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Video Over IP Permits South Pole Surgery
Henry Malmgren writes "Last week at the South Pole research station, we successfully completed knee surgery using a video over IP link back to the United States. The article is light on technical details, but what we did was to use a Polycom VTC unit to send a video signal to Raytheon Polar Services HQ in Colorado. Our signal went primarily over a Marisat satellite at T1 speeds, and then HQ redistributed the video to Boston via a dedicated ISDN line. We had signal problems several times during the transmission with Marisat, so we had to switch to a NASA TDRS satellite towards the end of the surgery. We also used an Iridium phone as a voice backup for the times when we couldn't get decent quality over either bird. During the surgery there were three cameras that we used to send back video to the states. One was the built in camera on the VTC unit, a second was a handheld Sony 8mm unit, and a third was a black and white "Doc Cam". This was a head mounted camera with a LED light unit that was built on station by our Senior Communications Technican, Jon Berry. This allowed the transmission of video from the Doctor's perspective. Unfortunately, while the Doc cam worked great locally, and we got great recordings of the surgery from it, it didn't work well over the satellite link. The camera view jumped around so much that it didn't compress well over the satellite link. The best video was obtained by putting the hand held camera on a tall tripod which was able to look directly into the surgical wound."
Well, let's see...except for the facts that the surgery in the article was to repair a damaged tendon, and was not performed using arthroscopic techniques, and was not related to osteoarthritis, you're right on the money.
Oh wait, no you're not.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
but its over satellite. good luck with the lag.
i like natalie portman. petrified, of course.
you're winner!!
I believe the latency to a Geostationary satellite is 250ms round trip. I do data transfers daily across the Magnastar radiotelephone systems and Inmarsat Satcom systems for aircraft and can vouch that the bandwidth sucks. I have had to drop data speeds to about 2400 bps just to get a reliable link. Lucky bastardos in the government though have nice Satellite T1 links to play with. At least they have link problems too.
Wrong. The last one wasn't breast cancer. It was a heart attack. I know, I was there.
Dr. Ron was airlifted out in the dark. That's a first - it's never, ever been done before.
We had a satellite link with Swedish Medical at the time. Streamed ultrasound images to them and talked via Iridium. I know this, 'cause I set it up.
It got zip media coverage as compared to the "breast cancer" story (which stinks to high heaven).
I blew mine out skiing. My uncle however blew his out on an icy sidewalk. The right twist and tension will take out a tendon preaty good. Plus remember these guys are more than scientists down there, they have to more or less run a city by themselves. Catch the Discovery Channel special sometime on the Doc that got breast cancer down there.
I mod down any one who says "I'm sure I will get modded down for this"