“Researchers at Purdue University’s Envision Center for Data Perceptualization have transmitted what may be the largest movie ever streamed over the Internet,” HPC wire reports. “The two-minute animated video, which was a scientific visualization of a cell structure from a bacterium, was streamed at a rate of 7.5 gigabits per second with a peak transfer rate of 8.4 gigabits per second. At that speed, the researchers could have transmitted approximately 12 movie DVDs in the same two minutes.”

HPC wire reports, “Laura Arns, associate director and research scientist at the Envision Center, said the speedy transfer demonstrated a cost-effective method for providing access to scientific visualizations. ‘The video was not compressed and it wasn’t done using expensive, highly specialized equipment,’ she said. ‘The equipment could have been purchased off the shelf for less than $100,000.’”

“Arns said the technique could allow researchers to collaborate in real time on projects such as drug discovery or viewing massive images from the Hubble telescope. She said there also could be future applications for the entertainment industry,” HPC wire reports.

“The video measured 4096 pixels by 3072 pixels [in 24-bit color, 30 frames per second], which is the equivalent of 12 17-inch computer monitors arranged in a grid three monitors high and four monitors wide. The video was displayed on Purdue Envision Center’s large tiled display,” HPC wire reports.

HPC wire reports, “The project was a demonstration at the SC06 conference in Tampa, Florida, and the data was transmitted over the high-speed National LambdaRail research network as part of the conference’s High Performance Computing Bandwidth Challenge. The HPC Bandwidth Challenge is a competition among advanced computing institutions to fully use a 10-gigabit network from the SC06 conference in Tampa back to their home institution to demonstrate the capabilities of current high-speed research networks. In the challenge, the two-minute video was played in a loop so that it ran for 20 minutes.”

HPC wire reports, “Purdue’s project was done in collaboration with Apple Computer, Advanced Clustering Technologies Inc., and useours.com. Apple provided six Xserve Raid storage devices and Advanced Clustering Technologies provided six rack-mounted server machines. Dwight McKay, director of systems engineering for Information Technology at Purdue, says the video could be stopped, replayed and zoomed in real time. ‘It’s like a digital video recorder, or DVR, in how it works,’ he said.”

Full article here.

Purdue University’s Envision Center & Rosen Center for Advanced Computing: http://www.envision.purdue.edu/4kstream/