I am happy to announce that the Mediacom Studio website, www.mediacomstudio.com, has just been created by Christina and myself.
Mediacom Studio is a state-of-the-art audio and video production facility for Communication Studies students at the University of Mauritius. The studio will be fully operational for the 2008-2009 academic year. The studio has been funded by one agency of the UNESCO to promote the development of professional journalism in Mauritius.
The project was conceived by Christina and was approved by the UNESCO in 2007.
My contribution to the whole project was to help Christina select the equipment to acquire for the studio. This was a tough exercise as we were constrained by the budget and what equipment we could order in Mauritius. Nevertheless, we managed to come up with a very balanced and functionally rich list of equipment in my opinion:
- Apple iMac computers with Leopard, iLife ’08 and iWork ’08
- Panasonic HDC-SD5 HD camcorders with tripod and lighting kit
- Olympus WS-300M audio recorders with external microphone
- Sennheiser PC151 noise canceling headsets with microphone
Initially, the students will use iMovie ’08 for video editing. This is what I use at home and I find it excellent for beginners. We have also acquired one license of Final Cut Express for those students who want to use a more professional video editing software.
For viewing their creations, the students will be able to transfer their rendered files to an Apple TV connected to a Philips LCD TV. Additionally, they’ll be able to post their movies online on www.mediacomstudio.com for discerning people like you to enjoy…
Phew.
This is cool. Seriously cool! And all those cute macs! *drools*
If only all of Uni’s labs were like this! :(
can any students have access to these labs?
Not yet.
It’s possible, of course, for an academic to request a slot and do a formal lab session there… as from next semester.
[AAAAaaa]What?!! you got macs in this lab? you gotta be kidding me! well, am one jealous guy on campus :/
anyway, you and Christina did a great job. congratulations!
;)
Thanks.
Let’s hope those beautiful devices don’t get broken too quickly :-(
very interesting and hope to see some nice piece of work.
might seem like a stupid question, but if money was an issue, y opt for macs?
Folks there are only 4 MACS…. take a normal CSE Class Size, this will imply 10 students per MAC…lol!!!
Gavin
To Vicks:
Because they are cheaper :-)
When you add up the price of the hardware, the OS and the software you get when you buy a Mac, you realise that they are not really pricey compared to an equivalent Dell or HP with software of the same quality.
The other thing is that we have 3CCD semi-pro cameras which are HD and only Apple has managed to have a workflow which works well with HD without being too expensive namely:
HD camera -> iMac + iMovie ’08 -> Apple TV -> LCD
I really don’t know how I could have done the same thing using another platform at the same price.
Remember that we are talking of non-geeks here. They need something which works out of the box. And, as far as I know, only Apple does this for HD.
To Gavin:
True. There are only 4 fully equipped iMacs. And 4 HD cameras. And 8 voice recorders. Sufficient for the time being for the 15-20 students that Christina has. But grossly insufficient for our CSE students :-)
But to be frank, I did not think of our CSE students when deciding upon the equipment. Our students already have Lab 1.8 and MCID :-)
Congrats!
It surely must have been an onerous exercise gear-hunting and juggling with the limited budget. But the end results are here!!
Hope to watch the first mini-documentaries and podcasts on-line soon!!
I suppose, for most students, getting the grips on iMovie ’08 will be a lot easier/faster than learning to use Final Cut. Do you currently have training sessions on video-editing and techniques in the Communication Studies curricumlum?
P.S: Any pics of the Philips LCD TV wired to the Apple TV?!?
i always thought of mac as being something pricy and prestigious :P but in your case maybe you’re right.
btw can’t we find some agency to promote IT.. some kinda grant for the department will be nice too lol :)
To David:
We’ll have more pictures soon… As for the Comms curriculum, there are provisions for lectures being done in labs (this is cool) and therefore students will learn how to do video editing while the lecturer explains the most important points to know. They have been doing this for Desktop Publishing for years. Now they’ll have to do that for Audio and Video Editing.
To Vicks:
Try to find one such agency and let me know.
Congrats Avinash and Christina :)
That’s really good news for comm guys up there. Uom really lacked such facilities. It’s a great start!
Thanks!
Great. Atleast some students will benefit from very good quality labs. I see sennheisers in your config…thats very good. Excellent product; PC 151.
BTW, you got those sennheiser in mauritius? I got my hd485 from uk.
Yep. We got them through Damoo. They had to order it from their supplier though…
Oh Damoo Music Shop, Port Louis.
It would be good if you register the PC 151’s…thus you can get some technical assistance in case there is any problem….from sennheiser(germany) itself.
Thanks for the tip, Sandeep.
my iMac is bigger :p dream lusers :p
as for the multimedia facility .. great job.. and yes Macs definitely are great a video editing :p
“Let’s hope those beautiful devices don’t get broken too quickly”
I think we all know the Mauritian mentality of not thinking collectively: that these expensive machines belong to one and all. It’s always a painstaking job to make these young adults think differently than let’s say, when they were 15.
I wanted to have some info on how u got those sennheisers and if they charge an amount for delivery here as compared to it original price. If so, by how much?
And where is Damoo situated at Port Louis ? Because I want to buy 1 But I don’t know how to proceed ? And LASTLY how u ordered yours ?
I sent you an email with some details…
Hi! i am against the myth of mac!
i personally use a pc pentium 4(not even dual-core) 1gb ram and 500gb hard disk to do music production. i have a roland keyboard hooked up via midi and a extreme xifi elite pro as sound card.
(through which i record vocal and even electric guitar with a high impedence gain amplifier build in – 3inputs simultaneously).
Has been using creative 5.1 platinium for many years however -has just shifted one year back. i use latency of 7ms with asio drivers — almost realtime playback and uses virtual instrument VST,DIRECTX DXI. syncronising video is done using Nuendo something like cubase but for multimedia production studio….cubase/cakewalk is for music production.
Nuendo allows networking and sharing processes among pcs. through pipes….effects can be rendered on one pc, sampling on another etc using a time code syncronisation. and FireWire connection or lan card (i use lan cards).
I have been through some well known music studio in mauritius but none up to now implement these capabilities fully…all use dedicated hardware. but not upgradable… a complete software studio as powerfull is easily implementable. Output from one software can be routed to the other using piping softwares for audio(tried and tested). MIDI too can using for example midi yoke or midi over lan…
video can be done with adobe premier and aftereffects in which i have far less experience however…but i have recently explored the adobe cs4 suite master collection and find it a tightly integrated suite for production of any type. Audition previously syntrillium CoolEdit 2.0, bridge to bridge the gaps! etc. Have never tried the FinalCut and would like to be able to compare!!! regards
I agree. A PC with Windows, some additional hardware and a lot of additional software make a great studio. I can also say that my MacBook with the included Garageband or the relatively cheap Logic Express is not that bad :-)
Hi!
I have a Hercules DJ Console. I hear crackles in sound when I use the ASIO driver even after setting it to 21ms. Do you think it’s WIndows Vista that’s the problem?
However, while recording music, and playing back, there’s no more crackles. I guess that my computer is not fast enough to deliver the ASIO sound card the data at the time required.
In a few days I’ll revert to Winsdows XP to see if I still hear theses.