Press Release

The pilot project - called "R@Dius" (Research at Denver Museum of Nature & Science: Investing and Understanding Science)  - will give more than 400 Colorado middle school students in different locations the opportunity to work live with a paleontologist from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. The live digital datacast - to be held on Wednesday, Nov. 12 from 8:15 a.m. to 10:05 a.m. - will allow students to receive near-television quality video on computers in the classroom.  Science students located at several schools throughout the Denver area - including Cherry Creek, Huron, Thunderidge and Morey Middle Schools - will interact with paleontologist Dr. Kirk Johnson as he explores some of the mysteries of Denver's ancient fossil beds from the U.S. Geological Survey CORE lab in Lakewood, CO[1].   

With a telephone conference bridge, students will be able to ask questions directly and participate in student-scientist discussions with Dr. Johnson.The live datacast is made possible through the partnership between Rocky Mountain PBS and SpectraRep®.  SpectraRep® supplied all four schools with the proper equipment for the datacast, including B2C2 DTV data receivers.  SpectraRep® also assisted Rocky Mountain PBS with the overall plan for the R@Dius project, including systems design and integration, vendor selection and management, management of equipment installation and testing, and staff training on the system.

The R@Dius pilot project will include a live feed from a camera team and news gathering vehicle.  The video feed will be relayed by microwave from Lakewood back to Rocky Mountain PBS (KRMA-DT, Ch. 18), which is located near downtown Denver, where the video transmission will be re-encoded using Windows Media 9 Series.  This IP video will then be encapsulated into Rocky Mountain PBS's digital television signal using a Logic Innovations IP encapsulator.  The re-encoding was done on a server supplied by NDS Americas.

The resulting datacast will be receivable anywhere within the Rocky Mountain PBS digital coverage area.  Each participating school will be equipped with special DTV data receivers and a small indoor directional UHF antenna that can decode the data and present it as near-television quality Windows Media 9 video on computers in each classroom. 
The system set up by SpectraRep^® for Rocky Mountain PBS's KRMA-DT, the station's digital television channel in Denver, will broadcast this pilot using less than 3% (500 Kbps) of KRMA-DT's digital capacity.  The resulting video will provide a high quality television-like experience for student right on their computers.  Rocky Mountain PBS will simultaneously broadcast its normal array of digital television programs to viewers during the R@Dius datacast pilot.

"SpectraRep^® is excited to collaborate with Rocky Mountain PBS to create a groundbreaking demonstration of how DTV datacasting and live streaming video technology can be integrated to distribute wireless last mile broadband IP multicast audio and video to the end user's PC," notes Mark O'Brien, SpectraRep's Chief Technologist.  "We are committed to delivering real world successes to Colorado's public television stations by maximizing their datacasting opportunities for services including distance education and teacher training."According to Jim Schoedler, Director of Engineering for Rocky Mountain PBS, "Through this innovative demonstration, we are showing how digital television can offer learning institutions and content providers cost effective, high quality distribution for data and video.  We hope to use this pilot as a springboard into additional services that will benefit the public of Colorado."