ultra low latency at 240Mbps over a 1Gbps telco fibre connection to the Movistar Master Control Room (MCR) in Madrid. At the MCR, a P.Link server decoded the signal, which was then distributed to Canal+ Liga viewers in Spain.
“We chose V-Nova’s Perseus solution because it is the only commercially available video compression solution that can contribute multiple visually lossless video feeds over our 1Gbps telco circuits,” confirmed Overon.
V-Nova’s Perseus video compression technology is based on the principles underlying human vision to deliver improvements in compression, picture quality, processing speed, latency and power consumption. Perseus shifts the entire video bitrate-quality curve to enable UHD quality video at HD bitrates, HD at SD bitrates, and SD video at sub-audio bitrates.
“Operators and broadcasters wishing to deliver live sports in ultra HD to their viewers today can only realistically do so by using their current contribution data links in a more effective way. As a reliable, compatible and interoperable upgrade to the existing infrastructure, Perseus low-latency visually lossless contribution solutions offer service providers, operators and broadcasters, alike, the ability to deliver new ultra HD services to paying customers economically and in record time often within weeks – while also being ready for future additional upgrades such as HDR,” said Guido Meardi, V-Nova CEO and co founder. “In contrast to legacy compression technologies requiring to build new networks and compromise on latency, Perseus-based solutions offer a true paradigm shift.”
“Live sports, especially football, present a challenging use case for broadcasters when it comes to compression. The fact that V-Nova’s Perseus-powered P.Link contribution solution was chosen to broadcast Barcelona vs. Real Madrid, one of football’s greatest duels, is a tribute to Perseus’ superior performance and robustness. We are deeply proud to work with industry leaders like Mediapro on this historic first ultra HD transmission of El Clásico to football fans around the world,” concluded Achtmann, V-Nova executive chairman and co-founder.
