The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) and the organizing committee for the CENIC 2008: Lightpath to the Stars conference has announced that the 2008 Innovations in Networking Award in Experimental / Developmental Applications has been awarded to the CineGrid @ Holland Festival 2007 Project.

The award will be presented at the CENIC Annual Conference Awards Luncheon on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 in Oakland, CA. Laurin Herr and Natalie Van Osdol, CineGrid co-founders, will accept the award on behalf of all the contributors to the CineGrid @ Holland Festival Project.

About the CineGrid @ Holland Festival Event

San Francisco, CA, July 3, 2007 - On June 20, 2007, the first successful demonstration of trans-Atlantic streaming over photonic IP networks of 4K digital motion pictures and 5.1 surround sound was achieved by the international research consortium, CineGrid. This demonstration, part of the CineGrid @ Holland Festival 2007 project, was the latest in a series of ground-breaking CineGrid experiments using very high quality digital media running over very high speed digital networks.

CineGrid @ Holland Festival 2007 recorded a performance of “Era la Notte” at the Holland Festival, featuring soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci performing works of Monteverdi, Strozzi and Giramo at the Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ concert hall in Amsterdam. The 75-minute live performance was transmitted nearly 10,000 kilometers, in real-time, to the University of California San Diego where it was viewed in 4K (at four time the resolution of HDTV) on a large screen with surround-sound by an audience in the 200-seat auditorium of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2). Calit2 built the first CineGrid node in North America, fully equipped to handle networked digital media at this extremely high quality.

With the permission of the Holland Festival and the cooperation of the “Era la Notte” performers, CineGrid @ Holland Festival 2007 was able to deliver an audience experience of unprecedented quality across long distances using advanced networks. According to Tom DeFanti, Research Scientist in the UCSD division of Calit2, “the CineGrid combination of 4K streaming video and surround sound created an astounding sense of live presence in the auditorium, as if the audience in San Diego were actually sitting in the concert hall in Amsterdam, seeing, hearing and feeling the diva’s beautiful performance very directly. Collectively, the CineGrid community learned a lot of useful lessons, both technically and creatively. The emerging global infrastructure of lambda-grids, networks of switchable/routable lightpaths, that is used by CineGrid opens all sorts of new approaches to media producers and consumers.”

“The CineGrid @ Holland Festival 2007 demonstrations prove that live 4K production and networked distribution of music concerts, opera, sports and various content genres beyond traditional theatrical-release feature movies is not only technically feasible but delivers a compelling new entertainment experience”, said Laurin Herr, president of Pacific Interface and co-founder of CineGrid. “In networking terms, ‘live’ requires more reliable throughput and low-latency responsiveness. CineGrid @ Holland Festival 2007 confirms that even these most demanding types of streaming media distribution can be done over gigabit IP networks using lightpath infrastructure today.”

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