Vivo showcases 8K UHD video over 5G connectivity at MWC Shanghai

Vivo on Thursday showcased 8K ultra-high-definition (UHD) video streaming over 5G connectivity at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) Shanghai 2021.

During the event, the company leveraged an onsite 5G mm-wave base station to transmit 8K UHD video from a server to a Vivo smartphone, which then wirelessly projected the UHD video to an 8K television. The company, however, didn’t mention the exact smartphone model that it is used in its demonstration.

The company in a press blog said that the Vivo smartphone used to display this technology supports multiple 5G Sub-6GHz and mm-wave frequency bands and uses NSA dual connectivity (EN-DC). This demonstration takes the company a step closer to the commercialisation of the 5G mm-wave.

As far as the event is concerned, the MWC Shanghai 2021 included a 5G mmWave zone that was jointly hosted by the GSMA, the organisation that hosts the event every year, and 39 partners that include Vivo, China Unicom, and Qualcomm. This zone was used to exhibit and test the needs of potential application scenarios of 5G mmWave.

It is worth mentioning that Vivo has been conducting since 2016. In 2016, the company’s 5G team started pre-research on key mmWave technologies. It also participated in the 3GPP R15/R16 mmWave standardisation. In September 2020, the company’s 5G mmWave smartphone reached 2.06 gigabits per second with a distance spanning up to 1.3 km in a field test organised by the IMT2020 (5G) Promotion Group in Beijing’s Huairou district. Then in November last year at the 2020 World 5G Convention, Vivo showcased how 5G mmWave smartphones could be connected with wireless network emulator.

More recently, the company has launched a slew of 5G-enabled smartphones. The list includes the Vivo X60 series smartphones, which includes Vivo X60, X60 Pro and X60 Pro+ smartphones and the Vivo Y72 5G smartphones among others.