Live Broadcast

Participate in the Journey of Exploration and Discovery
These first ever live broadcasts of high-definition video from the seafloor to land, will illustrate how the excitement of scientific discovery can be shared with a global audience. The broadcasts are part of an ongoing technological revolution that is changing how we study and observe the oceans. For the first time, multiple groups, including computer and ocean scientists, engineers, educators, students and the general public will be able to virtually participate in live, deep-sea volcano research.

From the Seafloor to Shore via Satellite
Plans call for real-time, high-definition (HD) video from the seafloor to be transmitted from the ROV Jason II to the R/V Thomas G. Thompson through a 10-km electro-optical tether. Weather permitting, an onboard engineering-production crew from the ResearchChannel will produce a live high-definition program on September 28 and 29, 2005 using shipboard and live sub-sea HD imagery.

The program will be encoded in real-time in MPEG-2 HD format, and will be delivered to shore via the PanAmSat Galaxy XR communication satellite using the shipboard satellite uplink, which was specially upgraded for this project. A full high-definition signal will be broadcast at the iGrid2005 meeting in San Diego.

Cyberinfrastructure in Remote Environments
This effort addresses one of the goals of the LOOKING program and will serve to expand the awareness of the utility of cyberinfrastructure in remote environments and the value of high-bandwidth video imagery in particular. The broadcast will provide examples of the routine and remote use of high-definition video for real-time inquiry into complex seafloor ecosystems.

A Preview of the NEPTUNE Program
These high-definition images will bring the unique life-forms and geologic activity of the seafloor to viewers at a scale and quality never before experienced in real time. The program will also give audiences a preview of the capabilities of the NEPTUNE program and ocean observatories that are being developed under the auspices of the National Science Foundation's Ocean Research Interactive Observatory Networks (ORION) program.

IMPROVISATIONAL THEATER-IN-THE-ROUND:
HDTV Broadcast of Sea-going Research