Live Broadcasts
The footage taken from Project SeaCAMEL’s six underwater classrooms will be broadcast live via three modes of communications: direct satellite feed from the AMC-3 satellite, Internet 2, and commodity internet (standard internet connection). While the broadcasting process and technology required for Project SeaCAMEL is extremely complex, the following is a succinct overview of how the classrooms taking place underwater in Key Largo, Florida will be able to reach your home, school or work place in real time.
As the Project SeaCAMEL scientists are teaching the classroom modules, they will be filmed by underwater videographers whose video cameras will be hardwired to Aquarius by a cable. The audio coming from the scientists will also be hardwired directly to the habitat. On the surface above Aquarius floats a large Life Support Buoy, connected directly to Aquarius through a communications cable, which will receive all live video and audio from the habitat and broadcast it back to the Aquarius Operations Center, nine miles away, by means of direct broadband radio.
During Project SeaCAMEL a large satellite truck will be stationed outside the Aquarius Operations Center to receive the feed, by way of a cable, from the Operations Center. The satellite truck will send out the signal to a communications satellite called AMC-3. Ground satellites aimed at AMC-3 will then be able to receive the very clear, high resolution video and audio coming directly from Aquarius.
Unfortunately, not many people or organizations have satellites aimed towards AMC-3 so a series of hubs are in place to immediately convert the feed to a slightly lower resolution for distribution via more common applications. One ground satellite aimed at AMC-3 will be that of “Immersion Presents”. Once the live video and audio from the AMC-3 satellite reaches the headquarters of Immersion Presents in Mystic, Connecticut, the feed will be encoded for Internet2 and instantly sent to universities with suitable technology capabilities.
For persons or organizations who cannot receive the high-tech, high resolution feed from the AMC-3 satellite or Internet2, the live feed will be sent from AMC-3 to a ground satellite located at a web streaming service provider which will then encode the feed as live webcasts for the world wide web.
If, by chance, you cannot watch the exciting November broadcasts when they are broadcast live, all underwater classroom modules will be archived here, on the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation website.
