STAR TECH

Verizon, Capitol Music Group and Motown Records have the need for speed. The trio have partnered to form the Emerging Tech and Emerging Artist program, which will pair three CMG and Motown recording artists with advanced content-production technologies.

Verizon’s 5G Lab in Los Angeles will serve as the production facility for the series, giving artists access to a 5G-powered virtual production stage, a volumetric-capture studio (we had to look that up), game-engine technology (that, too) and a suite of Extended Reality (XR) production tools (kinda know what that is).

The first event in the series launches Friday (5/14) and features an immersive VR-concert experience with Motown’s TheHxliday, who will perform his new EP, The Most Beautiful Disaster. The performance will be available in 180-degree live streams on TheHxliday’s YouTube and Facebook pages, as well as on Oculus Venues and Verizon’s 5G Labs site.

The performance was recorded in 4K video with 5G. Verizon was able to record and stream TheHxliday’s performance in a visually lossless way, nearly eliminating the side effects of image compression visible to the naked eye.

“Together, we can help usher artists into the post-COVID performance era, using 5G technology to reach fans in new and evolving ways,” said Christian Guirnalda, Director of Verizon’s 5G Labs. “Whether engaging fans with virtual content or using 5G to view a live show from multiple camera angles, we want to make sure artists have access to immersive, game-changing content that just wasn’t possible before 5G.”

Ching Ching Chen, VP of Business Development at CMG, added, “The co-existence of virtual performances can be enormously powerful in broadening access and reaching fans who may otherwise not have the ability or means to attend live events.”

Last week Verizon bought what’s left of AOL. No word if this new effort will work with dial-up.