Musicians in Tallinn and Prague connected by our technology for a joint performance

Using MVTP technology developed by CESNET based on programmable hardware, musicians were connected in real time between Tallinn and Prague in a joint performance. Cellist Petr Nouzovsky in Prague and pianist Irina Zahharenkova in Tallinn played together César Franck’s Sonata in A major for piano and cello. A new version of MVTP equipment with JPEG XS compression was used for the transmission, with reduced network capacity requirements and an added compression and decompression latency of approximately 3 ms. This, together with the given signal propagation delay in optical networks, allowed the musicians to communicate over a distance of approximately 6 m on a common stage.

As part of the performance called Echtzeitkunstwelt, we helped connect dancers in Vienna and Tallinn using UltraGrid software, which has CESNET also developed. The dance performance itself took place in virtual reality. UltraGrid’s low-latency image transmission between Tallinn and Vienna allowed the audience to watch the dancers synchronously in a virtual reality environment as well as physically on the two remote stages.

The technology for JPEG XS compression transmissions is being developed within the project Equipment for low latency JPEG XS image transmissions (FW01010230) supported by The Technology Agency of the Czech Republic under the TREND programme.