Governors State University Switches to Campuswide Audio-over-IP Network
A project that began as a simple upgrade to the campus broadcast production center at Governors State University
in Illinois has expanded to a campuswide audio-over-IP network
supporting the campus meeting hall, classrooms and nursing labs, in
addition to cable TV broadcasts, theater performances and sports
broadcasting.
The campus production center is home to two
television studios, two control rooms, a master control center for the
university's local cable access channel, and multiple editing suites
and audio production rooms. Originally, the facility used a fairly
traditional broadcast infrastructure, consisting of off-the-shelf Cisco
switches and standard network cabling, but the growing need to manage
multichannel audio for video productions and remote audio from off-site
production locations was pushing the limits of the center's audio
network.
Charles Nolley, vice president of media marketing and
communications at GSU, wanted to upgrade to a system that was flexible,
scalable, easy to use, and that offered exceptional audio quality
across multiple points, while also controlling costs. After evaluating
numerous audio networking systems, he selected a dedicated Dante
audio-over-IP network from Audinate.
The
system uses the university's existing dark fiber network and includes
Dante-enabled hardware from Focusrite, Shure, Studio Technologies,
Symetrix and Yamaha, and it supports low-latency distribution of more
than 500 channels between multiple locations on campus. "Dante has all
these systems talking to each other, and it gives us incredible
flexibility in configuring channels," Nolley said in a prepared
statement. "Dante's signal quality has also cleaned up a lot of the
artifacts moving between our intercoms and cameras."
Initially,
the university used the Dante network to improve its studio
infrastructure, but soon realized its potential to support other campus
audio systems. The Dante audio-over-IP now supports theater
performances, live sports broadcasts, a surround sound system in the
main campus meeting hall and a portable audio conferencing system for
use in classrooms or other campus locations. The university also
implemented a separate Dante network for its new nursing labs, so
professors can remotely monitor multiple student nurses as they
interact with patients and communicate with them privately using
wireless in-ear monitors.
"We originally just looked at digital
audio networking to improve our studio infrastructure, but the longer
we have had Dante, the more we have realized we can do so much more
with the technology...." Nolley said. "And it's so easy to use that we
now have students configuring and running setups across campus by
themselves. It has enriched the education of our students enormously,
because they are now very empowered to quickly understand how to use
this technology across many applications. That simply was not possible
before."
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].