Atresmedia Streams Champions League Final With Wowza in 360°, 4K

In European club football, there is no competition more special than the UEFA Champions League final. It attracts viewers from all over the world, with an estimated 200 million people in over 200 countries tuning in to watch this year’s game between Real Madrid and Juventus.

Real Madrid is the most successful club in Champions League history, with 11 titles to its name. The team stands on the precipice of making history—if it can beat Juventus in Saturday’s final and become the first team to repeat back-to-back titles.

In Spain, Atresmedia has announced that it will broadcast this historic game with live, 4K, free-to-air (FTA) coverage, both through over-the-top (OTT) and digital terrestrial television (DTT). This will mark the first time in history that a media group has delivered a FTA live event in Ultra HD over the internet.

Atresmedia is the largest media group in Spain, with a digital channel lineup that includes Antena 3, laSexta, Neox, Nova and Mega. A long-time Wowza customer, Atresmedia uses Wowza Streaming Engine to power its live and video-on-demand (VOD) streaming platform, with native support for ultra high-definition (UHD) content.

For Saturday’s game, Atresmedia will be adding 10 4K cameras to UEFA’s existing 22 cameras, located in the National Stadium of Wales in Cardiff. Using Wowza’s live transcoding technology, Atresmedia will ingest these live 4K streams, and generate multibitrate renditions (2160p, 1440p, 1080p, 720p and 480p) to deliver adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming for viewers on a wide range of devices: desktop computers, through the Atresmedia website; mobile devices; set-top boxes; gaming consoles; and OTT devices such as Roku, AppleTV, AndroidTV and Chromecast.

Best of all, Atresmedia is using Wowza technology to stream through six live, 360° cameras, placed in strategic places throughout the stadium including team benches and goals. This virtual reality (VR) workflow will create an immersive experience to make fans feel like they’re right there at the final in Cardiff.

Viewers today expect crystal-clear, ultra-high definition and immersive, 360° video—so it’s crucial online broadcasts provide the best possible coverage.

For Atresmedia, that means using Wowza’s ultra-high definition streaming technology to easily and reliably integrate with its broadcast workflow. For millions across Spain, it means www.antena3.com/champions-total, all in 4K.