'See Chengdu': A 5G + 8K Global-First City Live Broadcast

The brief

The "See Chengdu" campaign set out to do something no one had done before: a global-first 5G+8K live broadcast of a city at night, streaming genuine live 8K of Chengdu's night scenes to multiple platforms. Live 8K outdoors, at night, over 5G is one of the toughest jobs in broadcast — very little light, four times the data of 4K, and a live audience arriving in real time across several platforms at once.

What we did

Working with China Telecom, we deployed a true 8K camera chain across Chengdu's night landscape, encoded the 8K signal in real time with hardware tuned for 8K-over-5G, and carried it live over a 5G link for simultaneous distribution to multiple platforms. A dedicated technical director managed the program feed while our engineers held redundant encoding and transport paths ready, and camera positions were chosen and lit to hold true 8K detail after dark.Every element was tested and rehearsed in full 8K before going live, because a global-first broadcast is judged on the one take that goes out.

The result

A global-first live 8K broadcast of a city's night scenes over 5G — genuine 8K of Chengdu after dark, streamed in real time to multiple platforms with China Telecom. The same 8K program was down-converted simultaneously to 4K and HD so every viewer received the best feed their screen could show, and the 8K masters were retained for on-demand and large-format display. The broadcast put Chengdu's night skyline in front of a wide online audience in a resolution few cities had ever been shown in live, and gave the campaign a genuine world-first to anchor its story around. For a city selling itself on modernity, streaming its nightscape in live 8K was the message and the medium at once.