ResearchChannel Pioneers Live High Quality Internet-to-Cable Television Programming

Seattle, Washington – October 11, 1999 – ResearchChannel, a consortium of leading research institutions testing innovative methods of distributing high quality video about research activities, will offer cable audiences in Seattle an opportunity to view the first ever live Internet-delivered cable programming. Five hours of live programming originating at the Internet2 Member Meeting held October 11 and 12 in Seattle, will be captured digitally for live transmission over the Internet and delivered at broadcast quality to commercial cable viewers. This project aims to test the bandwidth capacity of Internet2 networks with the goal of introducing a high quality Internet-to-television video delivery alternative.

In support of this ResearchChannel experiment, University of Washington (UW) video and Internet engineers use Sony Betacam equipment to initially capture the speeches at Seattle's Sheraton Hotel. The live video stream is digitized and encoded at up to 10 Mbps MPEG-2 quality. It is then packetized for Internet Protocol (IP) transmission from the Sheraton across the region¹s Internet2 network, the Pacific/Northwest Gigapop and the UW campus network, to UW¹s cable channel, uw2.tv.

From the Sheraton to the Pacific/Northwest Gigapop, the IP transmission traverses parallel links - a Gigabit Ethernet connection and a separate OC-3c SONET circuit provided by US West. As the live transmission is received at uw2.tv¹s master control, the packetized data is decoded and retransmitted as broadcast quality video to AT&T Cable Services for delivery on uw2.tv to commercial cable viewers in the greater Seattle area.

This digital high speed Internet-to-cable television delivery experiment will provide cable viewers with a broadcast quality picture, opening up a new realm of possibilities for video delivery using high-bandwidth IP networking.

"This first-ever Internet2-to-cable television experiment, as well as last month¹s first-ever high definition television over Internet2 experiment, are substantial contributions to the development of new video distribution technologies," said ResearchChannel Director Amy Philipson. "With each groundbreaking experiment we bring more knowledge to the table, ultimately contributing to faster delivery of high quality video - critical to the accurate transfer of research information - and important to future consumer choices."

To view the live Internet2-to-cable television programming online, select your viewing speed below.

“Tele-immersion” - Jaron Lanier, Chief Scientist, Advanced Networking & Services
(Originally broadcast on Monday, October 11, 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm)
 

“From Supercomputing to the Grid” - Larry Smarr, Director, National Computational Science Alliance
(Originally broadcast on Monday, October 11, 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm)
 

“ITR and Its Implications for Internet2: An Information Technology Initiative for the Twenty-first Century” - Ruzena Bajcsy, Assistant Director, Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, National Science Foundation
(Originally broadcast on Tuesday October 12, 9:00 am -10:00 am)
 

Low and high speed live Internet webcasts are also available at: www.internet2.edu/html/fall99netcast.html