What is common between Prince Igor and TCP / IP?

Do you like theater?

Seriously.
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Many love the theater. In particular - the Russian theater.

In two capitals, if you want to see representatives of the most diverse nationalities, the easiest way is to go to the theater. It is desirable, the size of a larger, in which the active season and an entertaining program.

In fact, problems begin exactly when a foreigner is your friend who asks to take him to the theater. And you, for example, have a girl who manages to buy tickets for three. Great company.

Strangely enough, in Russian theaters they do not always play in Russian. A huge number of performances, operas and other ballets are held in a foreign language: Italian or French. Sometimes - German. Less commonly - English.

It is unlikely that your girlfriend will think about such trifles, wanting to show the guest cultural values. And, having come to the theater, you sit down in an armchair, and the curtain opens apart ...



In fact, most of all we all, being in a state of linguistic difficulty, just want to “understand” what is happening around.

And when you take your boyfriend or girlfriend to the State Academic Bolshoi Theater of Russia, the last thing you want is to have difficulty. He or she, respectively, too.

So that you have an idea of ​​what is at stake, take a look at the Bolshoi program: bolshoi.ru/performances/ . Famous operas such as Boheme, Nabucco, La Traviata, Turandot and so on are performed in original languages. It is unlikely that many of our compatriots are fluent in Italian, French and other foreign languages ​​in such a way as to enjoy the magic of the performance to the full.

Entry came out unexpectedly long

Because it is unknown what percentage of IT people in general happens in theaters. But they are developing solutions that are created just to get out of such situations. And even there were those who remembered the aria.

Since the fall of 2011, a supratitre system has been operating at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, and simpler is the running line. In fact, it is:

• Broadcast server
• Public devices
• Personal devices

In order

As you understand, in the Bolshoi Theater there is more than one performance in a circle. And, since we are talking about a live performance, anything can happen in it. Therefore, the broadcast server is:

1. Workplace broadcast operator
2. He is also a mailing server (libretto fragments)
3. It is also a translation file preparation server for translation editors in various languages.

The operator has several options to control the broadcast:

• In manual mode, sending messages on command
• In automatic mode, with pre-prepared time stamps
• In mixed mode, by timestamp with operator verification

The most interesting thing comes when you have to solve specific tasks, and, more precisely, of a theatrical nature, such as:

• Quick returns ("Encore!")
• Looping in intermission
• Changing output modes on devices: changing the language or their number in the menu, text size, brightness.
• Cut-off for total darkness in the hall

Finally, it is possible to record timestamps for subsequent automation of broadcasts.

Up to 1.5 thousand individual devices (currently only on Android) and public devices can be connected to the server at a time. The string is connected directly, and the integrity of the consistency of the output is checked on the additional monitor of the server.

By decision of the administration of the Bolshoi Theater, individual devices are not currently issued to theater visitors due to a number of difficulties: lack of space for charging cabinets in the cloakroom (“Nizyaya! Historical value!”), Difficulties with controlling the delivery / return of the device, etc. In practice, individual tablets are used by the administration of the theater and are sometimes given to dear guests of the theater.



By implementation, we chose IP Multicast technology, which, unlike the client-server model, has unlimited scalability. This means that adding new users does not increase the load on the network or the broadcast server. And unlike IP Broadcast, this technology allows you to build another level of system protection against unauthorized access.

In addition to the text in the language (or several, which is also possible) chosen by the user from among the available, control commands, if any, are transmitted along with the message. They have already been mentioned - this is the size of the text, its color, brightness, etc.



Messages are broadcast to all devices in a special format that ensures the uniformity of the output of any message text, that is, in any language supported by UTF-8, where there is a hieroglyphic letter, and Arabic - from right to left. Wi-Fi network is encoded, and the local one is extremely narrow, and no cases of hacking have been observed. Perhaps the cleaning lady turns off the router for the night :)

In different languages, it was necessary to support a different number of parcels for the same line of the libretto, since the length of the parcel should not exceed 4 lines of 30 characters each, and 100 characters in English can correspond to 200 characters in Russian.
It was necessary to ensure continuous broadcast when the spectator moves around the theater, for example, when going to the buffet during intermissions, which required a seamless automatic reconnection of the client from one Wi-Fi point to another.

The source of information for the broadcast is easily editable text files in TXT, RTF, DOC format, which are simultaneously being prepared by translators into various languages ​​or brought along by touring groups, no matter how strange it may seem - it’s the speakers who make sure we understand their culture.

For a year and a half, the system works without any interventions in software or hardware, and we hope that this will continue to happen. It is desirable century.