Bach on broadband

Computing and communication experts from the University of Manchester want to establish an "IP Choir" - all of whose members will sit in remote locations, be filmed and sing live to one hall, something that stretches broadband capacity beyond its current capacity

Avi Blizovsky, The People editor, DailyMaily

Computer science experts and singing enthusiasts from the University of Manchester in the UK are seeking to use the latest technology to create the world's first internet choir. To implement the idea, it will be necessary to break through the limitations of the communication networks that exist today. For example, an ultra-fast network will be required that will be able to transmit voice and images with much lower latency than services such as IP telephony and video conferencing, as they are realized today. Dr. Barry Cheetham, a senior lecturer at the University's School of Computer Science, is now looking for funding to advance the project, which will combine amateur and semi-professional singers from all over Europe to perform polished and smooth live performances, without gathering in one concert hall.

"If there is a delay, it will not be possible to achieve the real-time interactive experience of the choir singing," explains Dr. Cheetham. "Among other things, it will be necessary to find a way to process and code faster the voices that will flow down the Internet infrastructure in order to achieve high voice quality. In addition, it will be necessary to combine the voices with great precision to give the listeners the feeling that all the singers are together in one concert hall."

According to Dr. Cheatham, other challenges that the project will have to solve will be discovering how a conductor can conduct rehearsals and control a choir made up of people located in different places and how the singers can feel as if they are interacting with their fellow performers. However, some delay is still expected and so it has been decided that the singing will be limited to classical and popular choral music but not to pop and rock performances.

Dr. Cheatham, who works in the research group dealing with advanced processing technologies, sings in the bass position in the university choir and in a local choir in his area of ​​residence. According to him, "We hope to establish a connection between choirs all over Europe. The dream is to contribute to the integration of Europe. The geographical distances and the speed of the transfer of electrons led us to believe that it is possible to achieve the reduction of delay within Europe in a short period of time".

"In my opinion, the bandwidth coming out of Israel will not be enough for choir singers to participate in the project," says Eyal Zafarir, Acting Vice President of Information Technologies at Bezeq International. "In order to provide the voice and image traffic needed for such a project, bandwidths greater than many of those available in Israel today will be required, i.e. many hundreds of gigabits. As of today, this is impossible."