LiveU has announced the conclusion of FIDAL’s ‘Field Trials Beyond 5G’ project.
Aiming to demonstrate advances in multi-link, multi-slice bonding for broadcast-grade video transmission, the trials were conducted at the University of Patras (UoP) B5G testbed in Greece as part of the European FIDAL/B5VideoNet (B5GVN) project.
Using its multi-camera LU800 PRO units and Xtend connectivity solution with beyond 5G (B5G) capabilities, LiveU focused on the following remote production use cases:
- Cloud remote production – leveraging slicing configurations to guarantee bandwidth and latency for cloud-based broadcast workflows.
- Edge-based production – integrating mobile edge computing within an operator infrastructure (like a private cloud).
- On-site remote production with cloud-based solutions – testing uplink/downlink slicing configurations for full production workflows using LiveU’s Mobile Receiver, Xtend and LU-Link together with the LiveU Ingest automatic recording and story metadata tagging solution.
Each trial explored the benefits of multi-link, multi-slice bonding, which enables guaranteed specific SIMs bandwidth, latency or error-rate parameters acrosss 5G infrastructure. Various slice and multi-slice configurations of Guaranteed Bit Rate (GBR) and Non-Guaranteed Bit Rate (NGBR) were tested.
In real-world use, the technology aims to match service levels with production requirements, budgets and resources, providing the ability for higher bandwidth GBR slices to be reserved where necessary while less critical traffic could be carried via more economical slices. In multi-camera sports production, for example, the ability to scale bandwidth to meet demand as needed is a valuable feature.
Additionally, Network Exposure APIs for network resource allocation was trialled, providing a foundation for real-time video contribution service ordering. This enables LiveU to dynamically request slices according to timing and location, further providing as-needed cellular service and resource usage.
Private 5G network (NPN) enabled both uplink and downlink remote on-site production while a spectrum carving demonstration showcased the creation of private sub-networks for guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) with B5G technology relying on Software Defined Radio (SDR) in the U0P infrastructure.
Baruch Artman, LiveU’s AVP, head of 5G projects and ESG, commented, “We ran dozens of indoor and outdoor tests over nine days at the UoP B5G testbed, together with their team. The trials included various slice types across multiple minimum and maximum guaranteed bandwidth levels and 5QIs (5G QoS Identifiers), under different end-to-end service latencies. They successfully demonstrated how LiveU’s multi-link multi-slice 5G bonding technology offers benefits for remote production in terms of reliability, flexibility and cost management – for both customers and operators.
“Other key insights included the ability to order services via standardised network exposure APIs, which is promising for media remote production with applications like our own, enabling network resources and services to be ordered for a specific time frame or even on demand. These are important trailblazing use cases for media production, also for future 6G.”
