Saturday, June 19, 2004
Pocket PC Peps up Classical Concerts
Posted by Jonathon Watkins in "NEWS" @ 02:30 PM
"The Concert Companion (CoCo) is an exciting new interpretive aid or “experience enhancement” for classical music audiences. Using state of the art wireless technology, CoCo delivers explanatory text, program notes and video images to hand-held devices – in real time with the music."
The above quote is the opening statement at the The Concert Companion website. There's a BBC story about this device, which calls the CoCo (great abbreviation btw :wink: ) the 21st Century's version of programme notes. It's a Pocket PC which displays live video and commentary on the music being performed:
"The device itself is a top of the range HP iPaq - a hand-held PC with a colour screen that communicates via wireless connection to a base computer. An operator who follows the music score then feeds live text information to the hand-held computers as the music is played. It is only recently that advances in hand-held development have created the technology that can produce live, video and text commentary delivered by wireless connection. "So much of this is serendipitous," said Mr Valliere. Live video footage of the conductor and lead soloists is also broadcast to the devices. "Now you can see the conductor's expressions and gestures for the first time," said Mr Valliere."
It's interesting to see how Pocket PCs are increasingly being used to enhance events. So, is this a useful tool that makes classical music more accessible to people, or is it a gimmick of little note which will soon fade away?
The above quote is the opening statement at the The Concert Companion website. There's a BBC story about this device, which calls the CoCo (great abbreviation btw :wink: ) the 21st Century's version of programme notes. It's a Pocket PC which displays live video and commentary on the music being performed:
"The device itself is a top of the range HP iPaq - a hand-held PC with a colour screen that communicates via wireless connection to a base computer. An operator who follows the music score then feeds live text information to the hand-held computers as the music is played. It is only recently that advances in hand-held development have created the technology that can produce live, video and text commentary delivered by wireless connection. "So much of this is serendipitous," said Mr Valliere. Live video footage of the conductor and lead soloists is also broadcast to the devices. "Now you can see the conductor's expressions and gestures for the first time," said Mr Valliere."
It's interesting to see how Pocket PCs are increasingly being used to enhance events. So, is this a useful tool that makes classical music more accessible to people, or is it a gimmick of little note which will soon fade away?
