Mediapro taps Panasonic for El Clasico coverage

One of the biggest club matches in world football, El Clasico is broadcast in 170 countries, with an estimated audience of 600 million viewers. MEDIAPRO deployed more than 300 professionals and seven OB trucks, one of them equipped with eight Panasonic 4K cameras, for the live 4K broadcast.

Mediapro made use of the Panasonic K-UC3000 studio camera for coverage of El Clasico.

In November 2015, in response to a commitment by LaLiga to offer the most spectacular football in the highest broadcast quality, MEDIAPRO trialled ten of the new AK-UC3000 studio cameras, at the first El Clasico match of the season at Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, with outstanding results.

For the return clash at Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium, the AK-UC3000 was again selected alongside a new ROP control panel, jointly developed with MEDIAPRO, which meant new functionality, higher quality and greater versatility.

Dani Lozano, ‘El Clasico’ Producer at MEDIAPRO, said, “Panasonic listened to us as customers and implemented the things we needed in our day-to-day production, things that we thought were necessary in order to carry out production normally. For example, a gamma curve devoted to sports has been introduced. They have also upgraded the actual hardware too, with additional outputs, which are very useful for installations using mobile units.”

Toni Feliú, Senior Manager for ProAV at Panasonic Spain, said, “Because the costs are moderate, the installation simple, and the integration with third party products is very convenient, we hope that the Barcelona-Real Madrid game will be a kick start for high-end 4K production in Spain.”

“4K is not something for the future, it is something for the present. I think that for companies like us, production in 4K is becoming the norm,” added Dani Lozano.

Claudio Vázquez, OB Vans Technical coordinator at MEDIAPRO, said, “We worked with Panasonic to develop a new control panel – the ROP. It gives us access to something that makes our job easier and offers the operator versatility, facilitating their work. We had great support whilst working with Panasonic and, because it is a shared design, they continue to offer us support.”

The UC3000 is a compact studio camera that is compatible with B4 mount lenses. It features a balance between the various image quality parameters: high sensitivity, signal-to-noise ratio, high resolution, and a wide dynamic range.