The recovery of sunken relics, revealed with TVU

5G solutions TVU have allowed spectators from all over the world to experience live the excavation and recovery of relics from an ancient ship sunk at the bottom of the Yangtze River.

Shanghai Media Group (SMG) broadcast live the entire excavation of one of the largest ancient wooden sailboats in the country from the night of November 20 to the morning of the 21st. Submerged for more than 150 years on the seabed of the Yangtze River, this particular archaeological excavation, broadcast with solutions from TVU, hid a treasure of more than 600 relics. The live images were broadcast on Dragon TV de Shanghai, Scotland STV o Kankan News de China, among other televisions and platforms.

Due to the restrictions imposed on underwater archaeological salvage and the conditions of the ship on board, the broadcast faced numerous challenges: absence of communication or network signals in the location, difficulty to capture key images underwater, uncertainty about the time when the ship would be completely excavated and restrictions in the number of members of the production team. To address all of these challenges, SMG developed a solution that included a temporary container-type studio with microwave transmission equipment inside. The signals from all cameras were received in the container studio, from where they were transmitted to a mobile unit located on the nearest embankment.

To ensure stable signal return from the mobile unit, SMG decided to use the point-to-point encoder TVU G-Link and multi-network aggregation router TVU Router, which provided real-time transmission of the main and standby signals from the van to the SMG studio in Shanghai for final production and broadcast, where the signal was received by a server TVU Transceiver with a latency of less than one second. TVU Router also provided High bandwidth network access for mobile unit, adding 5G and 4G networks from multiple operators and employing its patented IS+ technology to ensure optimal bandwidth.

Paul Shen, CEO of TVU Networks, states that the company is “proud” to have participated “in this incredible moment in Chinese underwater archaeology.” “Through the strength of our IS+ multi-network aggregation technology, SMG was able to realize multi-network bandwidth from the banks of the Yangtze River and broadcast this remote event live to viewers across the country,” he added.