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[AG-TECH] LSU Uncompressed High-Definition Course

Ladan -

A link to the course:
http://www.cct.lsu.edu/csc7600/

It does not include much of the information that is probably important to this community, but following is a general summary. Hopefully there will be more time to talk about it at the retreat:

The High Performance Computing class is the first of its kind to be broadcast over uncompressed High-Definition video to a number of universities. At the moment we actually have students receiving credit in the course from the Masaryk University in the Czech republic, the University of Arkansas, Louisiana Tech University, Louisiana State University (from two Satellite locations), and MCNC. We are both receiving and sending the HD stream over optical networks over the NLR.

The AG component of the High Performance Computing class is actually a secondary choice for institutions that have not yet gotten their equipment for the HD component of the class installed. Thomas is teaching the course this semester as a beta test and then in the Spring of '08 we are hoping to teach the course again using the same uncompressed HD as well as compressed HD over AG. Secondly, we are also recording all of the lectures and making them available to students to be accessed whenever they'd like as well as providing supercomputing resources for them to access to actually test the knowledge that they are learning.


Although this is merely a general summary, I hope it does give a bit more information. If any university is interested in participating in the course in the Spring of 2008, we are currently fielding participants.

-Daniel



Ladan Gharai wrote: 
Hi Daniel:

Yes I have heard of this work at LSU from John and via the CESNET folks (Petr Holub, et al). Is there a website or any other reference to it? My understanding is that a class is being taught between 3 different locations?

Yes, the Centaurus cards are pricey! but a new CentaurusII card is available now at a lower cost (almost half). This card is compatible with the SDK we have been using and comes in either PCIe and PCIX.

Ladan

On Mar 9, 2007, at 1:28 PM, Daniel Eiland wrote:

Hi,

John already knows of this, but just to mention it. We are currently using the Centaurus card to send and receive HD uncompressed video over Ultragrid. They work well but are nice and pricey.

-Daniel.

Ladan Gharai wrote:

Hi John,

On Mar 9, 2007, at 10:07 AM, John I Quebedeaux Jr wrote:


Well, that camera does specify the type of output that Ultragrid works with on that HD-SDI connection (SMPTE-292M output)... i suspect then the details get down to the hardware on the computer side and networking, etc. It has other outputs, but not IEE1394 (firewire) which is where most HD cameras do onboard mpeg2 encoding/lag that Brian spoke of. I'm... guessing? that HD-SDI is uncompressed.


correct, HD-SDI is the uncompressed HDTV format. And there are a number of HDTV capture cards on the market with HD-SDI input/output. The Centaurus card from www.dvs.de is the capture card the UltraGrid system currently supports.

HDTV cameras with IEEE1394 output, provide an MPEG2 compressed HDTV stream.

HDMI capture card/cameras becoming available is very interesting and I'd be very interested to see how they compare in performance with HD-SDI systems.



My concerns in meetings get back to having an "environment" of human presence @ multiple sites that can interface naturally - which includes video sources from the front and back of the room (what I call "environmental feedback") - typically called the "presenter camera" in the back of an AG room. I can possibly see having an HD camera in the front and back of the room to do this... then maybe another for... i've always felt you can't have enough cameras!

-John Q.

--John I. Quebedeaux, Jr.; Louisiana State University
Computer Manager LBRN; 131 Life Sciences Bldg.
e-mail: johnq@xxxxxxx; web: http://lbrn.lsu.edu
phone: 225-578-0062 / fax: 225-578-2597


On Mar 8, 2007, at 4:11 PM, Colin Perkins wrote:


We've done some work with uncompressed HD conferencing which might be relevant: http://ultragrid.east.isi.edu/
Colin

On 8 Mar 2007, at 21:14, Brian Corrie wrote:

Hi John,

Interesting... Does anyone know anything about SDI HD capture cards. We are looking at HD as well (but no direct experience yet) and the trick seems to be to get video off of the camera avoiding the onboard encoding of the video, which often adds significant latency (which is not good for AG of course). Does anyone know if the SDI out of this camera either has onboard hardware encoding (so low latency) and/or whether the SDI out is uncompressed video (I don't know anything about SDI other than that it is a broadcast oriented standard). Since this is a video conferencing camera one would assume the SDI is raw video (it looks like it base on my reading). So once one gets it out of the camera how does one get it to the computer... There must be an HD SDI capture card available.

We are looking at the Sony HDR-HC7 prosumer HD camcorder as a possibility. They aren't available yet, but any day now... They have HDMI out, which is uncompressed video. There is a HDMI capture card that can handle raw uncompressed HD video at 1080i available from Black Magic that looks promising... The camera is around $1500 and the card is $250.

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/

We are going to be purchasing this pair as soon as the camera is available, so I will let everyone know how this works out. If it does work its a pretty inexpensive HD solution!

Cheers,

Brian


John I Quebedeaux Jr wrote:

Someone asked me about this camera for HD use on the AG: http://www.picturephone.com/products/sony_evi_hd1.htm
Anyone have any experience with it? I'm wondering if it was used, how to best "capture" it into a system for use on the AG... interest in using HD is high here. I'm more concerned about logistical issues with high resolution images on displays that don't have that much "resolution" space - particularly if several sites are involved.
-John Q.
--John I. Quebedeaux, Jr.; Louisiana State University
Computer Manager LBRN; 131 Life Sciences Bldg.
e-mail: johnq@xxxxxxx; web: http://lbrn.lsu.edu
phone: 225-578-0062 / fax: 225-578-2597






--Colin Perkins
http://csperkins.org/








--
Best Regards -

Daniel L. Eiland

Audio/Video Support

The Center for Computation and Technology

Louisiana State University

deilands@xxxxxxxxxxx

IM: cctdeilands



--

Best Regards -

Daniel L. Eiland

Audio/Video Support

The Center for Computation and Technology

Louisiana State University

deilands@xxxxxxxxxxx

IM: cctdeilands