THE SEXTANT GROUP DESIGNS SYSTEMS AND INFRASTRUCTURE FOR CUTTING-EDGE COMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH FACILITY

Creates Nexus Supporting First Around-The-Globe Test Of World’s Highest-Definition Videoconferencing System

OCTOBER 24, 2005 SAN DIEGO CA —
A new $60 million communications research facility opened this month at University of California, San Diego features unique systems and infrastructure designed by The Sextant Group, Inc.

Demonstrating success in front of an international audience of academic and industry researchers with a live test of the world’s videoconferencing system, The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technologies, better known as Cal-(IT)², is a unique facility conducting research into advanced communications technologies. The ability to stream super high-resolution HD Video plus 100 channels of discrete digital audio highlights the new facility’s unique capabilities for the communications research community, drawing together disciplines from both the arts and sciences.

The Sextant Group is a nationally recognized, independent consulting and design firm specializing in audiovisual technologies, information technologies and acoustics. The firm’s fundamental goal throughout the five-year design project was to create a flexible infrastructure capable of supporting experimental multimedia technologies, even those yet to be invented. Responsibilities included planning and design of media systems infrastructure, acoustics, construction administration and systems integration management, and included the design and specification of the state-of-the-art presentation system installed into the facility’s 200-seat auditorium. Systems were designed to provide a flexible display environment that will range from traditional PowerPoint to experimental digital cinema resolutions.

Designed for worldwide scientific collaboration, Cal-(IT)² can simultaneously share massive date files in real time from anywhere in the globe. Super high-definition videoconferencing, theatrical performances, and scientific symposia and conferences may be conducted with bandwidth capacity of 1.5 Gbps. Specialized spaces are designed to facilitate the integration of digital technology into live theatre, conduct fundamental research into digitizing film for instantaneous distribution, or delve into human perception of audio. Labs equipped for super-high definition immersive visualization can display images and data with four times the resolution of current HDTV.

Weeks before its official opening, the auditorium was put to a rigorous test by hosting an international demonstration of its capabilities. In a test conducted in front of a live audience of over 100 academic and industry researchers, the first around-the-globe demonstration of the world’s highest-resolution videoconferencing system performed flawlessly. The iGrid 2005 Symposium showcased more than four-dozen real-time application demonstrations from 20 countries. True to its goals of accelerating the use of massively powerful international and national networks, advancing scientific research, and educating participants on the benefits to the cyber-infrastructure of these hybrid networks, the Cal-(IT)² facility was the star in the world-wide demonstration.

Utilizing the flexibility of the presentation system designed by The Sextant Group, the event marked the first multicast of 1.5Gbps HD Video, the first multipoint videoconference using uncompressed HD, and showed off a prototype 4K digital video projector displaying super high-resolution video. Streaming at rates up to 20 gigabits a second from a camera in Japan 9,000 miles away, each frame in the video contained roughly four times as much digital information as today’s HDTV. In this virtual meeting, colleagues at sites in Japan, Michigan, Washington and Wisconsin were able to interact with one another in real time by way of high-definition video with very low latency, resulting in speed and detail that approximate a face-to-face meeting.

In the streaming of ultra-high-resolution video from Tokyo to San Diego, the demonstration highlighted technology that foreshadows an era of essentially unlimited bandwidth that could change the face of home and workplace networking. Beyond videoconferencing and the digital distribution of super high definition movies, the technology demonstrated will make possible scientific collaboration in which researchers can simultaneously share massive date files in real time from anywhere in the world.

In another demonstration entitled “Soundscape”, a team of researchers from the Center for Research and Computing in the Arts (CRCA) synchronized twenty-four channels of uncompressed digital audio streamed to the auditorium over IP from George Lucas’ Skywalker Sound with a video feed from Keio University in Tokyo. President Mark Valenti was The Sextant Group’s Principal-in-Charge for the Cal-(IT)² project, with Project Manager Sean Weida CTS, Systems Engineers Ed “Duke” Dukstein CTS and Patrick Durham CTS, and Acoustician Gregg Vizza. The architect was NBBJ, and audiovisual systems integrator for the auditorium was Electrosonic Systems, Inc.

Clients include education, medical, corporate, government, institutional, performing arts, broadcast, and sports & recreation on over 700 projects for 350 owners in 36 states and 8 countries.

Recognized by architects and institutions internationally for the integration of communication technology into the built environment, The Sextant Group was founded in 1995, and now operates offices in Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix, and Pittsburgh.