During Huawei's 5G Brings New Value session at MWC Shanghai 2021, the biggest attraction proved to be the company's demonstration of a mobile-based 5G free view application. Huawei presented a video of a street dance performance that was shot in real time using 27 phones set up to capture the dancers from every angle. Audiences both onsite and online were thrilled by this beautiful demonstration of the confluence of performing arts and 5G. Huawei executives recommended this application, and a number of famous TV personalities offered their praise. Let's take a look at what mobile-based 5G free view is all about.
For Chinese audiences, free view is not an entirely new concept. The popular dance show Dance Smash uses free-view effects to present beautiful dance performances. In the 2021 CCTV New Year's Gala, a martial arts extravaganza was shot in free view. The excitement of the spectacular choreography was heightened through the use of 360° panning shots that spiraled around the performers. However, these are big-budget productions that use 100 or more 4K video cameras and specialized high-performance servers for image processing. The free view effect that has become a signature of Dance Smash is only possible thanks to a sophisticated ring array of cameras. The results can be stunning, but it takes an investment of tens of millions of Chinese yuan, making these techniques unaffordable for all but the biggest productions.
However, the mobile-based 5G free-view video that Huawei demonstrated at MWC Shanghai was shot with 27 Huawei phones. This system costs within an indie budget, and can be set up in 10 minutes or so. This democratization of free-view shooting is only possible now due to the high uplink bandwidth and low latency of 5G, as well as the computing and rendering capabilities offered on the cloud. In the near future, anyone — not just world-class martial artists — will be able to shoot stunning videos of themselves in free view.
As 5G quickly evolves, the mobile-based free view application is only the tip of the iceberg, we are about to witness an explosion of new 5G applications. 2021 promises to bring many more innovative consumer 5G applications that will enrich our lives.