(Con

E-ma

Abstract

Dancing (Taiwan)connecteperformain real tifrom remWorking

Key

syn

ProhttpISS

Dnnecting

Sung-il

ail: hakseng@*Author to w

t:

Queen 201) showcasedd Prague, B

ance. Artistsme. The tea

mote sites peg Group and

ywords: AP

chronization

oceedings ofp://dx.doi.orgSN 2227-302

ancing Qg the Cze

A

Park1*, Bonc1 Korea Adv

Jln L

3

@kaist.ac.krwhom corres

14: Dancingd networkedBarcelona, M and engine

am was succerforming inwas co-prod

PAN e-Cul

n

f the Asia-Pag/10.7125/APA26

Queen 2ech RepAmerica

cheol Goo1, F

vanced Insti291 Daeha

Dae

2 UniveLembah Pant

3 Chungnam99 Daehak

Dae

r, mgtech@kspondence sh

g in Space, d music anMiami and ers located a

cessful in crn real-time. duced by sev

lture, cyber

acific AdvanAN.39.3

2014: Daublic, Sp

a and Ta

Faridah Noor

tute of Scienak-ro, Yuseouejeon, Korea

ersity of Maltai 50603 Ku

m National Un

k-ro, Yuseouejeon, Korea

kaist.ac.kr, fahould be add

performednd dance pe

Nantou wiacross the w

reating a sinThis event w

veral organiz

r performan

nced Network

ancing inpain, the

aiwan)

r Mohd Noor

nce and Techung-gu

a

laya uala Lumpur

niversity ung-gu a

aridahn@umdressed; Tel

at the 38therformance ith High-spe

world performngle screen vwas organiz

zations as a g

nce, virtual

k 2015 v. 39

n Space e United

r2, Dae Youn

hnology

r

m.edu.my, dyl.: +82- 42-3

h APAN mefrom three

eed Networmed simultavirtual stagezed by the global collab

stage, vid

9, p. 40-53.

d States

ng Kim3

ykim@cnu.k50-2991

eeting in Nae continentsrk for the caneously toge with perforAPAN e-Cu

boration.

deo mixing,

40 

of

kr

antou s. It cyber

gether rmers ulture

41  

1. Introduction

Cyber performances are internet based live musical or theatrical events where the performers are split between two or more locations [1-3]. Audio and video from the performers are merged in real time in front of an audience. The collection and merger of the audio and video is typically enabled with specialized applications, such as UpStage [4]. Even with such applications, the collection and mixing of multiple audio and video feeds in real time remains complex.

As part of an ongoing effort to test new cyber performance capabilities, the APAN eCulture Working Group [5] has organized several past cyber performances [6]. In these events, the members of the performance and engineering team are constantly trying to find the best solution to overcome obstacles in performing arts over network. Issues include main-sub relation between stages and/or actors due to network delay such as latency, eye contact with actors, music synchronization between remote sites, communication with audiences.

Our attempt this time was to create a virtual stage using only one screen that will ‘gather’ all performers from remote sites in real-time with synchronized music.

The event occurred on August 12th 2014 began at 17:30 in Nantou, Taiwan. It was 11:30 in (Prague, Czech), 11:30 (Barcelona, Spain), 05:30 (Miami, USA). This cyber performance is known as Dancing Queen 2014: Dancing in Space (dQ14).

2. Methods

2.1. Participating Organizations

The APAN e-Culture Working Group depends on the tremendous support from engineers and artists who converge from all sites at the same time. This refers to network connections, video and audio transmission systems, music, choreography and the stage. This kind of cyber performance needs collaboration with partners and their engineers and artists to produce global-scale performance.

An e-mail group list was considered essential for partners and members to discuss issues on technical and aesthetical aspects. H.323 or Skype were used for the communications either in separate groups or together in a large group.

The list of partners, organizations and participants for this particular cyber performance are presented below in Tables 1-3.

2.2. Network

Connecting sites needs global collaborations. Figure 1 shows how the four participating sites were connected. Taipei to Amsterdam was connected with 10G for TX and 20G for RX through Chicago. Then each site (Nantou, Miami, Barcelona, and Prague) was connected from those

42  

sites. 10G bandwidth was reserved for the 4K uncompressed video transmission between Nantou and Prague. 

Table 1. Partners

Country Code Name Roll/Affiliation

NL Valentino Cavalli Acting Secretary General, TERENA

NL Peter Szegedi Project Development Officer, TERENA

BR Michael Anthony Stanton Network Engineer, RNP

BR Iara Machado Network Engineer, RNP

BR Leandro N. Ciuffo Network Engineer, RNP

BR Ivani Santana Choreographer, UFBA

AU Andrew Howard Co-chair of APAN e-Culture WG

AU Jeffrey Campbel APAN

AU George McLaughlin APAN

Table 2. Participating Organizations

Country Code Organization Full name

TW ASGC Academia Sinica Grids & Clouds

TW NCNU National Chi-nan University

TW ASCC Academia Sinica Computing Centre

TW MOE Ministry of Education

TW NCHC National Center for High-performance Computing

CZ CESNET Czech Research and Educational Network

CZ HAMU Academy of Performing Arts in Prague

ES i2CAT i2CAT Foundation - Audiovisual Unit

ES Kòniclab Kòniclab Association, Arts and New Tech.

US Internet2 The Arts and Humanities

US NWS New World Symphony

KR KAIST Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

KR KISTI Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information

43  

Table 3. Participants: Network Engineers and Organizers

Country Code Name Roll/Affiliation

TW Dr. Kenny Huang The Chair of Network Sub-committee (LOC)

TW Hsin Yen Chen TWGrid

TW Vicky Huang TWGrid

TW Ms. Isabel Song TWGrid

TW Ms. Stella Shen TWGrid

TW Ethern Lin ASCC

TW Y.C. Chang NCNU

TW Yu-Hsiu Chuang TANet

TW Min Chen TWAREN

ES Sergi Fernandez Head of AV dept I2CAT

ES Gerard Castillo Lasheras Network Engineer, I2CAT

ES David Cassany Viladomat Network Engineer, I2CAT

ES Rosa & Alain Choreographer & Programmer, Konic Thtr/Koniclab

US Justin Trieger Technical Director, New World Symphony

CZ Jiri Navratil Network Engineer, 4K Expert, CESNET

CZ Sven Ubik Network Engineer, 4K Expert, CESNET

CZ Jaroslav Hrb Network Engineer, HAMU

CZ Ondrej Urban Sound master, HAMU

KR Buseung Cho Network Engineer, KISTI

KR Min-Ki Noh Network Engineer, KISTI

KR Sung-il PARK Videomaker, KAIST

KR Boncheol Goo Composer, KAIST

MY Faridah Noor Mohd Noor Chair of APAN e-Culture WG, University of Malaya

KR Dae-Young Kim Chair of the APAN Board, CNU

44  

Figure 1. Network Topology

The list of end points and IPs are presented in Table 4. Korean site was used to test video and audio transmission system at the beginning of the test procedure.

Table 4. End Points

Country Code

Organizations End-sites IP addresses Bandwidth

TW ASGCNet/ASNet/TWAREN/TANet

NCNU 140.109.1.10 : route monitoring 10 Gbps

CZ CESNET HAMU 195.113.75.241 (gw)

195.113.75.x (4K Gateway) 10 Gbps

ES i2CAT

Kòniclab Castelldefels Lab

Fabra i Coats

84.88.37.189 (UltraGrid transmitter) 84.88.37.187 (Video receiver and mixing)

84.88.37.179 (Audio rx/tx - JackTrip) 10 Gbps

US Internet2 NWS 67.17.206.128/27 subnet

67.17.206.147(TBC) : host 10 Gbps

KR KAIST Prof. Goo’s Lab 203.253.137.91 203.253.137.92 203.253.137.81

1 Gbps

 

2.3. Video and Audio Transport System

45  

Figure 2 shows the configurations of video and audio transmissions. The video and audio of Prague were transmitted through a 4K Gateway (Figure 3). The HD video of Nantou was sent to back to Prague for the reference. The Czech (CZ) team used a 4K Gateway that was developed by vuMedia. It can send and receive uncompressed 4K videos with very low latency (1.5 ms). It also supports Jpeg 2000 compression [7].

Another solution used for video transmission was Ultragrid which was developed by CESNET and SITOLA. It can send and receive HD videos between different types of platform (Ubuntu Linux, OSX, and Windows). It supports Blackmagic Decklink video cards therefore professional videos connections such as HD-SDI or HDMI can be made available. It is also possible to transmit 4K video through Decklink Quad with tiled videos [8]. The videos from Miami and Barcelona were transmitted by Ultragrid (Figure 4).

 

Figure 2. Audio and video configurations.

 

The imagdancer. F74 (Figuthe imagperforma

The main6)[10]. T

ge of NantoFollowing thre 5). Max6

ges of danceance.

n music startThe audio for

Figu

ou’s dancer hat it was sen6 can manipuers were put

ted at Praguer the stage of

Figure 3. 4

ure 4. Ultrag

was sent tont back to Nulate video t together w

e, then it wenf Nantou wa

4K Gateway

grid video tr

o Barcelona Nantou with and audio s

with the sam

nt to Barceloas transmitted

y Setup

ransmission.

for the mixMax6 whic

signals with me video effe

ona and Miad through 4K

x with the ich was devel

programminects for this

ami through K Gateway w

image of anloped by Cyng [9]. Thers particular c

Jacktrip (Figwith 4K Vid

46 

nother ycling refore cyber

gure deo.

 

 

 

2.4. Vide

One of thbe on ‘at three sep

eo Compositi

he key issuesthe same pl

parate project

Figure

ion

s of this projace.’ To achtors in a way

Figure 5

e 6. Audio tr

ject was ‘spahieve this effy of a photo

5. Video mix

ransmission

ace.’ It meanfect we put amontage (F

xing.

with Jacktri

ns all the imaall the videosFigure 7).

ip.

ages from eas on the sam

ach sites shome screen usi

47 

ould ing

48  

2.5. Music and Dance

The main stage had two parts: Stage 1 and 2. Stage 1 was traditional Taiwanese dance called Seediq Bale while Stage 2 was the trio music from Prague. The cello player from Miami and dancers from Barcelona and Nantou followed the music with synchronization (Figure 8).

Figure 7. Final video composition on the stage.

 

Figure 8. Timeline of music and dance.

49  

 

2.6. Synchronization

There are two routes of music from Prague to Nantou (Figure 9). The first is through the 4K Gateway and the second is through Jacktrip and Ultragrid.

Figure 9. Audio sync path.

In order to synchronize these two routes, we needed a synchronization system that can delay the faster signal (Figure 10). If the system were synchronized, then a ‘clap’ sound from Prague should arrive at Nantou at the same time. Max6 calculated the time difference between the two signals and then it added some delays according to the result.

50  

Figure 10. Synchronization Process

 

3. Results

All videos and audios were transmitted and received with synchronization between the sites. An audience of more than 200 spectators enjoyed the cyber performance at the Nantou venue on August 12th, 2014. Global audience were watched the performance online at and participate live via their mobile smartphones (or other network-connected device) [11].

Figure 11. Final video composition of the stage 2 in Nantou, Taiwan.

 

Figure

Figure

Figure 14. C

12. Trio perf

13. Video m

Curtain call

formance in

mixing in Ba

of the show

Prague, Cze

arcelona, Spa

in Nantou, T

ech.

ain.

Taiwan.

51 

52  

4. Conclusion

Cyber performances are rare events and require cooperation from performers, audio and video technical staff, network engineers, and mixing specialists. This paper describes a successful cyber performance involving a single screen virtual stage ‘gathering’ all the performers from remote sites in real-time with synchronized music. By recording the details of the infrastructure and methods, we hope that others can plan and conduct even better cyber performance events in the future.

This project was produced by the Internet2 Arts & Humanities Group and the APAN e-Culture WG and organized by the KAIST Graduate School of Culture Technology (KR) in collaboration with the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (HAMU) and CESNET association of Prague (CZ), the Konic Thtr and i2CAT Foundation of Barcelona (ES), New World Symphony in Miami (US), Seediq Bale and Academia Sinica Grids & Clouds (ASGC) in Nantou (TW). APAN e-Culture Working group is planning future projects with international collaboration for cultural exchange.

Acknowledgments

Our appreciation goes to all members and partners of the e-Culture Working Group of APAN for giving their full support to this Cyber Performance, in particular the members of Taiwan Team (the host of the 38th APAN Meeting).

References and Notes

1. Landon, B., 1988, Bet on It: Cyber/Video/Punk/Performance. Mississippi Review v.16 (2/3), p. 245-251

2. Jacobs, S., 2007, Virtually Sacred: The Performance of Asynchronous Cyber-Rituals in Online Spaces. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication v. 12(3), p.1103–1121.

3. Papagiannouli, C., 2011, Cyberformance and the Cyberstage. The International Journal of the Arts in Society: Annual Review, v. 6(4), p. 273-282.

4. Jamieson, H.V., 2007, UpStage: A Platform for Creating and Performing Online," IEEE MultiMedia, v. 14(3), p. 8–10.

5. Noor, F.N.M., 2011, Chronicling eCulture WG and Charting Future Activities

Proceedings of the Asia-Pacific Advanced Network v. 31, p. 41-48.

53  

6. Howard, A., Goo B.C., Noor, F.N.M., Kim, D.Y., 2012, DQ12 Dancing Across Oceans: Barcelona (ES)-Salvador (BR)- Daejeon (KR) @Chiang Mai (TH). Proceedings of the Asia-Pacific Advanced Network v. 33, p. 1-14.

7. http://www.4kgateway.com/product-highlights/

8. http://www.ultragrid.cz/en

9. http://cycling74.com/

10. https://ccrma.stanford.edu/groups/soundwire/software/jacktrip/

11. http://www.ustream.tv/channel/apan-cyber-performance

© 2015 by the authors; licensee Asia-Pacific Advanced Network. This article is an open-access

article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).