Are you amazed by these hardcore technologies in the Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Rabbit?

◎ Science and Technology Daily reporter Ma Aiping

On New Year’s Eve, January 21, CCTV’s “2023 Spring Festival Gala” will accompany Chinese people around the world to sow the seeds of hope for the Year of the Rabbit and welcome a brand new year with spring flowers.

Various programs such as singing and dancing, crosstalk, sketches, opera, martial arts, acrobatics, children's programs, etc., with the interpretation of new technologies such as intelligent accompaniment, VR three-dimensional rendering, 8K ultra-high definition, three-dimensional colorful sound, vertical screen multi-screen, etc., jointly present a Spring Festival Gala that demonstrates the theme of happiness, confidence, forge ahead and strive, and praises "the prosperous new era China, and the ever-changing better life."

This year's Spring Festival Gala has once again made breakthroughs in the application of technological innovation, achieving many "firsts": the first "8K ultra-high-definition + three-dimensional colorful sound" Spring Festival Gala live broadcast; the first use of my country's independently developed 8K ultra-high-definition camera to participate in the filming of the Spring Festival Gala; the first use of three-dimensional colorful sound to produce Spring Festival Gala audio signals, to restore the sound effects of the Spring Festival Gala to the greatest extent and create an immersive effect; VR three-dimensional image drawing technology also made its debut on the Spring Festival Gala stage for the first time, and the audience can appreciate the VR painter's three-dimensional image generation process in real time.

VR 3D image rendering technology debuts on Spring Festival Gala stage

The creative program "When "Divine Beasts" Meet Divine Beasts" uses new technologies such as VR three-dimensional rendering to allow ancient mythical beasts to "step out" of ancient documents and have a wonderful encounter with children in modern life.

VR three-dimensional image drawing technology debuted on the stage of this year's Spring Festival Gala. "VR three-dimensional image drawing technology is developed according to program design. The program needs have promoted the development of this technology. At the same time, this technology also supports the innovation of program interaction and presentation methods. In the children's creative show, VR painters need to hold electronic brushes and wear VR glasses when drawing three-dimensional images." Jiang Wenbo, a member of the editorial meeting of China Central Radio and Television, introduced that VR painters can select colors and brushstrokes through the buttons on the electronic brush, and can use VR glasses to review the three-dimensional image effects in real time. The three-dimensional images drawn by VR painters are processed by the rendering and synthesis server, and superimposed on the TV screen in real time for wonderful presentation. The audience can watch the three-dimensional images of phoenixes, unicorns, etc. drawn by VR painters at the same time.

XR combines virtual and real to create a lifelike virtual stage space

All the martial arts in the world originated from Shaolin, which is as powerful as a swimming dragon and majestic. The martial arts "Performance" is like walking into the century-old painting "Martial Monks Performing Martial Arts". Zhao Wenzhuo and the Shaolin monks have experienced the "four seasons and the passage of time" of the ancient temple together. His movements are smooth and his moves are vigorous and powerful, freezing the wonderful moments of the thousand-year-old temple. The fusion of modern technology and traditional martial arts, Xingyiquan, Liuhequan and other intangible cultural heritage martial arts take the audience back to the thousand-year-old Shaolin.

The song "Birds Returning to the Nests" lights up the thousand-year-old intangible cultural heritage, recreates the auspicious scene of hundreds of birds flying and playing, and brings new vitality to the thousand-year-old string and bamboo music.

In the dance "Dingbu Bridge", a graceful girl dances across the stream. The charm of the Jiangnan water town is coming slowly, making people feel as if they are in the Jiangnan water area.

The torch is passed on forever. Three generations of opera talents gathered together to compose "The Colorful Pear Garden". Among them, one of the oldest existing operas, the intangible cultural heritage Puxian Opera, made its debut on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala stage. The exquisite techniques and steps all showed the unique charm of the ancient opera. Virtual technology built a three-dimensional "big stage" to achieve the collision and integration of traditional culture and modern aesthetics.

This year's Spring Festival Gala uses XR virtual-reality fusion ultra-high-definition production technology to create a lifelike virtual stage space, making time and space travel more free.

"This year's Spring Festival Gala deployed an XR virtual-reality fusion ultra-high-definition production system in the studio. In the singing and dancing programs, the scenes are rendered in real time based on the XR tracking module data and camera lens parameters, and output to the ultra-high-definition large screen of the Spring Festival Gala stage to create a virtual stage space." Jiang Wenbo said.

5G cloud connection enables singing the same song inside and outside the Spring Festival Gala

From the Guangzhou Spring Flower Market to the wild chrysanthemum fields, from balcony bonsai to Yunnan flower fields, from rice flowers to intangible cultural heritage noodle flowers, from the water film flowers on the Chinese space station to the "Mantingfang" composed of a sky full of stars... As the cheerful music sounded, the Malanhua Children's Choir, Beijing Philharmonic Choir and the children from the Guoguo Choir from Zhongba Village, Xide County, Daliangshan, who performed at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, sang "Flowers Bloom in the Flower Home" together, sending sincere and innocent New Year blessings to the audience.

In the song "Hello, Stranger", the Xinjiang cart-pushing uncle Abdujapar Mengde, Chongqing firefighter Long Jie, the mother and son who moved stools for workers to avoid the rain... these "warm strangers" sang with Mao Buyi across the air, and the warmth healed people's hearts. Every glimmer of light has color, and every touch has power.

"This year's Spring Festival Gala invited audiences from all over the country to participate in the 'cloud chorus' performance. Through the CMG Media Cloud and 5G network of the Central Radio and Television Station, the audience's singing scene was transmitted to the Spring Festival Gala studio to sing the same song together. In addition, the CMG Media Cloud rendering module was used, and through three-dimensional virtual production methods, the stage elements of the Spring Festival Gala were deconstructed and reshaped, and the singing scenes of off-site singers were generated into broadcast videos in real time." Jiang Wenbo said.

On New Year's Eve, the Spring Festival Gala accompanied hundreds of millions of viewers to celebrate the New Year happily. The application of a series of hardcore technologies brought the audience a wonderful and shocking audio-visual experience.

"This year's Spring Festival Gala makes extensive use of new technologies such as 4K/8K, AI, and XR, and continues to promote the integration and innovation of 'thought + art + technology', presenting Chinese people around the world with a Spring Festival Gala 'New Year's Eve dinner' that is ideological, artistic, and entertaining, and full of technology." Jiang Wenbo said.

Source: Science and Technology Daily. All pictures in this article are screenshots from the Spring Festival Gala video.