TELEMUNDO DEPORTES USES ULTIMATTE 12 HD FOR 2024 SUMMER OLYMPICS

Manchester, United Kingdom - Tuesday, May 20, 2025 - Blackmagic Design today announced that Telemundo Deportes relied on four Ultimatte 12 HD real time compositing processors to cover the 2024 Summer Olympics, creating a Parisian virtual environment remotely from its Telemundo Center in Miami, FL. The workflow allowed for 15 anchors and guests to report in front of a 5,000 square ft. cyclorama wall for eight hours across 19 days, featured numerous virtual landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, The Trocadéro Plaza and Notre Dame Cathedral, and took viewers on an immersive journey with views of the picturesque city.

Owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, Telemundo is a Spanish language television network offering content and programming to Latin American audiences. The network’s Studio L at Telemundo Center was initially used for coverage of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, for which the team employed Ultimatte 12 as part of its virtual production workflow, and has recently been modernized with the latest technology, converting it into a state of the art virtual studio with Ultimatte 12 HD.

Taking into consideration the amount of onsite coverage in Paris and the resulting limited physical space during the Olympics, Telemundo decided to create its own virtual set in Miami to cover the historic event. Led by real time graphics expert Fabián Albarracín and his team, the virtual set offered viewers a hyper realistic experience within a controlled environment. From sculptures to nature, the team dedicated every effort to creating an experience that looked as real as possible, with beautiful detail and precision.

Powering the Olympic coverage, Telemundo relied on four Ultimatte 12 HDs paired with four Ultimatte Smart Remote 4 units for additional control. A camera signal and two Chyron Prime VSARs with Unreal Engine for fill and key fed into each Ultimatte 12 HD. This setup allowed the team to run two Unreal Engine based virtual sets in sync with a single camera, facilitating both virtual sets and augmented reality.

Before incorporating Ultimatte into its workflow, Telemundo’s primary challenge was achieving a clean chroma key, which is critical for live broadcast events. The team needed a reliable tool to manage this with precision, and according to Telemundo, Ultimatte was the solution with its clean chroma keying and color retouching capabilities. These features enabled Telemundo to seamlessly integrate anchors with virtual environments, creating a more realistic and immersive broadcast experience. For the 2024 Summer Olympics in particular, Telemundo benefitted from Ultimatte 12 HD’s color retouching capabilities when it came to accurately showing the changing daylight as the broadcast aired over the course of the day and into the night. The team was able to seamlessly achieve the transition and retouch the anchors and guests.

After several years of using Ultimatte, Telemundo has developed a consistent and reliable workflow. Its 2024 Summer Olympics workflow has streamlined its virtual production process, and the team will continue to apply these best practices in exciting future projects.

PRESS PHOTOGRAPHY

Product photos of Ultimatte 12 HD, Ultimatte Smart Remote 4 and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/media/images

ABOUT BLACKMAGIC DESIGN

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk

