Smart UHD: Shanghai Media Group and Huawei Partner Up to Create New Audiovisual Experiences

In the intelligent world, every screen is a gateway to seemingly endless possibilities. At home and on the move, people want to enjoy clear, lifelike, and thrilling visuals, regardless of screen size. So, whether its 4K streaming, crisp 8K documentaries, or vivid sports broadcasts, more personalized and immersive viewing experiences are now expected as the norm, with ultra-high definition (UHD) transforming how we see the world.

In 2022, China's National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) released Opinions on Further Accelerating the Development of HD and UHD TVs, mandating that, by the end of 2025, all television stations across China at prefecture level and above must achieve full high definition (HD) broadcasting, with a significant increase in the coverage of UHD channels and programs. Supported by such national policies, the UHD industry is growing rapidly as a result. And, as a forerunner in this field, Shanghai Media Group (SMG) is moving forward—fast. Calling on nearly a century of expertise in visual media, SMG created a cutting-edge 4K/8K UHD production and distribution platform back in 2020. The group also introduced Laughter Theater, the first local channel to air in both 4K UHD and HD, which has been welcomed by audiences. Now, to create a UHD ecosystem, SMG is actively working with Huawei to build a digital and intelligent foundation that spans across the entire chain, from ingestion and transmission to storage, production, and distribution. This platform uses advanced technologies like Internet Protocol (IP)-based production and broadcasting, UHD storage, and artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver an excellent UHD visual experience to audiences, create new productivity in media, and set new standards globally through "SMG Practices."

Partnering with Huawei to provide the necessary technical support, SMG's Dragon TV launched its 4K UHD channel on September 28, 2025. This channel features premium SMG content, including popular movies, TV shows, variety programs, and in-depth news reports. Its stable 4K UHD signals cover Shanghai and major parts of the Yangtze River Delta, offering audiences cinema-like picture clarity and immersive audio at home. As such, it plays a vital role in optimizing SMG's process for creating, broadcasting, and consuming UHD content.

Breaking the Mold: IP-based Production and Broadcasting Bring a More Vibrant World to Life

Traditional Serial Digital Interface (SDI)-based production and broadcasting networks have significant delays and poor real-time performance, failing to meet the high demands for speed and efficiency required by UHD content transmission. By adopting Huawei's IP-based production and broadcasting network, SMG has made critical strides in core technologies. For example, one link now supports eight stable 4K UHD channels, boosting efficiency eightfold over older systems. In addition, broadcasting delays drop to mere milliseconds, overcoming the limitations of traditional architectures. Plus, a new IP-based intelligent scheduling system lays a solid foundation for improving news broadcasting efficiency. The system enables intelligent routing and cloud-based aggregation of footage captured by 4K cameras, allowing editing teams to perform real-time video editing directly on mobile devices. And it provides robust technical support for an efficient shoot-upload-broadcast workflow, significantly accelerating the delivery speed of news content. Powered by this system, footage from multiple venues across large-scale events, for example, can be aggregated and edited in real time. This enables news teams to truly race against time, delivering global product launches and event highlights to audiences at lightning-fast speeds.

Unleashing Creativity: UHD Storage Fuels Creativity

While an IP-based production and broadcasting network addresses content transmission inefficiency, SMG's UHD production and broadcasting data lake—powered by Huawei OceanStor Pacific scale-out storage—offers a strong foundation for creativity. This storage system securely handles large amounts of videos, images, and raw materials with extremely high efficiency. Using innovative technologies, it helps production teams process and deliver content much faster, enhancing the variety and volume of SMG's UHD audiovisual resources.

In terms of core performance, the scale-out storage system supports expansion up to EB-level capacity, addressing the high-volume storage needs of UHD content. Its smart tiered storage and advanced editing technologies enable efficient simultaneous access to 4K project files across hundreds of editing terminals. This new system boosts material retrieval speeds tenfold and increases video editing efficiency by 40% compared to legacy systems. The UHD storage system supports high-concurrency access and intelligent content retrieval for program production, significantly shortening the 4K post-production cycle and enabling the rapid release of fresh, trending creative content.

Additionally, the system features intelligent tagging capabilities for second-level retrieval across tens of thousands of hours of archived footage, completely replacing the inefficient search mode of traditional tape libraries. It also supports on-demand integration of AI restoration tools that, coordinated with the storage system, triple the efficiency of legacy content restoration. This empowers timeless classics to shine once again, preserving and sharing the irreplaceable visual memories of past eras.

Future-Ready: AI Is Shaping a Smarter UHD Audiovisual Landscape

Standing at the forefront of the 4K/8K revolution, SMG anchors its strategy in "SMG in AI," collaborating with Huawei to reshape the digital foundation for media with AI. Both parties are actively working on 5G and 8K live streaming, AI-generated content, and virtual streamers. They have enhanced full-chain digital systems for ingestion, transmission, storage, production, and distribution, aiming to create tangible, immersive experiences for audiences through innovation.

On the AI application front, future innovations will continue to expand across multidimensional scenarios. AI-powered multilingual text generation breaks down language barriers, enabling UHD content to reach global audiences with ease. Real-time camera logic adjustment, based on audience demographics and behavioral preferences, helps deliver personalized perspectives for live sports broadcasts. And AI-driven content distribution systems ensure precise audience targeting, bringing Shanghainese talk shows directly to audiences in the Yangtze River Delta and placing intangible cultural heritage documentaries at the top of recommendation lists for culture enthusiasts. Together, these capabilities dramatically enhance the communication efficiency and impact of premium content.

From the 4K mega screen on Shanghai's Bund to smart terminals in ordinary homes, from restoring historical footage to building metaverse studios, SMG and Huawei are working together to delineate a new blueprint for UHD industry development by harnessing the power of innovative technology. "SMG Practices" aim to stand as a beacon for innovation, using advanced information and communications technology (ICT) to eliminate industry barriers and optimize the UHD ecosystem, driving a transformative leap toward truly intelligent media.