High-definition multimedia for multiparty low-latency interactive communication

We describe a high-quality collaborative environment that uses High-Definition (HD) video to achieve near realistic perception of a remote site. The capture part, consisting of a HD camera, Centaurus HD-SDI capture card, and UltraGrid software, produces a 1.5 Gbps UDP data stream of uncompressed HD video that is transferred over a 10GE network interface to the high-speed IP network. The HD video stream displaying uses either a software-based solution with color depth down-sampling and field de-interlacing, or another Centaurus card. Data distribution to individual participants of the videoconference is achieved using a user-controlled UDP packet reflector based on the Active Element idea. The viability of this system has been demonstrated at the iGrid 2005 conference for a three-way high quality videoconference among sites in the Czech Republic, Louisiana, and California.