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I'm
serving as the...
I'm in broadcasting services of WKAR TV and interactive video services and my
position here is
station enterprise manager.
And as of
probably as of Monday I'm reasuming the
responsibility for managing our production facilities, those would be for WKAR TV and
interactive video
services.
I'm speaking with you today as
as someone who
has been acquiring...
working in an organization that's been acquiring video for distribution in an
academic environment since the early sixties at Interactive Television. I forget
all the
names that this group has had over the years but beginning back in
Erickson Hall back in
the sixties
we were distributing
classroom television across campus on the cable system, that's how we started.
Classes,
basically for classes that had too many students to fit in one room, so we
put students in a number of different rooms
across campus and we put it on campus cable.
That's how we started.
We still have that capability although we're not doing very much of that currently.
But we've evolved over the years to serve basically that function.
We're gathering academic
information
on video
to distribute
to distance learners,
and we're doing that currently.
You know as we expanded
beyond cable television we began using video conferencing as one of our
tools where
we're connecting via
video conferencing technology
to sites across the country, across the world, really, in two way interactive video
applications for academic instructions.
We also do it for a lot of meetings, for grant proposal meetings, that sort of thing.
But we are able to serve from our facilities.
Audiences using complete
interactive two-way video and audio.
We use that,we can do that both in our IBS facilities as well as our larger facilities
for WKAR TV.
Then
growing out of
the video conferencing we began doing webcasting.
And currently what we're doing in webcasting is
either on a live basis from either one of our facilities or a facility on campus.
We will go out and began with an encoder and begin streaming
live video
to a web site.
Usually that web site is our web site, which is wmsu.org,
where there may be a speaker in Kellogg Center or at the Henry Center.
We will go out and we have a camera in the back of the room, usually a single camera
in the back of the room where we're getting an audio feed
and we're putting it out on the web for live
consumption.
When we do live
we usually
capture it as well and we will put it up as an archive as well.
So we have we have the ability to do that
basically anywhere on campus we can go out there. Or anywhere even off campus if we
can get that band width to get back to
our
server,
which is real media currently.
What else?
Okay so we do live,
on demand, and archival webcasts. More recently we've gotten into podcast productions.
I'll delay talking too much about that because we
essentially provide productions support
for the UDAT and I'll let them
talk a little bit more about what we're doing in podcasting. But we're a support to it
more so than actually developing that.
So really I'm here today
giving that background to say
that what we do is aquire video, and I really don't care where it's going.
I don't care if we're using cable, I don't care if we're using a webcast, I don't care if we're
using video conferencing, I don't care if we
do satellite distribution. To me
we're aquring video and
it doesn't matter to me how it's getting out to the audience.
Having said that,
my passion
it's to make a good
video.
There are some things that
we have to offer in doing that. Rather than,
I would say if you're aquiring video for the web come and see us, or
come and see Kevin
who will be talking to you later. Because
there are things that the production experience is going to lend to your project
that you're not going to get
by
taking your home camera
into the classroom.
So anyway that's what we do, we aquire video
professionally for you.
And we do that using a number of our different facilities, and Bill's going to assist me here.
One of them is this room,
we have three video origination classrooms.
This room seating 98, we have two across the street in the Engineering Buidling that seat
about 35 apiece.
And then we have a video conference room up on the second floor of this building
that I'm looking at here.
Okay, that's the conference room upstairs.
This
is
our Studio A
in the WKAR studios
and we do use that for
for large-scale really nice
production activities. You can see
the broad screen, the beautiful lighting, we're seating probably up to a 150
people in this studio environment.
And
again we're aquiring video, we can distribute
it any way you want
and it doesn't matter really to me how you do it.
I'll just expand on this
at little bit.
What's neat about this, and
Doug's mentioned that we've streamed
live material from all around campus.
And as the
web designer
for the organization, the site that we made ten years ago--wmsu.org-- to
serve a lot all of that.
Well Doug's been
marshalling the
forces to
get that material out there,
you know I see the output
and help to get it out for those people.
What's really cool about
the range of facilities
that fits under what broadcasting services is,
so often
there is an event that people want to capture and stream
and the event is placed
in a spot and
you have to bring in the stuff to capture
and to stream it.
And it's good for people to know that some things like,
and it's kind of small I know,
but the Studio A set up here that's an elaborate thing that would be the kind of thing
you might see this if you go to the Kellogg Center or if you go to a hotel conference
and where you got
two podiums and you've got place, and you've got a big screen, and you've got an audience.
With a facility like Studio A
we have the ability to set that up.
In that picture there, there are two podiums,
there are also two teleprompters,
there's an upscreen display, there's
a control center
at the back where there are people punching across the sources like they are
in this room.
And it
really is set up to what happens in this room.
We can do the presentation that people like to do and
it can be captured inside out.
And just if you don't mind,
this room for example
is set up
you know
when we go on location and do the single camera shoot that that has happened so many times.
And you'll see this, you'll have the experience of
when you get to a question and answer period.
Sure the people in the room can hear the questions, but the people watching online later
don't hear the questions because there's not really a mic out there.
And if you look up there are mics when we get to the question and answer with the panel,
we've got mics out there.
And that is a robocam back there so when people ask questions there can be a
camera.
In here
what the folks in this room are seeing
isn't quite what somebody at a remote site could see
because
with the switcher that's in the back,
we have a technical director back there who for the program up is switching between
the shot here
and a shot on the screen
and might be getting reaction shots and things like that.
Now that's not something you say on a whim
"Let's go over to
these facilities and do it", but it's the kind of thing that if you have
projects coming up and people know that the facilities are available
if their projects down the road
where there's grant writing to get
an event capture or something like that.
The stuff is here to do some pretty cool stuff.
I guess that's what I was trying to say.
Come to us and let us work with you on developing a production plan,
rather than have it be an afterthought that "Oh I have this speaker,
wouldn't it be nice to put this on the web".
Come to us ahead of time and let's say
how can we best put it on the web so people are really going to watch it.
I mean I get requests
to go over to Kellogg Center and shoot
eight hours of video
because they want to put it on the web, and we come back we digitize eight hours of
video. Well
do you think anyone's going to watch 8 hours of video
with a single camera shot in the back of the room?
And of course they will. It's a great service to provide
and of course they will.
But there are levels,
there are ways to
make the product better.