Advanced Broadcast Solutions (ABS) has announced that San Jose State University has hired it to provide a comprehensive HD upgrade of the video production facilities for the School of Journalism and Mass Communications (JMC).
ABS is designing, procuring equipment, and installing the upgrades, which are expected to be completed in April.
The project is budgeted at more than $600,000 and is being funded by the Jack and Emma Anderson Fund, an $8.7 million endowment from the couple.
Work will include an overhaul of the television studio, control room and a separate newsroom “flashcam” location in the new newsroom in Dwight Bentel Hall. The new control room will use a 24-input Ross Video Carbonite 1-A M/E production switcher, a Yamaha LS9-32 digital audio console, Clear-Com intercom system and Panasonic 55-inch LED monitors.
A new Ross XPression Studio CG will connect with the school’s convergence newsroom computer system for automatic loading of graphics through a MOS gateway.
For the studio, four new HD cameras are being installed, including three Sony HXC-D70K cameras coupled with Autocue 17-inch prompters on Libec pedestals and one Sony BRC-Z330 PTZ camera mounted to the lighting grid for overhead shots. ABS is also installing custom curtains, a Pro Cyc 3B-EZ System and a new lighting package.
In the newly renovated newsroom, a “Breaking News Desk” will be used to produce live standups and other segments for Web-based news reports and Update News, the school’s television newscast. The area will also include a wall-mounted Sony PTZ camera that can be operated from the control room or with a handheld remote.
“We’ve designed an HD workflow that mirrors the file-based operations found in broadcast news environments across the country to prepare students for the real world,” explained Mark Siegel, president of ABS in a statement.
“The new system will be a viable teaching environment for years to come, and it’s been specifically engineered for future expansion.” Bob Rucker, director of the JMC School added in a statement that the new studio would be part of an effort to “create a center for social media research in Silicon Valley. We’re going to create a global learning opportunity for our school that will excite and enable our diverse student body to test their creative new media ideas and technology approaches alongside the world class experts of Silicon Valley.”
