3rd International ICST Conference on Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications and Worksharin

Research Article

Uncompressed HD video for collaborative teaching – an experiment

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1109/COLCOM.2007.4553837,
        author={Andrei Hutanu and Ravi Paruchuri and Daniel Eiland and Miloš Liška and Petr Holub and Steven R. Thorpe and Yufeng Xin},
        title={Uncompressed HD video for collaborative teaching -- an experiment},
        proceedings={3rd International ICST Conference on Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications and Worksharin},
        publisher={IEEE},
        proceedings_a={COLLABORATECOM},
        year={2008},
        month={6},
        keywords={Collaboration  Costs  Distributed computing  Education  Europe  Hardware  High definition video  Streaming media  Video compression  Videoconference},
        doi={10.1109/COLCOM.2007.4553837}
    }
    
  • Andrei Hutanu
    Ravi Paruchuri
    Daniel Eiland
    Miloš Liška
    Petr Holub
    Steven R. Thorpe
    Yufeng Xin
    Year: 2008
    Uncompressed HD video for collaborative teaching – an experiment
    COLLABORATECOM
    IEEE
    DOI: 10.1109/COLCOM.2007.4553837
Andrei Hutanu1,*, Ravi Paruchuri1,*, Daniel Eiland1,*, Miloš Liška2,*, Petr Holub2,*, Steven R. Thorpe3,*, Yufeng Xin3,*
  • 1: Center for Computation & Technology, Louisiana State University, 70809 Baton Rouge, Louisiana
  • 2: CESNET z.s.p.o, Zikova 4, 162 00 Prague, Czech Republic, Masaryk University, Botanická 68am 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic
  • 3: MCNC, PO Box 12889,3021 Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, 27709 North Carolina
*Contact email: ahutanu@cct.lsu.edu, ravi9@cct.lsu.edu, deilands@cct.lsu.edu, xliska@fi.muni.cz, hopet@ics.muni.cz, thorpe@mcnc.org, yxin@mcnc.org

Abstract

This article describes a distributed classroom experiment carried out by five universities in the US and Europe at the beginning of 2007. This experiment was motivated by the emergence of new digital media technology supporting uncompressed high-definition video capture, transport and display as well as the networking services required for its deployment across wide distances. The participating institutes have designed a distributed collaborative environment centered around the new technology and applied it to join the five sites into a single virtual classroom where a real course has been offered to the registered students. Here we are presenting the technologies utilized in the experiment, the results of a technology evaluation done with the help of the participating students and we identify areas of future improvements of the system. While there are a few hurdles in the path of successfully deploying this technology on a large scale, our experiment shows that the new technology is sustainable and the significant quality improvements brought by it can help build an effective distributed and collaborative classroom environment.