In addition to watching the Rolling Stones, or perhaps the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Woodstock II, the visitor can learn which musicians inspired these groups. By making a selection on the kiosk's touchscreen, the visitor can listen to a Rolling Stones song and then hear Chuck Berry sing "Johnny B. Goode", or hear the Stevie Wonder song that influenced the Red Hot Chili Peppers, for example.
All of the video and audio seen and heard at the Museum's 25 interactive kiosks is stored on a Sun Microsystems SPARCserver20 computer with StarWorks®multimedia networking software from Starlight Networks. The video is delivered over a multimedia network to the kiosks using StarWorks. The network system was designed and installed by CIBER Network Services (San Francisco, Calif.). The interactive video and audio programs were designed and produced by The Burdick Group (San Francisco, Calif.).
According to Dennis Barrie, director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, the interactive multimedia exhibits are redefining the term 'museum'. "We want to both entertain and educate our visitors through a participatory multimedia experience that captures rock's energy and excitement. We have an opportunity to invent a brand-new kind of museum," said Barrie.
The museum's interactive multimedia exhibits are made possible with the
Starlight/Sun multimedia network. In addition to "The Beat Goes On"displays in which visitors can listen to two musical influences for each
of 60 performers, the multimedia network supports three additional interactive
audio/video exhibits available on the museum's kiosks. At the "Rock
and Roll Music" exhibits, visitors can listen to landmark rock and
roll songs from a database of 500 songs. These can be cross-referenced by
artist, song name and decade. Visitors can select from audio and videotaped
interviews of 540 artists profiled in the "Come See About Me"exhibits. And, at the "Dedicated To The One I Love" exhibits,
visitors can listen to their favorite deejays, selecting from over 100 video
and audio airchecks. The Burdick Group has designed the programs in an innovative,
intuitive way that allows users at the kiosks to move easily back and forth
in their selections, and to stop, playback and repeat what they're watching
or listening to.
Multimedia is becoming widely used, primarily with the increasing use of CD-ROM titles on individual computers. But the ability for multiple users to share multimedia applications over a computer network (such as connects the museum's 25 kiosks) presents an entirely different set of technology challenges. These challenges have been solved with Starlight Networks' multimedia networking software. Starlight's StarWorks software allows visitors using the Rock and Roll Museum's kiosks to see and hear video and audio clips from a video database stored on the Sun Microsystems server. This database currently includes 500 songs, which the museum will soon expand to 2000, and 300 videos, which will also increase. The total current storage requirement is 20 gigabytes.
"The Sun/Starlight server and multimedia network allows the museum to provide a degree of interactivity and flexibility in its exhibits that it wouldn't otherwise have," said Jim Long, president of Starlight Networks. "The Museum's kiosk system is a highly visible example of how multimedia is being shared over networks for a wide variety of applications in business settings as well as in museums for public information access, such as at the Rock and Roll Museum. Other applications include training, long-distance learning, news broadcasts, and corporate communications."
"The use of Sun systems at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is one of the most exciting interactive applications we're aware of,"said Douglas Ehrenreich,
director of telecommunications and cable market development at Sun Microsystems Computer Company. "Five years ago, a project like this might have involved the use of
cumbersome videodisk players in each kiosk. Now, a powerful Sun server,
working with Starlight Networks software, can function as the central database
for all audio and video clips, and the system can be easily expanded to
store much more material. In rock and roll terms, it's like going from 'A
Hard Day's Night' to 'Here Comes The Sun.'"
While the Hall of Fame's interactive video and audio treasures are now limited
to the museum's visitors, Ehrenreich noted that new technologies, like Sun's
HotJava interactive browser for the World Wide Web, have the potential to
put these multimedia archives on the Internet--where they could reach rock
fans around the
world. Sun not only supplied the SPARCserver 20 computer to the facility, but its SunService unit donated extensive support to make the installation process work smoothly.
Putting all of the video and audio clips on a single computer that can be accessed by all of the kiosks gives the museum and its visitors a number of advantages. The museum can establish relationships between songs so that when a visitor asks for those that influenced the Rolling Stones, the database will play a Chuck Berry or Muddy Waters song and then the corresponding one from the Rolling Stones. The museum can more easily add video footage and new songs to the database and make changes that are immediately available to all of the kiosks. The centralized database makes it more cost-effective for the museum to provide video information to all of its kiosks. The museum can collect information from use of the kiosks, such as how many requests visitors have made to hear the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, and use it to adapt the exhibits to visitor preferences.
Starlight's StarWorks multimedia networking software manages the delivery of video and audio over the network, making it possible for viewers at the kiosks to see full-motion video on-demand on their screens almost immediately upon making their selections. StarWorks manages the high bandwidth demands of video and audio and synchronizes the playback of both so that the audio matches the video. It allows viewers at kiosks to watch the same video image or different ones at the same time.
"Bandwidth is a major issue for network delivery of multimedia, and we discovered just how big a problem it is when we started on this project and tried to solve it with hardware alone. It didn't work. StarWorks software provided the high degree of reliability we needed to deliver high quality, full-frame video from the high-performance Sun server to all of the kiosks immediately upon request," said Steve Kinstler, account manager, CIBER Network Services.
Each of the museum's kiosks is based on an Apple Computer Macintosh Quadra 840AV. These clients are networked in a star topology using 10BaseT through a Lannet hub to 100BaseT on the Sun server. The Macromedia authoring program was used to create the user interface at the kiosks for the video clip playback.
About Starlight Networks Starlight Networks is the leader in providing multimedia services over enterprise networks with its StarWorks® and StarWare® multimedia networking server software products. StarWorks and StarWare provide multimedia storage management and network delivery management functions to ensure reliable delivery of video and audio to the desktop over today's networks, including 10BaseT, 100VG, Fast Ethernet, Token-Ring, FDDI and ATM. StarWorks' open systems approach supports all of the popular video formats and network operating systems (such as LAN Manager, Banyan VINES, NFS, and NetWare) on PCs and Macintosh systems, as well as Sun Microsystems' SPARC-based Solaris 2.x operating environment. StarWare is a Novell NetWare-based video networking software solution. Starlight Networks is located at 205 Ravendale Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043; phone 415/967-2774.
About Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems is a leading supplier of network computing systems
to telecommunications service providers and equipment manufacturers. With
revenues of nearly $6 billion, Sun Microsystems, Inc., provides solutions
that enable customers to build and maintain open network computing environments.
Widely recognized as a proponent of open standards, the company is involved
in the design, manufacture and sale of products, technologies and services
for commercial and technical computing. Sun's SPARC workstations, multiprocessing
servers, SPARC microprocessors, Solaris operating software and ISO-certified
service organization each rank No. 1 in the UNIX industry. Founded in 1982,
Sun is heardquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and employs more than 14,000
people worldwide.
About CIBER Network Services
CIBER Network Services is a premier national provider of information
systems and services with branches in San Francisco, New Jersey and Colorado.
CIBER Network Services is affiliated with CIBER, Inc., a national computer
consulting, project management, and training organization. With a distinguished
nineteen year history, CIBER, Inc. operates at fifteen locations in twelve
states. CIBER Network Services provides value for customers through innovation,
effectiveness, stability and commitment. CIBER Network Services is located
at 74 New Montgomery, Ste. 280, San Francisco, CA 94105; phone 415/281-6000.
About The Burdick Group
Established in 1970, The Burdick Group specializes in applying the disciplines
of industrial design, interior architecture, graphic and interactive media
design to a wide scope of public experience projects for clients worldwide.
In addition to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, recent projects
include exhibits at EPCOT and EuroDisneyland, and exhibits for major corporations
such as Dow, Chevron and others. The Burdick Group is located at 35 South
Park, San Francisco, CA 94107; phone 415/957-1666.
StarWorks and StarWare are registered trademarks and StarPartner is a trademark of of Starlight Networks, Inc. TOD is a service mark of Starlight Networks, Inc. All other products are trademarks of their respective owners.