Live OR Transmission in 3D at the University Hospital Tübingen with solutions from Teracue

Odelzhausen (Munich)(14 Jun 2012)

Ever since its modernisation at the start of the year, the medical-technical infrastructure in use at Tübingen University Gynaecology Clinic is amongst the most modern of its kind in the world. This also applies to the Telemedicine video transmissions from the operating theatres which can be made in high resolution HD format as well as in 3D. This three dimensional HD live streaming is possible thanks to the innovative encoder and decoder technology from Teracue AG, Germany. 

During the inauguration of the newly equipped operating theatre, the guests from the worlds of academia and politics – including Baden-Württemberg's Minister of Science Theresia Bauer – were able to convince themselves of 3D transmissions at the University Hospital's Gynaecology Clinic. In this context, the guests were clearly shown the enormous potential which high resolution, clinical images in HD and 3D offer for the areas of research and teaching through their detail-richness, depth and sharpness. Next, the guests watched the live transmission of a tumour operation on a large canvas screen in the conference centre of the clinic. Transmissions of this kind are being used increasingly for student teaching and academic presentations.

To attain a sustainable design and a future-proof transmission solution, the University Hospital is using approved television and media technology standards. Rudi Luik, responsible for AV media in the business division of IT at University Hospital Tübingen (UKT): "During the course of the updating of our transmission equipment, it was especially important to us to integrate a solution which can work with established media interfaces and formats that can be seamlessly incorporated in our current IT infrastructure. This is one of the main reasons why we decided on the IPTV solutions from Teracue. These are based on the current standards such as HD-SDI and H.264-codec, and completely omit proprietary technologies, especially for 3D use. Therefore we are also open to linking individual manufacturers of medical imaging device technology." For the IP streaming the image signals from the endoscopy devices of manufacturer Karl Storz GmbH & Co. KG were used and transmitted with encoders of type ENC-300-HDSDI from Teracue. This means the video signals from the operating theatres can not only be distributed in high resolution HD, but also in 3D images - throughout the video IP network of University Hospital Tübingen - whose campus is widely spread throughout the city.

At the end of January, this was demonstrated once again in the scope of a two-day international training conference at the University's Department of Neurosurgery. With the help of the streaming technology from Teracue and 3D Microscopy from manufacturer Leica, and in cooperation with TV-Studios Leonberg, the images of the operation were transmitted via live 3D feed. The images from the operating theatre in the Neurosurgery Department were transmitted over the hospital's internal IP network to the lecture theatre in the Department of Anatomy - where in three kilometres distance - the live 3D signals were projected and viewed by the conference participants.

About Teracue AG
Teracue AG - Broadcast & IPTV Systems was established in 1991 and manufactures video processing solutions for IPTV, video-networking and streaming. Teracue provides encoder, decoder, stream-viewing/recording, as well as DVB-TV gateway and IPTV headend products: used mainly in broadcast and contribution networks, inside playout facilities, for healthcare and medical applications, for corporate and digital business TV, in universities and schools for education and training, inside fire/police centres, control rooms, aerospace companies, military and federal organisations for archiving, monitoring and debriefing. Teracue IPTV products enable professional system integrators to build robust, comprehensive end-to-end IP video systems. More information is available at www.teracue.com.