CineGrid

Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP), Digital Video Applications Lab (LAViD) and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) have successfully demonstrated the first 4K uncompressed live streaming using the JVC GY-HMQ10 4K compact handheld camcorder and the FOGO player.

Onofre Lopes University Hospital (HUOL), a live cardiac surgery was streamed in uncompressed 4K to the UFRN's Virtual Reality Lab, both located in the city of Natal (RN), Brazil. The HUOL University Hospital and the Virtual Reality lab are 30 Km (~17 miles) away from each other. The uncompressed live streaming used 3.5 Gbps of bandwidth.

RNP - Brazil's National Research and Education Network, enabled the demonstration of this compelling application for collaboration and training in medicine – taking advantage of the deployment of hight speed research networks and innovations in visualization technology.

Photos are available here: http://relaxe.rnp.br/index.php/1-cirurgia-4K-ao-vivo
Television coverage is availalle here: http://www.band.uol.com.br/jornaldaband/videos.asp?id=14305556

Digitally Cleaned Films Can Be Inspected Remotely

San Diego, Prague 16 January 2013. At the CineGrid International Workshop, a prestigious professional meeting held in San Diego (California) in December, researchers from CESNET and the UPP post-production company, supported by a leading developer of innovative image processing systems—The Pixel Farm—demonstrated opportunities for using high-speed computer networks in digitizing and cleaning archived film material.

This material is usually stored in the form of film coils—analogue media aging over time and deteriorating with every playback. Digitizing eliminates further playback, allowing for cleaning of scanned data. The digital cleaning itself, i.e. removal of dirt, material defects or film tape damage, is a semi-automated process managed by an operator. This activity can be carried out locally.

However, digitized results need to be submitted for review and approval by the original work authors, usually the director and cameraman. If the above is no longer possible (the process can involve films shot decades ago), results need to be approved by an expert panel and copyright holders. These are usually very busy people, which makes it difficult to gather them all in one place at the same time.

This is the problem solved by technology presented by Czech specialists at the CineGrid International Workshop, allowing for remote participation of multiple people in the review and approval process. The technology further enables real-time changes through an operator.

The California presentation involved the following: Uncompressed video featuring 4K resolution has been transferred from Prague, where the material subject to cleaning and a part of the team were located, to San Diego. The video has been produced by a workstation equipped with the PFClean cleaning software and an uncompressed HD video conference. The conference was transferred in the opposite direction too: from San Diego to Prague. The uncompressed signal was chosen mainly because of the need for high quality and review interactivity.

A key role in the entire system was played by the MVTP-4K device, developed by CESNET researchers, which is now available on the market under the name 4K Gateway. The device transferred most of the data traffic, reaching up to 9 Gbps. In San Diego the device received both video channels (4K desktop captured by the UltraGRID software and HD video conference) and transferred the video conference back. In Prague the device received and transmitted the HD video conference.

"If we had a similar system available when digitizing and cleaning Miloš Forman's film Ho?í, má panenko, the approval process would have been much more flexible, considerably reducing the overall project duration," says Ivo Marák, technical director of UPP, responsible for technical project management.

4K Gateway development has been carried out with financial support of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic within the POVROS project (TA01010324). For more information, please visit: www.4kgateway.com.

The CESNET Association was founded by Czech universities and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in 1996. It is engaged in research and development in information and communication technologies and builds and develops the CESNET national e-infrastructure for research and education. With its research activities and accomplishments, CESNET represents the Czech Republic in international projects, most notably the pan-European GÉANT network building project and grid projects (EGI.eu), and participates actively in their implementation. Among other things, the association deals with the use of high-speed networks for sharing multimedia data both through synchronous video conferencing and shared applications and asynchronous streaming.

UPP has become the largest and most versatile company active in the area of visual effects and post-production on the European continent since its foundation in 1994. From the start it has been oriented at meeting high quality post-production needs in the film and TV area. UPP is utilizing cutting-edge equipment and technologies, offering a highly-qualified creative team. Leveraging the benefits of being located in the centre of Europe, UPP provides all that is needed for quality content processing in film and TV distribution, advertising and video in modern, spacious and conveniently situated premises. For more information, please visit: www.upp.cz.

June 12, 2012, UCL (Universite catholique de Louvain) (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) joined CineGrid, the international non-profit organization in order to further joint activities using advanced motion picture formats (4K) and high speed networking with KMD, the Keio University Graduate School of Media Design (Hiyoshi, Japan), a founding member of CineGrid.

"I am happy to welcome UCL as the newest member of CineGrid," said Prof. Naohisa Ohta of KMD, a member of the board of directors of CineGrid. "The vision of UCL, under the leadership of Prof. Benoit Macq, which sees the "digital cinema theater as a cornerstone of the cultural landscape of the city", is consistent with the ongoing research and educational activities of the global CineGrid community and a very good match with KMD's ambitions."

"Joining CineGrid is an important step for UCL to engage in joint collaboration with KMD on next generation video formats (4K) running over high speed networks on a global scale", say Benoit Macq, Professor at UCL at the Telecommunication Laboratory and Vice-Rector of the University. "We recognize KMD's pioneering work in this field and look forward to enjoying a productive research partnership with them."

About CineGrid:

CineGrid, founded in 2005, is an international non-profit membersh ;organization with the mission of building an inter-disciplinary community that is focused on the research, development, and demonstration of networked collaborative tools to enable the production, use, preservation and exchange of very-high-quality digital media over photonic networks.

About KMD:

Keio University Graduate School of Media Design is committed to fostering "Media Innovators" and creative global leaders who understand the corecreative skills of design, technology, management, and policy in the field of media design. In collaboration with international partner institutions and research facilities, KMD education will take a practical, hands-on, and global approach through various projects.

About UCL Telecommunication Laboratory: http://www.tele.ucl.ac.be/

Photo Credit follows:

UCL/CineGrid signing ceremony at Hotel Okura, Tokyo, Japan

Prof. Benoit Macq, Vice President of UCL.
Prof. Bruno Delvaux, President of UCL
Prof. Naohisa Ohta, KMD, Keio
Prof. Kunitake Kaneko, DMC, Keio

SIGGRAPH Asia 2012 is calling for submissions now. Grab the opportunity to present your best work at SIGGRAPH Asia in Singapore this November.

Program submissions are due on:

5 June 2012 Art Gallery

3 July 2012 Computer Animation Festival

7 June 2012 Courses

26 June 2012 Emerging Technologies

20 August 2012 Posters

7 June 2012 Symposium on Apps

20 August 2012 Technical Briefs

Review the guidelines for each program carefully and get ready to submit your work today. All deadlines are at 23:59 GMT/UTC.

CineGrid International Workshop 2012 at Calit2/UCSD

Please mark your calendars.

MON 12/10/12 CineGrid International Workshop 2012
TUE 12/11/12 CineGrid International Workshop 2012
WED 12/12/12 CineGrid International Workshop 2012

To REGISTER: http://cinegridworkshop2012.eventbrite.com/

CineGrid International Workshop 2011 (6th annual)

Future Generation Computer Systems has a special issue out.

There are 14 articles selected for inclusion in this publication and Cinegrid members may download free copies for a limited time.

[Download the issue]

Hello!

As I'm sure you know, one of the primary research areas in the CineGrid community is professional media networking. Every year at the Workshop, we have several sessions devoted to ultra-high-definition streaming video, with ever higher bandwidths and more distant sources. However, integrating audio into this equation has proven difficult for many. In fact, one of the comments I often hear among people developing media networking systems is how hard it is to deal with both video and audio in a single stream. For those of you interested in this important topic, I'd like to tell you about an upcoming event.

This November 18-20, 2011 the Audio Engineering Society is holding an international conference on the topic of Audio Networking in San Diego, CA.