When Distance Doesn't Matter: CESNET connects musicians in real time with low-latency MVTP and UltraGrid technologies

CESNET representatives presented their MVTP and Ultragrid technologies for audiovisual transmissions at the Network Performing Arts Production Workshop (NPAPW) in Vilnius. At the Lithuanian Music and Theatre Conservatoire (LMTA) they also demonstrated their use in practice by connecting musicians playing hundreds of kilometres apart.

Jiri Melnikov presented innovations in low latency hardware technology, the Modular Video Transmission Platform (MVTP) based on the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) circuit. Miloš Liška demonstrated that using UltraGrid it is possible to transmit high quality video and audio in mobile networks, but without low latency, and showed why mobile networks (including 5G networks) are generally not suitable for low latency video and audio transmissions.

Using MVTP technology, we have connected artists hundreds of kilometres away

The Global Jazz Café performance featured a joint performance by pianist Jan Pudlák at HAMU in Prague and trumpeter David Spencer in Vilnius. In the second performance on the next day of the workshop, we connected three music academies simultaneously. Pianist Lukáš Klánský sat at HAMU in Prague, cellist Tomáš Jamník was at JAMU in Brno and violinist Jakub Pronskus at LMTA in Vilnius. Together they played the Piano Trio in G minor, Opus 15, by Bedřich Smetana.

Both performances were realized with MVTP technology, which enables multipoint audiovisual connection with a delay of several milliseconds. This corresponds to acoustic sound propagation over a distance of units of meters. This allows musicians in different cities to perform together as if they were on the same stage, while maintaining the quality of the musical experience.

Not just sound, but also picture

As part of the Trascending Realities in Networked Art Performances, we used the UltraGrid software developed by CESNET to help connect the Lithuanian Conservatory of Music and Theatre (LMTA) in Vilnius and the Trans Realities Lab (TRL) at the Design Academy Eindhoven. The movements of the dancer in Eindhoven were captured in real time and the dancer moved on the stage of the virtual theatre. Low latency image transmission using UltraGrid between Vilnius and Eindhoven allowed the audience to watch the dancer synchronously in the virtual theatre environment and physically in the Eindhoven lab.

Want to know more about the technologies used? Visit mvtp.cesnet.cz and www.ultragrid.cz.

For the record

What does low-latency transmission mean? Audio and video are transmitted with minimal delay (called latency), so that the viewer or audience sees and hears events in near real time. Above all, in speed-sensitive areas such as the arts community, it enables collaboration across cities, countries and continents without people having to be together in one place.