The Research Channel, a consortium of educational research institutions, has been working on a way to reliably relay video of near or actual HD quality online for use in a variety of educational endeavors. The consortium and the University of Washington in Seattle said they are developing an application known as iHDTV. The goal: to provide wider access to HD content by making more of it more easily available to PC users and educators.
First demonstrated several years ago, iHDTV content is streamed over IP networks at speeds up to 1.5 GB with relatively low latency. According to the Research Channel, the project explores how research itself (and the world, in general) might change if "studio-quality HD video" could be sent over a general purpose broadband in near real-time. The technology, say its proponents, could be applied to collaboration, telemedicine and interactive visualization, not to mention online commercial sports and entertainment.
iHDTV was demonstrated at the super-computing conference (SC06) in Tampa, Fla. Nov. 11-17.
