Autumn in Paris! 
And being at one of the most renown places where science and arts meet: the legendary IRCAM in the heart of the city, within a walking mile from Notre-Dame, the cradle of European art music, beside Centre Pompidou and opposite the marvellous Stravinsky fountain designed by Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle. A truly inspiring place…
Actually our sessions took place 10m below the fountain, in one of IRCAM’s superb subterranean studios. But in the breaks, the translucent roof of the underground gallery with the towering Centre Pompidou above balanced any daylight deficit.
Yet, on the evening before the first meeting day, early arrivers took opportunity to visit the headquarters of our partner TRINNOV in the Paris suburbs. We could take glimpse into the daily lab work of designing and testing some of the finest AV-Receivers and cinema equipment and get an idea how the top quality of their award-winning gear is achieved.
In between our last meeting in May at IRT Munich an now, two tasks in our work packages had reached a stage, where first deliverables had to be prepared or even finalized for publication (i.e. D2.1 Initial Reference Architecture Specification Report, D5.1 Document on user requirements). But for now, all of these studies and plans had to be turned into action items in order to get ‘pilot phase 1’ really running.
As we had agreed to make this first pilot phase an attempt in ‘object-based live broadcasting’, merging it with BBC’s overall strategy to build an IP Connected Studio, Chris Baume got us first deeply into details, how this new approach to create broadcast in an totally IP environment really works. Onward we dived into our Reference Archticture Integration process and Use Case Definitions taks to adjust the strings attached. Finally, everybody seemed content and confident that our projected model of Pilot Phase 1 is feasable.
As guests in one extra session we were able to welcome colleagues from France Televisions and Radio France Nouvoson, who gave us insights on their current achievements in binauaral and object-based audio productions.
And of course, IRCAM had also prepared many demos of their established tools and on-going developements. Especially their Wave Field Synthesis reproductions system and Higher Order Ambisonics demos with musically and aesthetically most ambitious content proofed to be a refreshment for the soul after ‘brut’ technical discussions.
