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Interactive Cross-Continental Jazz

On October 24, 2002, musicians from Stanford University and McGill joined in a highly successful evening of cross-continental jazz, playing together in surround sound and full-screen video, over the Internet, using our Ultra-Videoconferencing system in analog video mode. Despite the performers being at opposite sides of the continent, the system maintained a delay (during the good moments -- as problems with an intervening router caused periodic delays that were almost double) below 50 milliseconds, which feels to the musicians almost like being on the same stage.

Daniel Levitin (foreground) jams with Alex Carot (bass) and Estabin Wilson (sax) ; photo credit: Peter Marshall

Video Clips

The actual first attempt at this experience took place on June 13, 2002. Running the entire McGill end from a single machine, the system latency did introduce a perceptible audio echo, which was removed at the end of the evening by transmitting audio-only. Nevertheless, the event was a major success in demonstrating the feasibility of Internet support for highly interactive events across the continent.