ICM'98

Opening Ceremony via MBone

On Tuesday, August 18, the Opening Ceremony of ICM'98 will take place in the International Congress Center Berlin (ICC). During the recent days ICC has installed proper equipment so that we are able to broadcast the Opening Ceremony live on the internet. Thus, we will be able, for the first time in ICM history, to show an opening ceremony to a worldwide audience.

The transmission will be done via MBone under the title "ICM'98 Opening Ceremony" during the following periods of time

Tuesday, August 18 10:00 - 12:30 Central European Summertime (CEST)
14:30 - 16:00 Central European Summertime (CEST)

Thus, we will show the whole Opening Ceremony and the speeches on the achievements of the prize winners.

To give you an orientation, 

  Berlin         10:00 am   (this is CEST) corresponds to

  Los Angeles     1:00 am
  New York        4:00 am
  Johannesbourg  10:00 am

  Moscow         12:00 pm
  Bombay          1:30 pm
  Bangkok         3:00 pm
  Beijing         4:00 pm
  Tokyo           5:00 pm
  Sydney          6:00 pm

To give mathematicians in America a chance to view the ICM opening during daytime, we will repeat the transmission from 18:00 to 22:00 Central European Summertime (CEST) (leaving out the break).

Please inform your friends and colleagues who do not have the chance to experience the Opening Ceremony in person about this service. We hope that this way many mathematicians throughout the world will have a chance to participate in one of the most important events in mathematics.

MBone - Some Hints for Participating in MBone Sessions

Oberview

MBone (IP multicast backbone) is a special service within the internet for organizing video conferences. The transmission of sound and images between the conference participants is carried out by means of multicast packets. These get distributed around the world via MBone routers that form the IP multicast backbone.

In order to pariticpate in a conference hardware and software requirements have to be satisfied:

  1. Your computer has to be able to receive the multicast packets.
  2. MBone-tools (software) have to be installed on your computer.

Receiving Multicast Packets

Whether a computer can receive multicast packets depends on the operating system: If your computer is capable of receiving the packets, you have to make sure that they are also fed into your local network to which your computer is connected. Your local Internet Service Provider (ISP) has to have installed a multicast router (e.g. mrouted) which routes the Mbone traffic to your local network.

Contact your local network administrator if you are not sure about it.

It is very easy to check whether you have this multicast-connection. Simply start the program "sdr" (see Section MBone-Tools below). If after 10 to 20 seconds no MBone conferences are displayed then your computer or your local network is not capable of receiving multicast packets.

MBone-Tools (Software)

To participate in MBone the following programs have to be available: This software can be retrieved free of charge from the internet:

How to use the MBone-Tools

Start the session director "sdr". After about 20 seconds all active or announced MBone sessions will be displayed. Klick on the desired session. The session director will then start the video and audio tools for you. Sit back and enjoy.

In case you have problems with setting up the configuration, we suggest that you contact your local network administrator.

WWW References

ICM'98 homepage

Please send suggestions and corrections to: helmberg@zib.de
Last modified: August 10, 1998