Project Lab: Video and Audio Technology for Live Theater in the Age of COVID

This class is part of a multi-disciplinary collaboration between researchers in the CS, EE, and TAPS departments to design and develop a system to host a live theatrical production that will take place over the Internet in the winter quarter. The performing arts have been greatly affected by a transition to theater over Zoom and its competitors, none of which are great at delivering low-latency audio to actors, or high-quality audio and video to the audience, or feedback from the audience back to actors. These are big technical challenges. During the fall, we'll build a system that improves on current systems in certain areas: audio quality and latency over spotty Internet connections, video quality and realistic composited scenes with multiple actors, audience feedback, and perhaps digital puppetry. Students will learn to be part of a deadline-driven software development effort working to meet the needs of a theater director and creative specialists -- while communicating the effect of resource limits and constraints to a nontechnical audience. This is an experimental hands-on laboratory class, and our direction may shift as the creative needs of the theatrical production evolve. Based on the success of class projects and subsequent needs, some students may be invited to continue in the winter term with a research appointment (for pay or credit) to operate the system you have built and instruct actors and creative professionals how to work with the system through rehearsals and the final performance before spring break. Prerequisites: CS110 or EE102A. Recommended: familiarity with Linux, C++, and Git.