A broad-based road­show orga­ni­zed by the Minis­try of Indus­try, Cli­ma­te Pro­tec­tion and Ener­gy of the Sta­te of North Rhi­ne-West­pha­lia pro­vi­ded infor­ma­ti­on on how the power of the sun can also be used pro­fi­ta­b­ly for com­pa­nies. The Stream­box­stu­di­os event team was com­mis­sio­ned with the enti­re audio­vi­su­al pro­duc­tion in the halls of the par­ti­ci­pa­ting local cham­bers of indus­try and com­mer­ce as well as the rea­liza­ti­on of smooth live streams.

The ana­log and digi­tal par­ti­ci­pan­ts recei­ved first-hand infor­ma­ti­on in short pre­sen­ta­ti­ons. Experts from NRW.Energy4Climate and the Sta­te Asso­cia­ti­on for Rene­wa­ble Ener­gies (LEE) pro­vi­ded an insight into the basic frame­work con­di­ti­ons, fol­lo­wed by examp­les of best prac­ti­ce and reports from indus­try. Ques­ti­ons from the audi­ence on site and from the digi­tal space were ans­we­red in detail in a con­clu­ding dis­cus­sion round.

Four image sources, two came­ras and two lap­tops, were dis­play­ed alter­na­te­ly in indi­vi­du­al­ly crea­ted screen lay­outs so that the view­ers could be offe­red a varie­ty of images on the digi­tal end devices. In addi­ti­on, gra­phics and bel­ly bands were dis­play­ed at the appro­pria­te time.

The ZOOM plat­form was used at the start of the road­show in fall 2021. On the one hand, to have an opti­on for par­ti­ci­pant admi­nis­tra­ti­on (key­word regis­tra­ti­on and admis­si­on), and on the other hand, to pro­vi­de an oppor­tu­ni­ty for queries via the inte­gra­ted chat modu­le.

With the start of sea­son 2, in ear­ly sum­mer 2022, the live­stream was rea­li­zed via You­Tube.

From a producer’s point of view, You­Tube offers the ide­al plat­form for broad­cas­ting streams direct­ly in HD qua­li­ty wit­hout pri­or regis­tra­ti­on — as requi­red by ZOOM. Fur­ther­mo­re, sta­tis­ti­cal infor­ma­ti­on (hits, stream qua­li­ty, etc.) is dis­play­ed very sim­ply and clearly.

A QR code regu­lar­ly dis­play­ed during the stream and a matching hash tag led to a spe­ci­al­ly crea­ted SLIDO page. In addi­ti­on to the impro­ved pos­si­bi­li­ty of mode­ra­ting the chat, the feed­back from digi­tal users could also be trans­mit­ted to a screen in the hall and dis­play­ed for the guests on site.

The request from the Ger­man Pila­tes Asso­cia­ti­on heral­ded a chal­len­ging pro­ject: Equip four con­fe­rence rooms each with a per­ma­nent­ly instal­led came­ra inclu­ding micro­pho­ne, then trans­mit four video signals live and in par­al­lel to a pass­word-pro­tec­ted web­site of the asso­cia­ti­on, with charts and pro­mo­tio­nal vide­os being shown on each chan­nel at indi­vi­du­al times.

Let’s start with the “simp­le” things: Inter­net with suf­fi­ci­ent band­width — four streams in HD qua­li­ty requi­re at least 5–7 Mbits each — could unfort­u­na­te­ly not be pro­vi­ded by the hotel. A look at the Voda­fone net­work map pro­vi­ded reli­ef, as it show­ed the avai­la­bi­li­ty of 5G. As it tur­ned out later, the radio mast was within sight of the hotel and our radio rou­ter, equip­ped with two exter­nal anten­nas, did its job reliably.

The next check­point was a litt­le trickier: the con­fe­rence rooms were arran­ged in pairs, but with a litt­le distance bet­ween them. Accor­ding to the room plan, the­re were almost 60 meters bet­ween them, plus a stair­well on the first third of a win­ding path and a fire door on the second third, which in any case could not be obs­truc­ted by any­thing.

Sen­ding radio signals for video and sound over 60 meters works wit­hout any pro­blems on a straight line. But no chan­ce here. We pul­led 200 meters of HDMI fiber optic cable for the pic­tu­re and 200 meters of XLR cable for the sound through the ais­les and inter­rupt­ed them mid­way with sui­ta­ble split­ters and con­nec­tors. This ensu­red that we could clear the rou­tes at night and in the event of an emer­gen­cy, as we always had the fire door in view during the day. Two con­fe­rence rooms alo­ne, which were in the imme­dia­te vici­ni­ty of the con­trol room, could be con­nec­ted to the sound con­so­le via radio. But here, too, the came­ra signal was trans­mit­ted via HDMI.

So far, so good. The signal paths are in place, trans­mit relia­bly and “only” need to be strea­med. In fact, only our Pearl‑2 would have suf­fi­ced. This ver­sa­ti­le and robust enco­der can stream mul­ti­ple video feeds simul­ta­neous­ly to dif­fe­rent plat­forms and record in par­al­lel.

Howe­ver, as the sche­du­le included various lec­tu­re and prac­ti­ce ses­si­ons, vide­os from adver­ti­sers were to be play­ed during the breaks and covers with titles were to be dis­play­ed at the start of each ses­si­on, we equip­ped the con­trol room exten­si­ve­ly from the out­set. This included two addi­tio­nal con­so­les, a video play­er and a PC to con­trol the four streams run­ning in par­al­lel. Ano­ther con­trol panel was used to switch the image signals from the came­ras, the adver­ti­sing vide­os and the covers of the indi­vi­du­al ses­si­ons in each of the many chan­nels individually.

We have cho­sen Vimeo as our video plat­form. In con­trast to You­Tube, we were able to inte­gra­te the four streams into the Pila­tes Association’s web­site via iframe code wit­hout any addi­tio­nal dis­rup­ti­ve infor­ma­ti­on. As soon as the users had ente­red their pass­word, the cor­re­spon­ding sub­page ope­ned and pro­vi­ded a view of all four streams. Cli­cking on the desi­red stream then ope­ned the video across the enti­re moni­tor area.

And what about the mileage allowance?

Strea­ming pro­jects of this type are ide­al for AV-over-IP, i.e. the par­al­lel trans­mis­si­on of image and sound via a high-per­for­mance net­work. At the same time, con­trol signals can be sent from the con­trol room to the came­ras for ali­gnment. Howe­ver, this solu­ti­on was not yet available to us at the time. So we had to walk the rou­te bet­ween the con­trol room and the four lec­tu­re rooms seve­ral times a day. On the one hand, to help the spea­k­ers put on the lava­lier micro­pho­nes and check their bat­te­ries, and on the other hand, to read­just the came­ras every now and then so that the some­ti­mes very mobi­le prot­ago­nists were always in the picture.

The gre­at effort, com­bi­ned with a litt­le run­ning trai­ning, was worth it. As a result, we sent four HD streams over the air­wa­ves wit­hout inter­rup­ti­on and in top pic­tu­re and sound qua­li­ty. The par­al­lel video recor­dings of the ses­si­ons were made available as video-on-demand after the con­ven­ti­on.

The­re was only one chall­enge that we almost fai­led at the end: the real­ly lar­ge gift bas­kets that Taro Katao­ka and I recei­ved as a token of our cli­ents’ satis­fac­tion only just fit­ted into our van. The next one will defi­ni­te­ly be bigger.

From 05.03.–20.03.2022, a sound instal­la­ti­on with com­po­si­ti­ons by Andre­as Stef­fens and Dani­el M. Zieg­ler could be expe­ri­en­ced on the first flo­or of the ArToll Klang­la­bor, Bedburg-Hau. The two jazz musi­ci­ans, com­po­sers and per­for­mers have been working on the musi­cal fusi­on of elec­tro­nic and impro­vi­sed music sin­ce 2016.

They have been explo­ring the music of Karl­heinz Stock­hausen, Edgar Varè­se, Mor­ton Feld­mann, John Cage and Cur­tis Roads for years. They use the aes­the­tics of elec­tro­nic-clas­si­cal music and trans­fer them to the impro­vi­sa­tio­nal style of jazz. The two musi­ci­ans play saxo­pho­ne, pia­no, gui­tar and a varie­ty of his­to­ri­cal and modern elec­tro­nic instruments. 

For the instal­la­ti­on “EQ” they com­po­sed new pie­ces and recor­ded them in the stu­dio them­sel­ves, using acou­stic instru­ments, fil­ters, effects and modu­lar syn­the­si­zers, among other things. The music was not per­for­med in a con­cert, but made acces­si­ble to the audi­ence in a sound instal­la­ti­on in the ArToll sound labo­ra­to­ry in Bedburg-Hau. 

In all rooms of the ground flo­or dif­fe­rent sound sources were instal­led to emit sounds into the room. The­se were trig­ge­red by the visi­tors. Due to their dif­fe­rent lengths, the­re were always new over­lays. Light sen­sors were instal­led at various points in the rooms. When a visi­tor step­ped into the light bar­ri­er, they trig­ge­red the play­back of a com­po­si­ti­on by Stef­fens and Zieg­ler. The places whe­re the­se sen­sors were loca­ted were arran­ged like in a gallery.

In pic­tu­re frames the­re were accom­pany­ing texts to the respec­ti­ve sounds, as a clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on in the musi­cal con­text or also as a lyri­cal or other­wi­se inspi­ring text. Attrac­ted by the respec­ti­ve muse­um installation/picture frame, the visi­tor trig­ge­red the sound, which was then always play­ed once in full length, even if he/she moved on direct­ly. The visi­tors thus hel­ped to deter­mi­ne the “per­for­mance” and the den­si­ty of the resul­ting spa­ti­al sound. It was also pos­si­ble to move in a straight line from one sound source of the con­ti­nuous sound to the other wit­hout trig­ge­ring a sensor.

The com­po­si­ti­ons varied in dyna­mics and length: the­re were pie­ces that las­ted a few seconds and others that were seve­ral minu­tes long. They ran­ged from a bare­ly audi­ble crack­le to an orgi­a­stic and com­plex sound sur­ge. The­re were “gra­nu­lar” com­po­si­ti­ons in which the smal­lest ele­ments ran­ked at the per­cep­tu­al limit of short impul­ses. Dif­fe­rent tem­pos gave rise to poly­rhyth­ms, and dif­fe­rent pit­ches crea­ted polytonality.