Mastercard drives activations at the Australian Open with LiveU solutions

Production company 5stream, in partnership with agency McCann Australia, drove a series of strategic actions for Mastercard using LiveU‘s broadcast solutions.

LiveU’s LU800 units, provided by LiveU local partner Pacific Live Media, served as the backbone of the tournament coverage, enabling multi-camera sports production in UHD.

The 360° live streams were transmitted in 4K to the Mastercard YouTube channel, providing unique virtual experiences for fans with a behind-the-scenes view of tennis in real time. The same unit was also used to cover the tournament from multiple angles with high-res, fully frame-synced feeds, and as a DataBridge with wireless connectivity for direct data streams on-the-go.

Creative flexibility

Mitchell Kalika, general manager, 5stream, sums up the experience of working with LiveU’s LU800 as follows: “With the social distancing restrictions and subsequent lockdown, we were determined to reach the fans stuck at home with a premium 4K 360° viewing experience. At the same time, we needed a cost-effective solution that was reliable and could easily be used as part of a remote production. In the end, the flexibility and efficiency of the LiveU LU800 solution exceeded our expectations, we simply adjusted it to meet our production needs as we went along, switching between single and multi-camera feeds. It was almost like a swiss army knife with multi-camera, live streaming and DataBridge all on the same device!”

Yaal Eshel, General Manager, LiveU Asia, summarizes: “As full service live streaming experts, 5Stream are truly creative in their use of LiveU technology. This remote production, over the course of 14 days, took the live coverage to a higher level providing an incredible tennis experience for virtual fans at home.”