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Spotlight
Next-Gen Video
12/27/2006
When Schopeg was able to update its video system in June 2006 as part of its TV franchise renewal, the college benefited too. Faced with no staff and minimal funding, McNerney decided to purchase a Sony AWS-G500 Anycast Station—an 18-pound “studio in a box” —along with three Sony BRC-300 remote-control cameras. “It’s worked very, very well,” McNerney says. “Using the Anycast system, we can get down to two people and still run it. Yet the system still gives us the ability to control all aspects of production.” The Anycast comprises a six-input video switcher, six-channel audio mixer, character generator or text-typing tool, built-in frame synchronizer, scale converter, and an onboard-monitor LCD screen with multiple splits, as well as a streaming encoder and server.
The system’s portability was a major consideration for McNerney. “It’s the size of a briefcase,” he says. “With wireless mikes and remote control cameras, it takes 10 minutes to set up. The monitors are built into the unit, there’s only one power cord to worry about, and the cameras just tie into it”—features that are particularly suited to the large amount of sports coverage Schopeg d'es. “It gives us the ability to be mobile and put on a quality studio broadcast in the field, without needing a truck to haul everything. It’s a very sophisticated portable studio.”
The unit has sent McNerney and his students and interns in new directions. “We are now experimenting with streaming video, and we have a fair number of computer-literate interns who are working on the ins and outs of tying it into the campus network,” he says. For students, says McNerney, the unit also provides “a chance to see where TV production is going—particularly studio production: fewer people, wireless sound, more remote cameras.”
Performing in High-Def
The Mid-Atlantic Gigapop in Philadelphia for Internet2 is one of 32 similar sites that form the backbone of Internet2 in the US. Besides serving as an “on-ramp” to Internet2 for member instutions in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, Jennifer Oxenford, MAGPI’s associate director, explains, “We also work with members to develop new projects and bring them some of the advanced technologies coming out of the internet community.”
The most exciting recent technology that MAGPI has added to its array, says Oxenford, is a LifeSize Room HD interactive-video unit. The Room system includes a codec, a LifeSize phone, and an HD camera. The system is easy to set up and assemble, says Oxenford. “We’ve been kicking the tires to see what we can do with it.”
Over Internet2, LifeSize Room provides details of sight and sound that make it an ideal tool for such applications as performing arts master classes or language classes, where being able to see and hear the speaker clearly is crucial. Initial response from users about the quality of the Life- Size videoconferences has been enthusiastic: One of the first master classes conducted over the LifeSize Room system featured composer Thomas Cabaniss, music animateur for the Philadelphia Orchestra, who, along with a small group of select musicians from The Philadelphia Orchestra, led a workshop for music fellows at the Miami-based New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy. The difference in quality was striking, says Oxenford. “You cannot do a master class over Internet1 with any sense of video or audio performance,” she says, pointing out that a 2-megabit interactive call of the sort the LifeSize Room System requires could eat up much of a school’s bandwidth, if done over a common internet connection. “Over Internet2, you’ve got that bandwidth through dedicated links, the video is better, the audio is better, and you don’t have the delay that makes the difference between something a musician in a master class can tolerate and something that just isn’t up to speed.”
Cultural exchange series are another possibility, as are events for the museum community. Says Oxenford, “To be able to see the detail in a piece of clothing—to be able to see cloth and fabric in a high-definition way—is really where we’re looking to take the unit.”
Barbara Arnn is a freelance writer and editor living in Port Townsend, WA.
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