Countdown to kick-off: How Global Production helped Sky Italy move Serie A to native 4K HDR By Roberto Landini, Italian Correspondent
Monday, September 14, 2020 - 18:10
Print This Story
When the 2020-21 Serie A season kicks off this weekend, Sky Italy will be showing seven of the 10 games across each matchday including one per week in native 4K with high dynamic range (HDR).
Viewers in Italy, as long as they have the correct Sky Q box of course, will get to see the games in the Hybrid Log Gamma format, the backwards-compatible HDR standard that was jointly developed by the BBC and NHK.
HDR has been part of the Sky output for Serie A for a couple of seasons. The difference this year is that all the signals are native HDR with BT.2020 colour gamut. There is no upscaling.
The origins of these next generation broadcasts go back to the summer and a game between Torino and Roma on 29 July at the Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino.
That was the first Serie A game to air in native 4K with HDR. And the lessons learnt from that match, which also had an HD-SDR simulcast, shaped how all this season's matches will be covered.
The difficulty is twofold. It is not enough to create a technically perfect signal in very high definition UHD-HDR. It is also essential to guarantee quality even on the very popular lower format, HD SDR.
Global Production, part of the Euro Media Group (EMG), was responsible for the match coverage.
The typical complication of a standard football production in Italy involves the use of a large number of sources - and these all had to be updated to native HDR, because the signal entering the mixer must already be native HDR.
This goal was reached after a series of tests carried out last season and many discussions that were aimed at finding a common path for all the actors involved including producers, broadcasters and clubs, from Juventus and Roma to Infront and Sky the Italian football league itself.
In reality, an HDR live broadcast in Italy had never been done before, because the technical problems to be overcome were far from trivial.
The construction of the new workflow was led by Renato Mancini (pictured above), the chief technology officer of Global Production. He worked with Sky and the Italian Football League to decide on how to concretely carry out the entire production process.
In Italy, there is no school and there is no experience, especially in Serie A, an environment where everything is very delicate, on which all eyes are focused, and it is impossible to practice live, he says.
The difficulty is twofold. It is not enough to create a technically perfect signal in very high definition UHD-HDR. It is also essential to guarantee quality even on the very popular lower format, HD-SDR.
This is done in down-conversion from HD HDR and requires a whole series of calibrations which, if they are not perfect due to inexperience, penalise the result a lot .
Furthermore, the various vendors such as Grass Valley and Sony approach the problem from different points of view, given the complexity of the thing.
To make these new broadcasts possible, Global Production, starting in January 2020, invested heavily in not just essential changes to one of its flagship mobile vehicles, OB8, adding a huge amount of conversion and color mapping resources, but in human resources too.
Mancini continues: The problem arises from the fact that HDR is not linear and in the conversion it is not enough to insert a factor that remains constant throughout the range.
And, above all, to create serious problems is the range of brightness of the cameras, therefore the iris control. If we were to work with apertures in the typical SDR range, nothing would be seen in the simulcast in HDR.
Furthermore, the various vendors such as Grass Valley and Sony approach the problem from different points of view, given the complexity of the thing. The internal technical chains of the camera controls, very talented technicians, however, require specific training.
As a result, a new job role has been created: the HDR supervisor . Mancini describes the job as specialized and requiring a lot of preparation. This technician works from a dedicated workstation and has a complete view of both the SDR and the HDR output.
It works in the HDR range of the cameras, in the upper part of the signal, in the super white (over 100% in the SDR), and in the color zone to constantly check both signals.
In reality, in Serie A there are six outputs that must be constantly realigned with experience and sensitivity, returning an artistic range, managing the 16 cameras in native 4K-HDR with incredible nuances and details in colour, coupled with greater brightness.
By embarking on this courageous path, Mancini has made it possible to compose a sort of best practice, a workflow prototype that outlines how to handle the signals. This will be reused by the technical infrastructure in all Serie A matches this season.
The workflow was developed by Global Production in cooperation with the technical management of Sky Italy and delivered to the football league, Infront and to the tv production services, and to all the self-producers operating in Serie A.
He is very grateful to Sky for their help with this assignment.
We have to thank Sky Italy very much. They believed in the project and invested with great availability of means of production and technology at different levels, even in tests, with constant checks and feedback from the central plant.
For the graphics, Netco Sports, another subsidiary of the EMG group in Italy, and ISG, also participated in the tests, producing all the on-screen visuals and virtual mats natively in 4K UHD-HDR, perfectly the process of controlling colors, positioning, and white saturations.
All of the graphic sections had to undergo re-elaborations and adaptations, constitut
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
28/11/2025
WASHINGTON Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for the December Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, December 18, 2025 ...
28/11/2025
The Professional Fighters League is looking to super-serve fans of mixed martial...
28/11/2025
Fubo has released in beta on select Roku devices a new feature that lets users display up to four simultaneous streams at once....
28/11/2025
The WNBA playoffs and Week 4 of the NFL regular season highlight the list of live sports events airing on television this weekend....
28/11/2025
The 32nd class of honorees to the B+C Hall of Fame took to the stage at New York's Ziegfeld Ballroom on September 26 for a gala induction event. Click below...
28/11/2025
We hold in our hands the very last Next Text for Next TV, the weekly back-and-fo...
28/11/2025
DirecTV said it made a deal with EchoStar to buy EchoStar's video businesses, including satellite-TV provider Dish TV and virtual MVPD Sling TV, for $1 plus...
28/11/2025
The Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame, the premier industry event paying tribute to the influencers, innovators and shining lights of broadcast, cable and streami...
28/11/2025
Unwrapped: The Toy Show Appeal - airing this Sunday on RT One and RT Player- s...
27/11/2025
LONDON Vizrt has added several AI-driven advanced features offering improved speed, intelligence and accuracy in the newest version of its media asset managemen...
27/11/2025
Prime Video has launched AI-powered video season recaps in a beta version for select English-language Prime Original series in the U.S., a move Amazon is callin...
27/11/2025
27 Nov 2025
GSMA brings M360 Eurasia 2026 to Samarkand in partnership with VEON...
27/11/2025
Tahar Rahim and Izuka Hoyle star in the gripping six-part Sky Original from Acad...
27/11/2025
Thursday 27 November 2025
Sky Arts Reveals the Nation's Greatest Basslines - and Queen Reign Supreme
The UK's most iconic basslines have been revealed...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things 5': Prepare for One Last Adventure With O...
27/11/2025
The media industry has a paradox at its core. It's an industry built on light, color and imagination, yet behind the scenes, it's powered by one of the ...
27/11/2025
Rating reflects rating progress across areas including policies, diversity & inclusion, health & safety and Net Zero leadership
Winchester, UK, 27 November 202...
27/11/2025
What are the industry standards for Retail Media? Kathryn explains that certification is based on the IAB Europe Retail Media Measurement Standards and the IAB ...
27/11/2025
World champion boxer and Irish sporting icon Katie Taylor will be in studio this...
27/11/2025
Roblox, one of the world's most popular online gaming platforms for primary ...
27/11/2025
Black Friday is leveling up. Get ready to score one of the biggest deals of the season - 50% off the first three months of a new GeForce NOW Ultimate membership...
26/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Prime Video EP Mike Muriano Previews Massive Black Friday Slate Fe...
26/11/2025
A cinematic snow sculpture at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Photo by Randall Michelson...
26/11/2025
Book podcasts are booming. On Spotify, you'll find everything from celebrity book clubs to deep dives with bestselling authors. And in markets where audiobo...
26/11/2025
Mumbai, November 24, 2025: In a first-of-its-kind initiative, JioStar, in collab...
26/11/2025
LONDON Factual content producer ITN Productions has launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins....
26/11/2025
MIAMI TelevisaUnivision said it struck a new multiyear distribution agreement with YouTube TV that includes distribution of TelevisaUnivision's U.S. network...
26/11/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leader in software-defined data storage and data services, today announced the launch of the Atlas Corporate Creative Solution. This new Atl...
26/11/2025
Disguise, the industry-leading company powering the world's biggest live performances, is partnering with pioneering LED wall manufacturer DVS to give atten...
26/11/2025
HighField AI, the pioneer in agentic and multimodal automation for broadcast and media production, today announced the expansion of its global channel partner n...
26/11/2025
As high-stakes Premier League fixtures approach and additional premium content launches, with MONO positioning themselves to dominate Thailand's sports stre...
26/11/2025
Hosting a wide variety of events from high-intensity NHL games to complex live music concerts and major entertainment productions, Montreal's 21,000 capacit...
26/11/2025
Vizrt, the leader in live production technology revolutionizing viewer engagement and experience, releases AI-driven advances focusing on speed, intelligence, a...
26/11/2025
ITN Productions, an award-winning factual content producer, today launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins. Responsible for delivering a leading...
26/11/2025
Ikegami reports ongoing advances throughout 2025 in developing and delivering coordinated television production solutions that maximize quality, versatility and...
26/11/2025
Following the Nov. 21 blackout of NBCUniversal channels on Fubo, the two sides have traded barbs about their inability to reach a new carriage deal....
26/11/2025
LONDON As TV sports rights become increasingly important for both broadcasters and streamers, Ampere Analysis predicts global investment in the genre will surpa...
26/11/2025
LOS ANGELES Vubiquity said it has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Media & Entertainment Competency as part of the AWS Partner Network (APN). This designa...
26/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau said it has entered into a consent decree with Comcast calling for the cable company t...
26/11/2025
Berklee Named to the Hollywood Reporters Top Music Schools List The publication highlights the college's screen scoring program, industry partnerships, and ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
Animated Series Love Through a Prism' Casts New Light on ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
NALIP Unveils Fifth Cohort of Director Incubator
Social Impact
26 November 2025
United States
Link copied to clipboard
The National Assoc...
26/11/2025
YouView Achieves Greenly Gold Certification for SustainabilityNov 26, 2025
YouView is proud to announce a Gold Certification award from Greenly for our perform...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Deepens Partnership with Taiwan's 62nd Golden Hors...
25/11/2025
Tracy Bonareri Onchoke, an investigative journalist from Kenya is the winner of the Thomson Foundation's Young Journalist Award 2025.
The 26-year-old-sele...
25/11/2025
SVG All-Stars: Blayke Scheer, Senior Director, Creative Content, YES NetworkThe Indiana alum has turned storytelling into an artform for more than two decadesBy...
25/11/2025
Op-Ed: With FCC's C-Band Auction on the Horizon, Broadcasters Need Proven, C...
25/11/2025
Analysis: Is Baller League really the future of sport? By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, November 25, 2025 - 10:10
Print This Story
With KSI on...
Countdown to kick-off: How Global Production helped Sky Italy move Serie A to native 4K HDR By Roberto Landini, Italian Correspondent 
