V-Nova’s PERSEUS powers UltraHD broadcast of Real Madrid vs Barcelona

V-Nova Ltd, a leading provider of video compression solutions, has announced that its innovative PERSEUS technology was deployed by Mediapro’s Overon for visually lossless contribution of the November 21 El Clásico match between Real Madrid and Barcelona played at the Santiago Bernabau stadium in Madrid, Spain.

The PERSEUS-powered contribution link was a critical part of this first ever Ultra HD transmission of the “El Clásico” match, which was transmitted 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 240 Mbps over a 1 Gbps telco fiber 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 1 Gbps telco circuits,” confirmed Overon. “PERSEUS performed flawlessly, playing a critical role in the very first ever live transmission of ”El Clásico” in Ultra HD.”

V-Nova’s PERSEUS is an advanced video compression technology that enables operators to differentiate their products, increase market penetration, and provide otherwise undeliverable services. PERSEUS is based on the principles underlying human vision to deliver significant and simultaneous 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 & 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 & co-founder.