Media Production Spaces refurbishment completed

Over the next two weeks our contractor expects to finalise a few outstanding issues in his control that remain in the Media Production areas in Building 9.

Still to be addressed are some issues outside the responsibility of the contractor that remain with the GlobeCaster video switching and effects system. These issues are the responsibility of the supplier, TechMedia. Arrangements will be made to bring TechMedia representatives down from Sydney to spend some time tuning the system when staff return from leave over the mid-year break.

Minor Works in Mid-year break

Facilities and Services will go ahead with the proposed Minor Works in the media production space in Building 9.

Facilities and Services has contracted the work to be done to open up the space in the middle of the media production area in Building 9, beginning around 25 June 2007 and to be completed before classes resume in Semester 2.

There will be no access to this area from now to allow the TSU to prepare the space for the renovations: all the equipment will need to be either removed or sealed to prevent dust from the work getting into the gear.

As a part of the minor works the operation of the air conditioning in the television studio will be assessed to see what can be done to reduce the flow and noise while not compromising the air quality.

Dickson College gift

Old equipment is put to new use

Students at Dickson College can now be involved in radio production thanks to a gift from the Division. The radio mixing console from the media production facilities in Building 9 was replaced during the recent refurbishment, and although the old one is obsolete from our point of view it is ideally suited for the College’s purposes.

Media Facilities Refurbishment

Users are now back in the media production spaces in Building 9.

All the equipment required to complete the refurbishment of the media facilities in Building 9, except for one of the monitors for the monitor wall in the television control room, has arrived.

The monitor wall should be installed (except for the last monitor, which should be delivered early next week) before the final round of activity planned for the television studio leading up to the end of Semester.

Any operational issues with the refurbished facilities should be collected by the users of the spaces and provided as a report for the contractor so that any issues can be addressed mid-year if appropriate (and the resources are available).

Users should not confuse the invitation to provide feedback with an opportunity to ask for new or different facilities to be made available: such requests should be channelled through the Division’s ICT Bid process.

BigVideo

The new Fibre to the Desktop (FTTD) system in the Journalism Editing Lab is now operational.

Journalism students using the Journalism video editing facility are now able to store and access their digital video from a central server rather than have it on individual local hard drives. With this system the students have much greater flexibility when editing their stories: they can transfer their original material from tape from any available ‘ingest’ station, and use whichever editing workstation is available when they edit their stories. If they don’t complete the edit within one session, when they return to continue work on their story they can go to any of the editing workstations and pick up where they left off, whereas before they had to use the same workstation they originally used.

Completed stories are available in the television control room over the network: by Semester 2 (or possibly sooner) the television control room will have direct access to the same storage as the students do in the editing facility, so that completed stories can be played into the live news program the students produce in the television studio without the need to copy the stories across the network.

Should the funds be available, we hope to extend the networked video editing storage to Television Production students next year.

Media Production Facilities refurbishments

Work is now almost completed on the refurbishment of the media production facilities in Building 9.

The facilities will be operational on time as planned, but there will be some additional work to be done as suppliers can provide us with equipment. There have been significant delays in the availability of the LCD monitors for the monitor wall (and no readily-available alternatives can be found), so a temporary installation of CRT monitors is being provided to ensure the television control room is ready for use in Week 11 as planned. We are also still waiting for delivery of the correct desk mounts for LCDs in the radio studio and control room: the supplier has supplied us with incorrect items twice and we are trying to get them to deliver the correct mounts as ordered. In the meantime temporary mounts will be used until the correct ones are available.

Projects for 2007

Looking ahead at the activities to occupy our time over the coming year.

With the demise of the IT Infrastructure Fund (the IT Loan), the move to leasing rather than purchasing of computers, and the general budget situation, the Technical Services Unit won’t be purchasing a lot of new equipment in 2007. This will give us the opportunity to commission or finalise a number of services and consolidate our role as a provider of specialised IT and Media services for the Division with the equipment and infrastructure we have available to us from the refresh of our services over the last few years.

Current projects of special note are:

iChatAV

After the success of the trial with Aichi Shukutoku University (ASU) in Nagoya, Japan last year, we will be putting in a permanent facility to support video chat between students here and elsewhere. The facility will be available through the Curriculum Resources Centre in Building 5.

BigVideo — Networked Video Editing Storage Solution

During Semester 1 2007 we expect to implement a networked storage solution for video editing in 9B23. Journalism students will be able to capture their original video material to the store where it can be accessed from any of the 8 workstations in the area. Students will be able to start their editing on one workstation, then return later to any of the workstations and continue their work. Once completed, their stories will be available from the store to the Television Control Room on the A floor in Building 9, where the stories can be played live into the news programs they produce as a part of their Unit.

Media Production Facilities refresh

The media production areas on the A Floor in Building 9 are being rebuilt in an effort to overcome a number of operational issues that have emerged with the facilities over the last few years. The facilities were looking a little tired, messy and outdated, so the refresh is smartening them up visually as well as technically to provide a better and more reliable experience for the users, and a more attractive facility to showcase the Division’s resources.

2006 in review

The last twelve months have been a challenging time for the Technical Services Unit: after many years of relative stability in staffing, over the last eighteen months we have lost a number of staff with between them over 100 years of experience with the University.

The transition of common services like the network, web hosting, wireless networking, staff home directories and shared network drives, helpdesk software, and soon email to ICT Services has not been easy, with TSU staff having to deal with changing responsibilities while at the same time keeping the services going. It is still unclear how much responsibility members of the TSU will continue to have to look after common services even when the services are migrated to ICT Services: a year after IELTS and ASP moved out of the Division the TSU is still required to look after many of the IT services needed to support the ongoing operations of the units.

There have, however, been many successful activities and projects undertaken during the year that often go unnoticed in the day-to-day activities of the Division. Some major highlights this year include:

Printing and photocopying in the Division

In 2006 half of the Division’s photocopiers, and desktop and large-format printer were replaced. All of the desktop printers supported by the Division will have been replaced with new printers by Semester 1, 2007. All the Division-provided photocopiers have been replaced with multifunction devices that print, copy and sometimes fax and scan. By the start of Semester 1, 2007, all the remaining large-format printers will have been replaced with multifunction devices as well: providing double the number of stations for photocopying than before, and much more efficient printing (less that one-third the cost per impression for prints than the machines they replaced).

Media production areas refit

This year saw the start of the refit of the media production areas in Building 9. The refit is designed to overcome increasing maintenance and operational problems that have arisen after years of just keeping the studios and production areas going with short-term fixes and repairs, rather than taking a good hard look at facilities as a whole and eliminating the underlying causes of the ongoing problems. The project to refit the areas is well underway, and is expected to be completed in mid 2007, depending on the requirements to keep using the facilities for teaching during semester.

Wireless access

Over the last few months the Division’s pioneering wireless networking has been taken over by ICT Services. Staff and students can now access the University network through the UCWiFi network from an expanded number of areas around the Division, using the University’s standard UCanConnect service.

Wireless networking is now available in the CRC, CLRC, ILTC, Building 5 Seminar Room, COnference Room and PG Room in Building 9, the Microteaching Rooms, and the Art Room in Building 5.

Server refresh

Many of the servers used in the Division to provide network storage, backup, printer services, enterprise systems and so on came up for replacement in 2006. With the move to centralise common services, rather than replace the systems being retired the Division took the opportunity to focus on better providing for the Division’s specialist needs to support teaching, learning and research.

With the responsibility for staff network storage going to ICT Services, we have focused on developing specialised network storage for the large demands of audio and video editing with the BigVideo Networked Video Editing Storage Solution, initially servicing the Journalism workstations and the Television Control Room.

Large storage requires even larger backup, so a larger-capacity backup system has been installed to accommodate the new demands. Server rooms in Building 9 and Building 20 have been connected with high-speed network connections to allow large files to be moved quickly and efficiently from server to server depending on where the files need to be available. For example, video files edited on the B Floor of Building 9 are included in television programs produced on the A Floor, then served though the streaming server in Building 20, after being suitably prepared, for delivery through NowUC.

Network switches

It would be wonderful to report that network switches throughout the Division are up to the University’s standard, but not yet. The good news is that Building 5 and Building 1 are now upgraded, and there is a program in place to complete the replacement of the Division’s last remaining legacy switches in Building 9 and Building 20 with current technology in 2007. The plan at the moment is to have the replacement program completed by July, 2007.

ASU iChat

Probably the highlight of the year was the successful completion of four video chat sessions between Japanese language students studying at UC with English language students studying at the Aichi Shukutoku University (ASU) in Nagoya, Japan. Live video chats gave students the opportunity to converse with native speakers of the languages they were learning with an immediacy not usually available without international travel. Plans are underway to make the service a permanent feature in the Division from Semester 1, 2007.

UCTV

…and of course UCTV. In 2006, with the support of the University’s Network Management Team, AARNet and international supporters from research networks across Europe and North America, the satellite services being received through the dishes on the top of Building 20 now travel around the world (sometimes back to their country of origin!) in full digital quality via the next-generation research networks that connect Universities and research institutions. Hopefully in 2007 the services will get to Building 9!

Media Production Area

The summer break gives the Technical Services Unit the opportunity to do maintenance of facilities.

The television and radio facilities on the A floor in Building 9 are undergoing a refit over the summer. Final student work should be completed by now, with a marketing exercise for Year 11 students from Alfred Deakin High being run over a couple of days this week the last commitment for the facilities until Semester 1 2007.

The radio area will have new desks in the studio and control room, providing all ‘balanced’ wiring and equipment to reduce the possibility of electrical interference with recordings.

The television studio will be cleaned out, with the property store regaining its original function and losing its store-room and junkyard status that it seems to have acquired over the years.

The television control room will be revamped to provide better accommodation as a teaching area, with equipment upgrades, rewiring, a new desk and better monitoring facilities planned. The control room will also join the University computer network to make it easier to manage some of the resources down there, and to move content to and from the studio electronically rather than by ‘sneaker-net’. A separate high-speed fibre network linking the editing workstations in 9B23 with central storage to video will be extended to the control room to remove the need to carry videotapes or mass-storage devices between the editing rooms and the studio.

Work is expected to be completed by the time the facilities are required for teaching in Semester 1 in 2007.

Technical advice

We've asked for some help to keep the media facilities going.

Barry Lambert has agreed to work with the Division to look over the existing media facilities and provide us with advice on what needs to be done to ensure their continued usefulness to the Division.

Jim Wise, the senior technical officer at the ABC here in Canberra, initially suggested Barry for the job. Barry has a long history of working at the ABC and elsewhere in television, including OB and studio design and construction (and reconstruction!). Barry is currently working with the ABC on studio construction in Parliament House, and spent some time here at the Senior Technical Officer in the Instructional Media Centre.

Ten year vision

We need to inform ourselves of emerging trends in the professions we teach to make sure we have the facilities in place to teach them.

The Division’s IT & Infrastructure Committee has established a working group under Brett Butler as the Chair to get some ideas from the Division about what their requirements for media facilities and services will be over the next ten years, to inform the Division’s planning on how best to use its resources.

The group is having a meeting on Friday 1 September 2006 at 2.30pm in 9C25 if anyone cares to attend.

Media in an IT Environment

A new book gives guidance on dealing with media in the Division digitally.

In his recent book, Video Systems in an IT Environment, [Focal Press, January 2006 ISBN: 0-240-80627-1] author Al Kovalick lists eight forces driving media into the IT network environment:

1. Network Infrastructure
2. CPU Compute Power
3. Storage Density, Bandwidth, and Power
4. IT Systems Manageability
5. Software Architectures
6. Interoperability
7. User Application Functionality
8. Reliability and Scalability

His argument is that these forces are the overwhelming motivations for managers to move media into the digital domain.

EDIROL R-1 issues

New technologies require new techniques.

Last year the Division purchased a number of solid-state audio devices (EDIROL R-1) for use by Journalism and New Media students to record audio for assignments. This year there have been a number of reports of recording failing or only partially recording a segment, and some reports of corrupted recordings.

The manufacturers and other users of the devices outside the University have been canvassed about the problems, and it seems that better understanding of how the devices record and operate will reduce (or eliminate) the frequency of errors.

Instructions for the use of the devices have been refined, and users are being warned about the possibilities of recordings failing or being corrupted if a few simple procedures aren’t followed. There don’t appear to be widespread issues with the devices if care is taken with their use.