Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Moves Towards HD and Tapeless with Bluefish444
08 September, 2016
Founded in 1957, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) is a major public university, offering a broad choice of degrees and programs ranging from career-oriented fields of study to traditional liberal arts. Southern Illinois University Edwardsville serves the most populous region of downstate Illinois and offers undergraduate programs and masters’ programs encompassing instruction in arts and sciences, education, social services, business, engineering, and the health professions.
The Department of Mass Communications (DMC) at SIUE offers B.A. and M.Sc. degrees. Students in its program develop the understanding of media messages and hands-on skills in media production. Students choose one of the four professional options offered at the school: print and electronic journalism, media advertising, television and radio, and corporate and institutional media. Its students create documentary films, television shows, radio programs and digital animation in state-of-art studios, write for our award-winning newspaper, and develop advertising campaign. The Department of Mass Communications is accredited by the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications—one of only 111 such programs worldwide.
DMC has 10 Epoch | Neutron cards in its Avid Media Composer Workstations, which have been installed for 14 months. The AVID Media Composer Edit systems featuring Bluefish444 Epoch | Neutron cards are connected to AVID ISIS 5000 and ISIS 5500 shared storage complete with System Director and Interplay for asset metadata management. It recently installed two Bluefish444 Synapse ANA 140 analog to SDI converters. DMC uses the Bluefish444 equipment in its Non-Linear Video Editing Lab, which is a standalone environment.
DMC is in the process of converting to a HD and tapeless workflow. It still has three tape-based camcorders that get occasional use, and it needed a way to ingest material into Media Composer. The newest workstations in its lab didn’t have Firewire, so the Synapse converters provided the answer for ingesting via SDI inputs of the Epoch | Neutron cards into AVID Media Composer. When DMC went primarily HD in the editing lab, it needed a way to output video/audio to its edit monitors, and the Epoch | Neutron video cards do this effectively and also provide an SDI input to its workstations, able to be fed from the Synapse ANA140 converters. Video editing projects is the biggest area where DMC had a need to combine analog SD and digital HD material, and the Bluefish444 cards handle it seamlessly. One of the differentiators of the Bluefish444 video IO card is the free IngeSTore software that comes with them.
Bluefish444 video cards and the Open IO support for AVID Media Composer allows DMC to ingest DNxHD material with IngeSTore software while continuing to edit within AVID at the same time.
When considering a solution to meet its needs, DMC really didn’t consider any other cards. Wayne Mills, Broadcasting Engineer Foreman, AVID Certified Media Composer Instructor / AVID Certified Media Composer Support Representative at DMC/SIUE, states, “I attended Avid Connect 2015, where I met Craige Mott, Managing Director of Bluefish444. I explained our issues, and Craige was extremely helpful and knowledgeable, and demonstrated the solutions I was looking for. I did consider other converter products, but after reviewing our workflow and seeing how well the Neutron cards worked, going with Bluefish444 was an easy decision.”
He continues, “Both products work great. We are very happy with the performance and the economy of the products. They were easy to configure out of the box, and they do what we need them to do. I believe they have solved two important issues in our video editing workflow and they have performed rock-solid.”
Looking towards the future, he comments, “It’s no secret that videotape is being phased out, and that is reflected in the changes to our workflow. However, at least in the interim, as we go completely tapeless, it’s good to know there is a company that will provide assistance to us as we have a foot in the analog world and a foot in the digital world. Without a doubt, this will be a long-term transition, and I’m confident as other hurdles manifest themselves, Bluefish444 will provide the solutions for us at SIUE.”
