PROTECH
UNLOCKING THE 5G OPPORTUNITY IN VIDEO SERVICES
With 5G presenting broadcasters with the opportunity to expand their video services and offer higher-quality video streaming and immersive AV experiences, Alexandre Arnodin examines the wide range of applications that can benefit from using this technology
Mobile connectivity continues to evolve at a rapid pace. A little over a decade since the introduction of 4G, 5G is now showing promise as its uptake expands. It brings the potential of increased bandwidth throughput and lower latency, allowing telecom operators, broadcasters and content providers to expand video services, improve viewer experience and diversify product offerings. While higherquality video streaming and immersive audio are an exciting prospect, understanding the wide range of potential future applications will be crucial to leveraging the opportunities. Built on better bandwidth The increased bandwidth capability of this new technology is key to understanding the foundation of what 5G can provide to both mobile operators and broadcasters. With one gigabit per second streaming made possible, organisations are better able
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to provide 4K streams on top of existing HD streams and even pave the way for 8K resolution, creating an enhanced viewer experience. For audio, new innovations such as MPEG-H and AC4 with Dolby Atmos rendering capabilities become possible, meaning support for multiple simultaneous channels and spatial sound effect rendering, even on stereo sound systems. The edge opportunity 5G also enables multi-access edge computing (MEC), and this is where the possibilities really expand for video services. Storage and processing capabilities can be pushed further down the network and used in smaller data centres or other infrastructure, spread out closer to the viewers. For example, MEC enables user-specific content to be inserted just before it reaches viewers, making it possible to distribute different content to different users. One
