September 2008 Newsletter
2008 Annual Conference Wrap-Up
Our
2008 AHECTA Conference – held in Providence, RI, from June 18-21 – was a fine success! There were 135 registered attendees; we had 149 attendees including guests and guest speakers. Some of the first-time attendees included representatives from
Cisco Systems (sponsor of our Saturday morning breakfast),
SUNY Fredonia, Penn State University, University of Rhode Island, and more!
Conference Content
At AHECTA 2008, we experimented with having more General sessions instead of Concurrent sessions, and the feedback that we received from the membership in attendance indicates that the important topics of our industry are converging in such a way that General sessions are more useful to our members than Concurrents.
Do you agree? Let us know at
!
AHECTA is at this moment working with corporate member
TVTN to host video of many of the presentations - including our Keynote presentation by
Alive Telecommunications CEO and President of Engineering Dan Barton - but until the videos have been converted, you can view speakers’ presentations in the
Members’ Only section of the AHECTA website.
Conference Event Nights
Our Event Nights, as usual, were a fantastic time for trying new food, networking with new and familiar faces, and simply just kicking back! On Wednesday night, sponsored by
Toner Cable, attendees enjoyed finger-licking and rib-sticking barbecue and pumping DJ music at the opening reception in the Crowne Plaza Atrium. For Thursday night’s event, sponsored by mtvU, we skipped over to the Federal Reserve for scrumptious seafood and live performances from Best Music On Campus artist Ben Carter, of the University of Rhode Island, and local talent Jacklyne Tasca, from Johnson & Wales University. And on Friday night, co-sponsored by Time Warner Cable and HBO, we journeyed out to the Newport Yachting Center, to enjoy a luscious lobster dinner and the musical stylings of singer/guitarist Pat Cottrell.
Visit the website at
http://www.ahecta.org/ccc/2008/photos2008.php for some photos of the 2008 Conference, including our fantastic Event Nights.
Up Next: AHECTA 2009 - Riverwalk and The Alamo!
At our Annual Members’ Meeting on Friday morning, we announced our 2009 Conference location: San Antonio, Texas! Visit the
AHECTA News page to view the
promotional video produced by current President-Elect,
Georgia Tech's Bill Naivar.
Stay tuned to the AHECTA website and the listserv for news regarding the 2009 Conference.
AHECTA Board Elections
The 2008 Board of Directors elections closed on July 31, 2008. Congratulations to the 2008-2011 term Board members (in alphabetical order):
- Rick Brown, North Carolina State University
- Mayumi Hirtzel, University of Pennsylvania
- Tim Polk, University of Michigan
Bios for each of the current Board members are available on the AHECTA website.
On a sadder note, Tim Lorang stepped down from the Board on August 15, 2008. Tim has moved on from the University of Washington and ResearchChannel, to pursue other interests in production and broadcasting. Look for Tim as writer and producer on the PBS program Richard Bangs' Adventures with Purpose, due to air after the first of the year.
Stepping in for the remaining two years of Tim's term will be Trisha Patterson, of
FOX News. The AHECTA Board is delighted to welcome Trisha to our working ranks! Trisha's bio is available on the AHECTA website.
Student Production Awards
For those in attendance at the 2008 Annual Members’ Meeting, you know that we are currently revamping the Student Production Awards program. With viral video becoming more commonplace on college and university campuses, AHECTA is changing how we accept submissions for our Student Production Awards.
Beginning in October 2008, we will begin accepting video submissions via the
AHECTA YouTube site, at
http://www.youtube.com/ahecta.
Right now, you can view the 2008 SPA promotional video – produced by Brent Smith, Jennifer Toone, and students at member institution
Rutgers The State University of New Jersey – as well as past SPA winners. If your institution has a previous SPA-winning video that you would like to see featured on the
AHECTA YouTube site, make sure to contact SPA Chair,
Stanford University's Bob Drewes at
.
The new SPAs – with the inaugural awards being presented in 2009 – will be open to all currently-enrolled college and university students, with the added benefit of membership recruitment in the association. New SPA submission guidelines will be available on the
AHECTA YouTube site and at the AHECTA website, in October.
Look for future SPA updates – including sponsors, categories, and more – on the AHECTA listserv and website.
Member Case Study - Analog to SDI at CCSU-TV
The shift of television and media delivery from analog to digital has changed the way that many of us do our jobs - from administrators making budget decisions; to engineers and sales representatives keeping up-to-date on the latest technologies; to the technicians and service teams who crawl through conduits and customer calls. Over the next year, we will follow some case examples of AHECTA members who are moving from analog to digital delivery systems.
Our first study comes from Chad Valk, Assistant Director, Media Services, at Central Connecticut State University. Chad has been a long-time AHECTA member, whose name you probably recognize from our listserv activity. Below is the first installment in his report from CCSU.
The Media Center at Central Connecticut State University began a television studio conversion in May of 2008 to transform the studio and the department’s headend facility into a fully digital work space. The studio has been updated most recently in 2002 with some camera and control room improvements, and in 2005 with a complete lighting system rebuild. The lighting system upgrade took the 1960’s antiquated lighting controls and fixtures out of the facility and replaced them with a standard 4x4 pipe grid, Strand and BrightlineTM fixtures , Strand dimmer pack and controller. More recently, the idea was floated to convert the studio into a digital workspace. Due to the space constraints in the facility the decision was made to simply go all digital, but not high definition at this time.
The build out was planned for 2 to 3 phases. Phase 1 being completed during the summer of 2008 integrating new and old equipment as a hybrid of pure digital and converted analog to digital components. A generous one-time funding approval by our University President Jack Miller, has allowed for us to complete the entire project at once. As I write this on August 25, 2008 we are right in the middle of this upgrade and will unfortunately not be operational for the start of the semester due to some vendor and manufacturer delays. One of the biggest hurdles we have faced thus far is the discontinuation of product that was unknown to us until after orders were written. The process for acquiring the replacement product, from pricing to paperwork changes, has been time consuming.
Our headend facility is approximately 50% completed. The room was refurbished by our internal facilities department and then racks were brought back in and new consoles from Winsted were added to the mix. The room, once a 1980’s era looking space with VHS recorders and satellite receivers, has been transformed into a facility that houses modern IP based equipment, SDI monitoring, a soon to arrive Omneon server, and our channel playback capabilities now using the Leightronix Nexus as well as a digital server from Residence Life Cinema. The studio control and engineering rooms are also wired into our headend to provide support and monitoring of those areas. We affectionately call this area the “SGC”. Those of you who are Stargate fans will understand the reference.
The studio facility is receiving the greatest changeover in this whole process. We have acquired a broadcast quality set from UniSet in New York, three new Sony cameras, additional LCD prompters for all cameras, a new Echolab switcher fresh from release at NAB, a Miranda Kaleido driving the 63” heads-up display in the control room. We have also upgraded to an Allen & Heath audio board, Compix SDI CG, and new intercom and A/B playback capabilities. Along with all of this, comes a huge increase in SDI monitoring and routing equipment. We maintain mini DV and DVC Pro (via SDI) tape capabilities in all of our rooms.
The project is being facilitated completely in house by our video production and engineering units within the Media Center. Our video engineer has designed and specked most of the equipment related to the SDI environment.
Keep your eyes open for more updates from Chad and the
CCSU-TV team, as their build-out continues.
If you have a project similar to Chad's that you would like to share with other AHECTA members, contact Mayumi Hirtzel at hirtzel@isc.upenn.edu. AHECTA is here for you!
AHECTA Website Updates - Resources Page
The Resources page will be devoted to keeping our members up-to-date with new developments in our industry. These news items come directly from our members, as well as from our peer associations. You can learn about new offerings from our members - both corporate and institutional - in the way of White Papers, Case Studies, Press Releases, and more! You will also find links to websites of our peer associations. The goal of the Resources page will be to provide our membership with as much open information as we can.
Connecting Virtually
On August 20, four AHECTA institutions joined together for a video conference to discuss some ins-and-outs of IP Video on campus. Participants were Shane Godmere of
Michigan Technological University; Rick Brown and Bill Cole of
North Carolina State University; Tom Marentette of
Notre Dame University; and Christopher Cook, Mayumi Hirtzel and Gates Rhodes of the
University of Pennsylvania.
University of Pennsylvania used the LifeSize Room codec to host the h.323 IP videoconference call.
AHECTA has a national membership that extends across the country - and beyond, with members like
Brigham Young University Hawaii! - and we encourage our members to connect virtually. We already have an active listserv, we're looking into an online forum, and we support the use of all technology to communicate with each other.
If you are interested in hosting a videoconference, participating in one, or you just have an idea that you think we should address with the organization, contact us at
.
Keep checking the AHECTA website for updates regarding virtual connections between our members!
NEXT ISSUE:
- Member Spotlight - Corporate Member
- More Website Updates