Following the announcement in June this year that seven cities will become Vodafone 5G trial areas in Autumn 2018, PSP were privileged enough to support brand experience agency, Freeman XP, with the ground-breaking Vodafone 5G launch event.
With the world’s media in attendance, the UK’s first ever live 5G stream featured England and Manchester City Women’s Football Captain, Steph Houghton MBE, calling in from Vodafone’s Manchester office and appearing as a live 3D hologram on stage in front of a 200pax audience, at the telecoms giant’s UK headquarters in Newbury.
The hologram of Steph communicated with 11 year old football fan, Iris, live on stage, giving her footballing tips and advice for her future in the sport.
Designed and produced by Freeman XP, PSP were asked to deliver video and sound technology for the live event. With a 4 day build in preparation for the show, we provided a 14m projection screen, angled in to 3 parts. The central 7m screen was a kabuki reveal, where the Musion hologram of Steph was set up behind.
All video and presentation content was designed in widescreen format and came from a media server controlled by our Barco e2, with three Panasonic 21K laser projectors providing the display. Audio was a high spec d&b system controlled from our Yamaha QL5 desk. PSP also managed the 2-way 5G link between Manchester and Newbury.
This event established a significant milestone in UK communications, and demonstrated the exciting and diverse possibilities that the new 5G technology can bring to not just the world of sport and telecomms, but also industries such as healthcare, automotive and gaming.
“This was a ground breaking project to be involved with and the first time a live hologram call has been done in the UK using 5G. Planning and testing was key to ensure we could deliver everything seamlessly, with no latency or packet loss between both sites.
The Panasonic projectors gave an exceptional image quality and Steph really looked as though she was with us in the room! Working with Hololens to do a live virtual meeting was exciting as well, it really shows where 5G can take us.”
David Woodcock, Director – PSP
