USA: ROLLING STONES DEBUT ON INTERNET IS HARDLY MELODIC.
Date: Nov 20, 1994
By Susan Moran
PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuter) - For those who believe the personal computer will soon supplant the TV, the Rolling Stones' live concert broadcast Friday over the Internet computer network offers one message: don't hold your breath.
The Stones can boast they are "the greatest rock'n'roll band in cyberspace" now that they have become the first group to broadcast a concert live over the global web of computer networks.
Mick Jagger, himself an "info-freak" according to Rolling Stones spokesman Ted Micohis, beamed the first five songs from the band's show at Dallas' Cotton Bowl stadium to anyone with access to high-powered workstations equipped with software to receive video and audio over the Internet.
The British rockers are on a sellout tour of North American stadiums.
Engineers and software designers can readily appreciate the technological feat of such a "multicast" -- cyberspeak for broadcast. But for average rock fans and others who are simply technologically challenged, the 20 minutes of the Rolling Stones in cyberspace was hardly riveting.
At an Internet viewing site here, about 30 employees and affiliates of the computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc. gathered in front of a large screen to watch Jagger and his band members gyrate at eight frames per second and sing barely decipherable tunes.
"I went to the Stones concert and let me tell you, watching it at eight frames per second is hardly like seeing them live or at 30 frames a second" on the TV, said Eric Schmidt, chief technology officer at Sun.
"But if think people who look at it will understand that they're seeing only the beginning," he added.
"Three or four years from now it'll look and sound better (in digital form) than on broadcast television," said John Graham, a chief engineer at Sun who worked through much of the night to connect Sun's computer systems to the Internet.
Sun, based in Mountain View, Calif., a few miles south of here, financED the broadcast as well as the SunSPARC 10 workstation into which the video feed was funnelled.
Renditions of "Not Fade Away", "Tumbling Dice", "You Got Me Rocking", "Shattered" and "Rocks Off" were barely recognisable, but Jagger's British accent came through.
In the back of the viewing room here, several computer professionals chattered about mainframes and workstations while the Stones sang on.
"Are we sure this is really live?" asked one sceptical viewer. Schmidt assured him it was after hearing Jagger tell the Dallas crowd that the concert was being broadcast in cyberspace.
After the multicast concert segment ended Sun's Graham called up the 150-odd labeled Internet "sites" on the projected screen to see what others were saying about the concert.
"This gives new meaning to the mute button," said one unidentified viewer.
While it is impossible to measure how many people watched the Stones' concert on the Internet, Schmidt estimated the concert could have drawn as many as 500,000 "hits," or queries, to the 1,000 to 2,000 servers worldwide that are capable of such a broadcast. Servers store and control the flow of video, audio and other data between desktop computers linked on networks.
An estimated 20 million people use the Internet. According to the Internet Society, 56 percent of Internet traffic runs on Sun servers.
Thinking Pictures, a New York-based multimedia company, with the help of Sun brought the Rolling Stones on-line, creating their own electronic "home page" on the World Wide Web area of the Internet.
The band did not receive any payment for the cyberconcert itself. It will use the broadcast to promote a Nov. 25 pay-per-view concert from Miami.
While the Stones are the first band to broadcast a live concert on the Internet, a Seattle-based new age band, "Sky Cries Mary," beat them by a few days in performing over the vast network in a one-hour studio-based session.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994. All rights reserved.
