AZCAR Keeps Media Educators on Technology’s Leading Edge

As rapidly as the technology surrounding traditional and new media operations is changing, educational institutions specializing in broadcast journalism and media studies need to be on top of new innovations so that their students have a relevant experience as it relates to today’s job market. 

So when the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) was seeking to build a 29,000 square foot media facility on the first floor of Greenspun Hall to house the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies, it turned to AZCAR.  

“Azcar worked very hard to keep key members of the Journalism School informed and involved through every phase of the project, from conceptualization to completion,” says Laurel Fruth, assistant director of the School of Journalism and Media Studies and General Manager of UNLV-TV. “They helped us stay within budget, worked on our behalf with outside vendors and responded quickly and efficiently to problems.”

With 350 students, 15 full-time faculty and 10 staff, the facility boasts UNLV TV, a self supporting unit and KUNV Radio, the university’s FM radio station, both housed within the School of Journalism and Media Studies.  The media facility includes two television studios, a radio performance studio, on-air radio studio, a radio newsroom, a television newsroom with eight editing stations, two television post-production suites, two radio post-production suites, an ingest station, a teaching laboratory, a technical operations room and 18 editing stations. The television facility uses Avid Media Composers for editing, a 32-terabyte ISIS Interplay for storage and content management and Avid Air Speed for delivery. 

“We were seeking to create a technologically sophisticated learning environment for journalism and media studies students that closely resembles what they will encounter when they begin their professional lives,” says Fruth. “The new facility enabled us to transition from analog to high-definition television, freed us from tape-based delivery and streamlined our workflow.”

The new facility also enabled UNLV to move its radio station from an off-campus location back to the heart of campus and create new student laboratories and workspaces to allow faculty to study innovative and emerging technology. In addition, the new facility would not have been possible without significant contributions on the part of Avid and Sony.

“The crew was unfailingly courteous and professional, lead project engineer Hakim Kharbut was in constant contact with our engineering staff throughout the construction, and project manager Bruce Long made sure that we had the people and resources needed to complete the facility before the start of our Spring semester,” says Fruth. “The Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies clearly made the right decision by retaining Azcar as the broadcast system integrator for our media facility in Greenspun Hall.”

Fruth says that there has been an increase in productivity both in the classroom and the radio and television professional units.

“We attribute this increase in productivity to a number of factors,” she says, “including:  the shared storage editing environment that allows students to collaborate on projects; the increase in editing stations for both radio and TV; integrated workflow with i-News and Interplay; and the simple fact that we finally have enough cameras for students to use in the field.”

The Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies is one of the six departments of the University.

“Because of the new facility, we are now able to produce a daily television newscast and the purchase of a Hybrid Digital transmitter enabled the radio station to develop a radio news program for our students,” says Fruth.  “Most importantly, we have seen a significant increase in the number of students inquiring about our program.”

http://journalism.unlv.edu/
http://kunv.unlv.edu/

When Oklahoma City officials began a major renovation of the Ford Center, home of the NBA Oklahoma City Thunder, AZCAR was called on to deliver a new HD Video Replay Control Room.

AZCAR worked closely with the City, the Thunder franchise and the Icon Venue Group in the design and build of the facility’s new HD Video Replay Control Room under a tight timeline and budget.

Rob Hedrick, Digital Media Production Manager for the Oklahoma Thunder, "The AZCAR team was very professional and a pleasure to work with,” he said. “AZCAR kept the project on time under arduous time constraints and provided valuable experience and met every need while remaining budget conscious. Our new production control facility meets every expectation."

“The AZCAR design team overcame space limitations necessitated by the unique arena design delivering a highly functional control room”, said Doug Houston, AZCAR’s Regional Business Development Manager.

AZCAR is an independent broadcast and multimedia professional services organization offering a wide range of innovative digital media solutions to broadcast, and media companies, as well as non-profit organizations, government, and multi-purpose sports and entertainment venues. AZCAR’s service offerings include technology solutions consulting, systems design and integration, digital media content production systems, program distribution systems, and audio visual professional systems. AZCAR serves clients from offices in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

The central core facilities included large N-Vision wideband audio and video routers. NFL Network challenged AZCAR’s team to quickly design and build these additional facilities in time for live coverage of the NFL regular season games that began on Thanksgiving, 2006. NFL Network is home to live regular season games and NFL game re-airs, with exclusive NFL Films footage of the top games from the week.

During the move, PSPB also wanted to upgrade its core infrastructure from analog to digital to be ready for a future move to a full high definition broadcast facility. The new PSPB facility includes new digital video and audio routing switchers, digital SD and HD multi-stream master control with multiimage monitor wall, new digital terminal gear, digital intercom and a range of conversion equipment for maintaining the use of critical analog legacy hardware.

Additionally, the move required the relocation of STL/TSL microwave systems serving two transmitter sites, several satellite antennas including the station’s primary 6.1m PBS dish, the installation of 3 new steerable 4.8m antennas along with a new digital production switcher and character generator for the PSPB production suite.

This large Network Operations Center (NOC) project represents a continuation of our many successes in Public Broadcasting. Projects such as AETN in Arkansas, PPTN in Pennsylvania, WQPT in Illinois, and WPSX in Pennsylvania are just a few. AZCAR has demonstrated our expertise in High Definition TV production and transmission facilities at commercial and public broadcast facilities for over 6 years. UNC-TV is North Carolina's statewide digital public television network, made possible by a unique partnership of public investment and private support.