Introduction:
For users, 5G is faster network speeds, lower latency, and smoother connection experience. Behind this is the intergenerational evolution of the entire infrastructure and upper stack of the communications industry. Similarly, for the media industry, the resolution upgrade brought by 4K/8K UHD also corresponds to a complete set of infrastructure and solutions. Before investing in 4K/8K UHD infrastructure, the media industry must first have a technology-penetrating vision and future-oriented wisdom.
Chen Guanghui is the CTO of Huawei's government and enterprise media industry
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The key technology behind the UHD trend
Ultra-high-definition display technology represented by 4K is not a new concept, in fact, as early as 2012, Japan manufacturers launched commercial sales of 4K TV products, and the corresponding 4K video production and broadcasting technology solutions have also been applied in a few fields at that time. However, judging from the growth rate of the related industry chain, after the commercialization of 4K TV, the market did not usher in the expected popularization of 4K and ultra-high definition.
The reason for this is not difficult to understand: the cost of using traditional technology systems and production and broadcasting methods to produce 4K content is too high and does not conform to business logic. The lack of content will in turn affect the popularity of 4K display devices. However, with the introduction of a new generation of ICT technology into the media industry, not only the traditional content production and broadcasting process has undergone major changes, but also the various problems corresponding to 4K/8K ultra-high definition have also ushered in a new turn.
The core challenges of 4K/8K UHD content production and broadcasting are how to capture, process, schedule, and distribute ultra-high bitrate video signals, as well as the storage and computing power challenges brought about by the rapid increase in material capacity. At the end of the day, it's a next-generation solution that ensures that customers' AV data can be collected, transmitted, processed, stored, and distributed...... And that's exactly what Huawei has been helping customers do for decades, and that's what Huawei is good at. Specifically, Huawei's approach is to use an IP-based network to solve the problems encountered in signal transmission, scheduling, and processing in the production and broadcasting process, and then build resource pools through matching computing and storage systems, and use the cloud platform to manage the infrastructure and provide various capabilities and services upwards to support massive business applications at the upper layer.
Build the foundation with a universal foundation
Create experiences with professionalism
ICT technology, represented by IP networks, is not only the key for the media industry to cope with the current 4K/8K ultra-high-definition trend, but also the key to opening the door to the future.
Based on the IP network, it connects physical resources such as computing and storage to build a complete set of cloud-based business architecture. On the TV station side, it can realize 4K/8K ultra-high-definition production and broadcasting at the same time, break the situation of business fragmentation, and realize the transformation of integrated media. The combination of IP network + cloud-based service architecture also performs well in terms of flexibility, scalability, and evolution, which can not only avoid potential sustainability risks, but also help users gain more freedom of choice when responding to future changes.
At the practical solution level, Huawei can provide media customers with a variety of solutions, such as IP-based production and broadcasting, ultra-high-definition storage, media cloud, and artificial intelligence, so that customers can get more entry points when solving business pain points and coping with 4K/8K UHD business development. In addition to HUAWEI CLOUD, data communications, traditional computing power, intelligent computing power, storage, and transmission, Huawei also has a wide range of basic software and technologies, such as databases, server operating systems, terminal operating systems, and codecs, to provide media customers with more comprehensive solutions and services.
01. 4K/8K ultra-high definition: the whole link makes efforts to open up pain points and blocking points
In the field of ultra-high definition, based on its understanding of the development trend of the 4K/8K ultra-high definition industry and new media, as well as an in-depth analysis of the industry's pain points, Huawei believes that the IP-based transformation of the production and broadcasting field is a key issue. As a result, Huawei has also worked with industry customers, mainstream media equipment manufacturers, and ISVs to create an IP-based solution covering the entire process of UHD production and broadcasting, and jointly build a next-generation UHD production and broadcasting system.
Under the leadership of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, and CCTV, Huawei is deeply involved in the formulation of IP-based standards for ultra-high-definition production and broadcasting, as well as industry development. Relying on the State Key Laboratory of Ultra-HD Video and Audio Production and Broadcasting, approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology, CCTV has carried out a series of research and practices on 4K/8K ultra-high-definition IP-based production and broadcasting with Huawei and industry partners, helping many customers build IP-based production and broadcasting systems, with remote/ultra-remote production and broadcasting capabilities, and uncompressed signal production and broadcasting through the SDN architecture, and finally realizing uncompressed signal scheduling for more than 2,000 channels of 4K content.
02. Media convergence: cloud-first, extensive empowerment
In terms of media convergence, Huawei's focus is on building a "digital and intelligent cloud foundation" for media convergence needs. As a result, media organizations can solve the problem of ICT infrastructure in the production system, where there are many "chimneys" and information silos that cannot be broken. Traditional hardware platforms cannot support a series of deep-seated problems such as the production and deployment of converged media services.
The advantages of the integrated digital and intelligent cloud base are mainly reflected in three levels:
First of all, the digital intelligence platform can promote the intelligent collaboration between the application software and the underlying hardware platform to meet the requirements of media convergence production: it is mainly manifested in the construction of the "platform as a service" concept of the media industry, the precipitation of industry common capabilities, and the meeting of media convergence production requirements; Through the unified ultra-high-definition storage pool, it provides more powerful file storage capabilities and realizes rapid migration of materials. Through cloud technology, the "on-the-go editing" of news video and audio materials and the intelligent production and review of content are realized, which reduces the content leakage in the collection, editing, broadcasting, and management of production and production.
Secondly, the platform system realizes cloud construction, resource sharing, and high utilization: By building a completely independent and innovative cloud base solution for the convergence media platform, it provides a unified computing, storage, and network platform to realize the unified construction and operation of resources, avoid waste caused by duplicate construction, and solve the problems of difficult resource sharing and low utilization rate.
By deploying Huawei's solution, industry users can not only achieve full-dimensional upgrades in terms of hardware resource utilization, network bandwidth, and service efficiency, but also achieve up to 75% lower cable costs and lower TCO.
Thirdly, through the application of artificial intelligence in content production and content moderation, the production efficiency can be improved: unlike traditional media production, the material sources used by convergent media are complex, and in addition to professionally produced content, there are also a large number of user-generated content; In addition, the production of new media has high requirements for timeliness, and the traditional manual content review greatly restricts the production efficiency of the convergence media business. Relying on artificial intelligence to assist production (such as intelligent media assets, intelligent stripping, intelligent transcription, intelligent subtitles, etc.) and intelligent auditing (pornography, violence, terrorism, etc.) can greatly improve production efficiency.
At the infrastructure and platform layers, Huawei's large number of partners in the media field can provide customers with a variety of smart service applications to meet their specific business needs, such as planning and command, converged production, converged publishing, and shared collaboration, thus forming a complete business-oriented solution.
Looking at AI for the future:
Establish a new platform and seek new development together
Having lived through the Olympics and earlier European Championships, AIGC content has proven its worth on a bigger stage. However, from the perspective of application scope, AIGC is still only an efficiency improvement tool, not an enabling tool that can change the business format. Therefore, for AIGC, the media industry must not only quickly embrace the trend, but also find the right way to implement it.
In other words, embracing AI in a shorter, faster and faster way is the choice that is suitable for most media clients. Huawei/HUAWEI CLOUD's full-stack AI capabilities are a shortcut for media customers to obtain AI capabilities.
Infrastructure Layer:
Through the integrated and systematic design of computing and storage networks, a high-performance, high-stability, and high-bandwidth computing base system is built, enabling the entire data center to be like a single computer, greatly reducing O&M and operation costs.
Computing power scheduling platform:
It can provide customers with an evolvable, open, and affordable computing power scheduling platform, realize unified management and time-sharing reuse of training and inference resources, and pool training and pushing resources to make full use of resources and avoid waste. Achieve stable computing power guarantee, cross-domain diagnosis, and breakpoint retraining; It continues to support various open-source and closed-source models, vision/language/multi-modal multi-capability models, and supports the continuous evolution of "100 modes and 1000 states" for the development of future-oriented models.
Corpus Management Platform:
In the AIGC field, Huawei's ModelArts Studio corpus governance platform provides users with governance tasks such as corpus acquisition, data processing, data annotation, and data publishing, and manages lifecycle data, and provides visual management capabilities for global assets such as data lineage and data watermarking
AI Applications:
Huawei is able to provide a variety of digital and AIGC services to media customers. Customers can embed these services into their existing business systems and quickly upgrade their AI business capabilities.
While providing customers with full-stack AI service capabilities, Huawei also has a deeper understanding of the practical application of AI technology in the media field. Huawei believes that customers should do two things when promoting AI into their actual business:
First, pay attention to supervision and quality management of corpus and material databases. At present, there is no basic large model for the media industry in the industry, and the products that can be applied are all products that are fine-tuned based on the general large model. In this situation that cannot be changed in the short term, the industry should pay more attention to supervision and the construction and management of the quality of corpus and material databases, so as to make the content produced by AIGC safer and more in line with the needs of the industry.
Second, make good use of industry platforms to reduce costs and risks. AIGC and other AI applications still have high thresholds, difficult technology, and limited applications, so media organizations should make good use of industry AI platforms and industry ecosystems, and leave professional things to professional people to do, so as to reduce risks and costs.
Empower the media industry with solutions to achieve new productivity
Use advanced technology to empower the industry and integrate into the industry ecology through professional partners; This is not only Huawei's way to help the media industry cope with current changes and trends, but also the foundation for Huawei to take root in the media industry and contribute long-term value to customers and partners. Huawei's huge investment and long-term approach in root technologies and product solutions have injected a steady stream of impetus into this cooperation model.
4K/8K Ultra High Definition, Artificial Intelligence AIGC, Convergence Media Transformation, New Quality Productivity ...... Behind a series of trends and nouns is the gradually clear outline of the digital intelligence era, and it is also the deepening of the idea of "using digital technology to solve the pain points of the industry and promote the high-quality development of the industry".
Therefore, as an ICT company that has been with the media industry for a long time, Huawei will continue to overcome obstacles and strive to move forward, contribute more and better solutions to the industry, and turn the value of its technology into business value for customers and partners.
Author of this article:
Chen Guanghui, CTO of Huawei China's government and enterprise media industry