published on Wednesday, September 21, 2005

SURFnet and SARA have successfully sent uncompressed High-Definition TV to Japan

This is a joint press release of SURFnet and SARA

Amsterdam, 21 September 2005 - Early this morning uncompressed High-Definition TV has been transmitted between the Netherlands and Japan. This event was part of the world exhibition EXPO 2005 in Aichi (Japan). The bandwidth speed was 1,5 Gigabit per second (Gbit/s), in both directions. The transmission has been realized by SURfnet in cooperation with SARA, and consisted of a forum discussion and a live concert played by musicians in Japan and Amsterdam (the Netherlands). The preparations for this event had started on 19 August. On that day, it was for the first time in history that HD TV had been transmitted between the Netherlands and Japan, and vice versa, over an IP network.

The international forum discussion “Creating a sustainable world” took place between students and professors from the USA, Australia, China, Mexico, Russia, Switzerland, Morocco, Japan, and the Netherlands. They were located in the Netherlands, China and Japan. The academic networks in several countries provided the connections between the locations that took part in this event. Before the start of the forum discussion, musicians in Amsterdam and Japan have played together realtime. In Amsterdam a violinist was playing, while at the same time musicians in Aichi (Japan) were playing piano, saxophone, clarinet and drums.

This experiment is important for research on advanced computer networks. Soon it will be possible to receive HD TV at home via the Internet. The quality of HD TV is 5 times better (image size and audio quality) than that of current television transmissions. With the realized bandwidth speed of 1,5 Gbit/s, a standard DVD can be sent every 24 seconds. This is 100 times faster than the fastest ADSL connection.

With help of SARA and the WIDE project in Japan, SURFnet has provided the light path from the Netherlands - via New York and Canada - to Japan. The connection was realized via NetherLight, which is located at SARA in Amsterdam. NetherLight, being part of the Dutch GigaPort project, is the optical exchange point of SURFnet for academic networks. For this experiment SARA's visualization laboratory was connected with NetherLight.

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Further information:

About SURFnet
SURFnet is the Dutch computer network for higher education and research, connecting more than 150 institutions for higher education and research with each other and with the rest of the world. In order to keep its leading position, SURFnet is improving the infrastructure and applying new applications continuously, so that the users will get faster and better access to new Internet services. More information can be found at: www.surfnet.nl.

About SARA
As innovative ICT service center SARA Computing and Networking Services provides a complete package of services and products in the field of high-performance computing, storage, visualization, networking and infrastructure services. Among SARA's customers are the business community and scientific, educational, and government institutions. Since the inception of the SURFnet network in 1989, SARA is responsible for the operational management of this innovative network for Dutch universities, science centers and educational institutions. More information can be found at: www.sara.nl.

More information:
EXPO 2005 Aichi (Japan): www.expo2005.or.jp/
WIDE Project (press release remote jazz jam session):
www.wide.ad.jp/news/press/20050921-JAZ-e.html

More information about SURFnet:
Mariska Herweijer (Manager Communication): T +31 (30) 230 5305

More information about SARA:
Marina den Hartog (PR Officer): T +31 (20) 592 3000
Eric Heemskerk (division manager Marketing & Sales): T +31 (20) 592 3000
Paul Wielinga (division manager High Performance Networking): T +31 (20) 592 3000

Pictures
Pictures can be downloaded at: www.sara.nl/download/HDTV

The violinist in SARA's visualization laboratory during the successful transmission of High-Definition TV to EXPO 2005 in Aichi (Japan).




Participants in Japan taking part in the international forum discussion "Creating a sustainable world".

The contribution from the Netherlands to the forum discussion from SARA's visualization laboratory.