Press

 
New Exhibit Debuts at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

New York, NY, April 6, 1998 — Tumble Interactive Media announced today that it had created the "World's Largest Jukebox" for the new Hall of Fame wing at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio. Using digital audio compression technology supplied by Hall of Fame sponsor AT&T, Tumble designed and programmed an interactive exhibit that contains over 27,000 songs-virtually every recording ever made by Hall of Fame inductees.

Four listening stations, each equipped with a touch screen, two headphones, and an easy-to-use interface, allow visitors to search for songs by artists, album, song title, or the year of the artist's induction into the Hall of Fame. This astonishing archive of songs, the most complete source of recordings of Hall of Fame inductees in the world, lets visitors listen to virtually any song recorded by the Hall of Fame's 140 inductees. The system also contains a biography and discography of each inductee as well as their photo and pictures of every one of their album covers.

The touch-screen interface allows vistors to select their favorite songs by Hall of Fame inductees.


Cal Vornberger, President of Tumble Interactive, joined Hall of Fame inductees Bo Diddley, Joe Walsh of the Eagles, Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, Little Richard, Ike Turner, and Jan Wenner, publisher of Rolling Stone Magazine in celebrating the opening of the new 5,500 square foot Hall of Fame at a party given at the Museum on Thursday, April 2.

"It was terrific watching Michelle Phillips and Jan Wenner at one of the listening stations dancing to the music of the Mamas and Papas," commented Vornberger. "There are so many songs in the jukebox that we calculate you could listen for 24 hours a day for more than fifty days before you hear every song."

Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas sings along with one of her recordings.


Typically, a single minute of CD-quality audio consumes 11 megabytes of disk space. By using AT&T's compression technology, Tumble was able to shrink songs to 1/10 of their size, without the perceptible loss of quality. It still took 85 gigabytes of disk space to store over 27,000 songs.

Tumble created custom software that allows the compressed audio to stream to each listening station from a server, via an HTTP process. In fact, the jukebox is on an Intranet, using IP addressing and Netscape's Enterprise Server to send audio files to listening stations. A database written in Microsoft's Access keeps track of all the information, and the client software, created using Macromedia's Director, provides a stylish, yet simple-to-use interface for accessing songs.

Museum personnel use Netscape Navigator to edit information on the system. They can update song titles, album names, and biographical information about inductees, all from their desktop computers.

The listening stations get their information from a server with a Pentium II processor running at 266 MHz. The server has 128 MB of memory and an 88 gigabyte disk array. A second server, with the identical configuration, mirrors the first. The second server acts as a back up and immediately comes on line, should the primary server fail. The listening stations have a 17" MicroTouch touchscreen and a PC with a 266 MHz Pentium II processor running Windows 95. All machines are connected to a 100BaseT network through a Cisco hub.

Tumble's Director of Programming, Albert James, designed the database and modified AT&T's audio player software, adding code that would stream audio from the server to individual stations. Using this method, songs play immediately upon selection, with no detectable delay. Because of this design, it is easy to add more stations. Up to 40 additional listening stations can be added to the system, without slowing it down.

Stuart Hunt wrote the Lingo code for the client machines, creating sophisticated database connectivity and Internet functions using Director's native programming language. Tumble's President Cal Vornberger designed the system, supervised its installation, and served as Creative Director on the project.

Tumble Interactive Media, Inc. (tumbleinteractive.com), a full-service new media development company based in the TriBeCa area of Manhattan, is known for creating award-winning interactive multimedia projects. Tumble's clients include: ABC Television, IBM, Novartis, The Hearst Corporation, GQ, The NBA, Time Warner, The United States Naval Academy, Barnes and Noble, and Motorola, to name a few.