On April 22, 2026, the 57th World Earth Day, Southern Media Group brought viewers into a coral science expedition in the waters around Sanmen Island, part of Zhuhai's Wanshan Archipelago. DIVEVOLK supported the broadcast with SeaLink, helping route the underwater smartphone video feed into a professional broadcast workflow so the expedition could be seen as it happened.
The livestream, titled A Garden Beneath the Blue: Greater Bay Area Coral Expedition Revealed, followed Professor Liu Lan and her team from the School of Marine Sciences at Sun Yat-sen University as they carried out an annual coral survey in waters associated with the Miaowan Coral Municipal Nature Reserve. A Southern Media Group report described the broadcast as a public window into the underwater "garden" of the Greater Bay Area, with the team boarding the Wanshan-hao research command vessel and documenting coral and reef ecology in real time.
For DIVEVOLK, the event was important for a simple reason: underwater science is usually seen after the fact. Footage is recovered after a dive, edited, explained, and then published. This broadcast showed a different model. The fieldwork itself became visible while it was happening, giving viewers a chance to see how researchers enter a site, lay a survey transect, observe coral health, and interpret the marine environment in context.
Underwater Fieldwork, Seen in Real Time
During the expedition, the research team laid a 50-meter survey transect on the seafloor near Sanmen Island. The transect supported observations of coral cover, coral health, disease conditions, and surrounding biodiversity. Instead of waiting for post-dive highlights, viewers could follow the workflow as the underwater scene unfolded.
That shift matters for public science communication. A coral survey can sound abstract from the surface: coverage percentage, disease monitoring, biodiversity baseline, long-term tracking. Live underwater video makes those ideas more concrete. The audience can see the survey line, the coral colonies, the divers' movements, and the habitat being discussed. It turns marine science from a finished report into a shared observation process.
Southern Media Group's surface team and the underwater crew were able to build the broadcast around the same live visual timeline. That made it possible to connect host commentary, expert explanation, and viewer interaction with the actual underwater footage rather than a delayed clip package.
How SeaLink Fit into the Broadcast Workflow
DIVEVOLK SeaLink is a self-developed underwater real-time video transmission device. Water blocks conventional wireless signals, so a smartphone that works normally on land usually loses stable connectivity once it is submerged. SeaLink solves that practical problem by connecting the underwater smartphone to a surface receiver through a WiFi-based contact transmission workflow.
In this broadcast, SeaLink did not replace Southern Media Group's professional production system. Its role was more specific: it bridged the gap between the underwater phone camera and the surface broadcast chain. A smartphone was placed inside a SeaTouch 4 Max underwater housing, SeaLink transmitted the phone's video feed to the surface, and the feed was then routed into Southern Media Group's professional switching and production equipment.
This distinction is important. SeaLink currently supports underwater livestream signal transmission to 30 meters, while the SeaTouch housing carrying the phone is rated to 60 meters. For live work, teams should plan around the 30-meter transmission range; for recording or photography beyond that, the housing's waterproof rating is the separate specification.
The result is a compact production path for real-time underwater storytelling. Instead of relying only on specialized underwater broadcast cameras, a team can start with a familiar smartphone interface, protect it inside a full-touchscreen housing, and use SeaLink to bring that live view back to the surface.
The Science Story: A Coral Garden Fed by the Pearl River
The most memorable science angle from the broadcast was counterintuitive. Zhuhai's coastal waters near the Pearl River Estuary can look yellow-green and turbid from the surface. For many viewers, "clear water" may seem like the obvious condition for corals. The Wanshan Archipelago tells a more specific local story.
Professor Liu Lan explained during the broadcast that Pearl River water brings abundant nutrients and organic matter. While this environment is not ideal for many light-dependent photosynthetic corals, it can support heterotrophic corals that feed on plankton and suspended organic particles. In relatively shallow water, divers can encounter coral forms that are more often associated with deeper tropical sites.
That helps explain why the region's soft corals and gorgonians can appear so vivid and abundant. The turbidity that makes the estuary look unremarkable at the surface is part of the food pathway that sustains these communities. For viewers watching from above water, the livestream made that relationship easier to understand: the "muddy" estuary is not simply a degraded view, but a complex coastal ecosystem with its own coral logic.
Sun Yat-sen University has also reported recent coral research from Liu Lan's team in the Greater Bay Area, including work on newly identified coral species in Zhuhai and Hong Kong waters. That broader research context gives the livestream additional meaning: public broadcasts like this can help local audiences see why baseline surveys, species documentation, and long-term monitoring matter.
Why Real-Time Underwater Video Matters for Conservation
Marine conservation is moving toward more transparent and participatory communication. A polished documentary can inspire people, but a live fieldwork feed does something different. It lets the public see the uncertainty, method, and pace of science. It shows that monitoring is not a slogan; it is a repeated process of observing, measuring, comparing, and returning to the same habitats over time.
For marine research teams, SeaLink-supported workflows can help with coral monitoring, species identification collaboration, transect documentation, and remote expert consultation. For marine protected areas and conservation organizations, they can support coral spawning broadcasts, artificial reef restoration updates, seagrass monitoring, and public open-day programs.
The same real-time layer can also serve education. Dive centers, schools, aquariums, and science communicators can use underwater video feeds for course demonstrations, safety briefings, youth ocean education, and immersive online classrooms. A pool session, aquarium dive, reef survey, or citizen-science activity becomes easier to explain when people on the surface can see what the underwater team sees.
A Local Ocean Story with a Wider Technology Lesson
The Southern Media Group broadcast was rooted in a very local ecosystem: Sanmen Island, the Wanshan Archipelago, the Pearl River Estuary, and the coral communities of the Greater Bay Area. But the technology lesson is wider. When underwater video can move into a live production workflow, marine science does not have to remain behind the surface barrier.
DIVEVOLK's smartphone-based ecosystem is built around that idea. The SeaTouch 4 Max system keeps the phone usable underwater with full touchscreen control. SeaLink adds the connection layer for real-time video workflows. Accessories such as underwater lights and lenses help teams adapt the setup for documentation, education, and close-range reef imaging.
"SeaLink was designed so underwater imagery would no longer remain only on a diver's memory card, but could connect more people to the scene in real time," DIVEVOLK Marketing & Communications said. "This broadcast showed a clear direction: once underwater smartphone video can reliably enter a professional production workflow, new forms of collaboration become possible among marine science, protected-area monitoring, public education, and media storytelling."
For teams planning similar projects, the starting point should always be the dive plan, safety team, and site conditions. From there, the live video workflow can be built around the actual communication need: public science livestream, surface monitoring, remote expert review, education program, or event coverage. DIVEVOLK's technical support resources and contact page are the right next steps for organizations exploring underwater livestreaming workflows.
