Summary: Terrific and has already changed my concertgoing planning. Disclaimer: For the whoof to follow, let me state I am not affiliated with the Berlin Philharmonic in any way === I recently took the season pass to the nearly concluded 2008/2009 season of the Berlin Philharmonic through their Digital Concert Hall service. It cost 89 Euros and I will have access to archived performances as well as a couple more live streams left this season. The deal runs out on 27 August 2009 and the same deal for next season will cost 149 Euros. My primary computer system is an IBM T60 notebookrunning Windows XP with a 2GHz processor, 2GB RAM, and 15" widescreen display. Internet service is cable modem. I can achieve wireless download speeds exceeding 6MBps and often 2x that, depending on the speed test server. I hook the headphone output to a ~$75 pair of Creative Labs compact powered speaker cubes with subwoofer. There are several demos and a streaming speed test that are available from the site prior to purchasing any of the many offerings from single concerts to the full pass. Since my initial interest in January of this year, they've added trailers to several concerts. These two to three minute segments show the video and audio capabilities and allow one to honestly test one's configuration before committing. There are also educational videos and films touching on the BPO's missions beyond performance. Impressed by the snippets, it took me five minutes to set up an account, confirm it by email, and execute the online transaction. It hasn't posted to my credit card yet so I don't know what MasterCard is going to do to me but the 89 Euros was a flat number. No fees like we see in the U.S. for Ticketmaster or other middlemen. I hit refresh and had immediate subscriber access to the archives. Low, medium, and high video quality formats are offered and purchasing the subscription adds a full screen view button to the player not present in the trailers. Sound quality is set at one, high level and doesn't vary as far as I could tell. There is not much difference between the medium and high quality video - both are excellent in full screen view. In non-full screen view, the high quality frame is slightly larger than medium which in turn is much larger than the low. My sound system is definitely not high end but I got the elusive immersive feel between it and the picture. I listended to Uchida playing Grieg, Rattle leading Brahms Second, a horn quartet, parts of Messiaen's Turangalila, Mullova playing Stravinsky, and others. The system allows watching a concert start-to-finish or selecting particular pieces. The high definition videography is impressive. I believe they have several fully articulated cameras throughout the hall and it looks like a lot of thought goes into determining candidate shots, zooms, and transitions depending on the piece. Right now the interface is very clean and the video is allowed to speak for itself. I think this could grow in the near future to giving users a selection of shots along with the primary stream. I also hope they add a search feature in the near future. On 17 May, I tried the first available live stream since subscribing and was equally impressed although there are some technical differences to note. Ozawa conducted Mendelssohn's Elijah. I could get the broadcast in low and medium quality but high quality was very choppy. I ultimately went to a direct, wired connection from the laptop to the cable modem, bypassing all wireless links but this did not change matters much. Fortunately, the same dead heat between medium and high video qualty applied in the live stream and this makes no difference to me, at least. There were some coughlike dropouts in the medium quality webcast but they were short and the system recovered with no intervention. The synchronization between audio and video was surprisingly good. Not being a choral music fan, I know little about the piece. I was able to download the full score from IMSLP, have it open side-by-side, and verify that the lip movements and bowstrokes matched what I was hearing. If there were a lag, I could not perceive it. The directors kept a very good balance among the soloists, chorus, orchestra, and conductor. Neither boring nor hyperkinetic. I tried wireless, wired to router, and wired to cable modem and apart from reloading the page when needed, the quality did not change. I went back to wireless and walked the laptop around the house. No change there, either. The long intermission was filled by a recorded green room discussion in English between Ozawa and hornist Fergus McWilliam. Longtime colleagues, they spoke mostly of good times and the benevolence of Karajan. I stopped after a few minutes of the second half. Again, this isn't my cup of musical tea but it was a fine chance to see what the service could do. Hats off to the team that put this all together. I don't know how long it was in the making but they must have sweated a lot of details to make it all flow so nicely and fit so well. So much so that I've contacted the LA Phil and arranged to rescind my renewal for 2009/10. The BPO meets my concert needs at a good price and with astonishing convenience. http://dch.berliner-philharmoniker.de/#/en/ or http://dch.berliner-philharmoniker.de Ravi Narasimhan Redondo Beach, CA *********************************************** The CLASSICAL mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's HDMail High Deliverability Mailer for reliable, lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html