This project involves research to enable musical tele-presence employing high performance communication networks and audio-video immersive environments. The goal is to create the impression of "being in the same room" for geographically separated users offering complete and immediate two-way visual and auditory contact to enable two or more musicians at different locations to freely interact musically. Three linked "tele-presence" studios being developed at the University of Rochester will be employed to understand the sources and effects of latency in musical interactions arising from acoustic, electronic and network factors under two-way real-time links. The controlled links between the studios will allow for gradated stages between the controlled situation of a dedicated local network to the more congested state of the Internet2 and the wider Internet. Building upon existing research, the limits of tolerance for latency in musical situations will be explored for various available network protocols, important Quality of Service issues and tradeoffs found in each will be investigated, and fault tolerant data transmission applications that employ data interleaving will be developed. Resources of the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music will help guide this development from the end-user perspective. Ultimately the development of musical tele-presence will create an infrastructure through which music lessons and master classes by the best instructors can be simulcast in an interactive way. Performers could rehearse, perform and record together over the Internet, and chamber music groups could form unencumbered by geographical distances.
