Project Of The Month – August 2024: Albertville Innovation Institute

The standard for high school broadcast programs has been set…

Albertville Innovation Academy at Albertville High School is ready for the new year with a top of the line studio and control room.

The VizRt TriCaster TC1 is the center piece of the workflow. Featuring 3 Blackmagic Design (BMD) Studio 6K cameras with Canon lenses and a pair of Newtek PTZ2 cameras, the workflow allows the teacher, Billy Dunn, and his students to create a variety of amazing shots. The team will use a TriCaster Flex control surface to switch their shows. The flex offers a lot of things for Dunn. Using NDI, he could take the control surface out of the control room and use it in his classroom in order to teach the basics of studio production and switching without having the distractions that come with being in a studio/control room. Also, the flex is eye catching and a great subtle marketing tool for the program.

All of the control room equipment is housed in six bays of a Watson Unlimited broadcast console. Each bay has a role for students and the rackmounted equipment is out of the way from the students but easily accessible in the case of trouble shooting or making changes.

The Blackmagic Design cameras are paired with BMD Studio converters and Ikan teleprompters. The Amitrace Engineers utilized a POE injector system to power the teleprompters. The team used BMD Studio Converters to power the camera, receive images from the camera, and well as tally lights. The signal for the teleprompter is sent to the prompter via the HDMI out on the studio camera. This means each teleprompter and camera only has two ethernet cables running to them. This will help keep a nice clean studio floor.

When not in use, the cameras are rolled out of the middle of the floor and placed along a wall with cable management hooks that allows Dunn and his students to move in the studio for lessons or other projects with ease.

The cameras are mounted on Ikan pedestals. These allow the students to easily raise and lower the camera to get proper framing on the talent no matter the height difference. This also allows Dunn to change the look of his show from talent seated to standing with ease.
The studio features a custom physical set with the Albertville Innovation Institute logo and a 55 inch TV that can be used for OTS feeds or additional logo placement. The set allows for additional branding and really creates a professional look for the studio. The cinderblock walls are a thing of the past and a real set takes the whole production to another level.

This project is our first installation of the Ikan Lyra POE lights. 12 units were deployed and mounted to the drop ceiling in the studio. These low profile lights allow the students work in the room without fear of hitting their head or tripping over light stands on the floor. For the Amitrace engineers, simply running one cable to each light was a relief. There is no longer a need to run power and DMX feeds for each fixture and having to manage the additional cables in a way that complies with local electrical codes.

The lights make the custom set pop on camera. The team at Albertville have a custom set designed with their logo prominently placed as well as a 55 in monitor that is routed to the TriCaster so the screen can be used for graphics or for footage.

Studio audio is handled via a Mackie 1604VLZ4. The studio talent will use Sony ECM-44b lavalier microphones from a HOSA snake. The key for this set up is the DDR audio from the TriCaster is run through the sound board so the audio engineer can manage the audio levels coming from the student produced packages – which are always plagued with audio level issues.

For graphics, the students have a pair of computers with options. The workflow includes two ProPresenter 7 licenses and Captivate Sport. The two ProPresenter machines allow for students students to layer graphics or use the second ProPresenter set up for video playback if they don’t want to use the DDRs in the TriCaster. This is also a way for Dunn to get more students involved in the show.

Captivate Sport from NewBlueFX is installed on a laptop so Dunn and his students can use the graphics solution during their mobile productions. Captivate is installed on the same computer as the secondary ProPresenter install so the students can create non-sports graphics for Fine Arts and Community event productions.

Dunn and his team have a mobile broadcast kit with a TriCaster Mini X at its core. The mobile kit features a small control surface, Canon cameras, HollyLand wireless systems, and Magewell NDI converters so that Dunn and his team can run up to 7 cameras with the Mini X. The eighth channel on the Mini X will be for the graphics solution of choice.

For remote broadcast audio, The team will utilize a Henry Engineering Sportcaster system with three Sportspods. This will allow the on-air talent to do all of the things you would expect including a producer feed with talkback and cueing for field reports and more.

Dunn and his students have the ability to create podcasts with a Tascam Mixcast 4 and Tascam TM-70 microphones. Dunn stated that not having a specific place in his studio for podcasting is excited as he will be able to move and get more content in different spaces.

For field work, Dunn and his students will use the JVC GYHM180 cameras with a combination of Sony (ECM-44) and Shure microphones. Dunn also has a set of BMD Pocket cinema 6k cameras for higher level students and productions.

The studio and control room installation was completed by the Amitrace install team in less than a week. For Dunn, he shared that the experience is kind of embarrassing because when he talks with other teachers who are struggling to get the right pieces and workflows; he just shared what he wanted to be able to do and the Amitrace team made that happen for him.