Arizona State University opens new Chyron Media Center
Nov 7, 2011 2:41 PM, By Michael Grotticelli
Chyron President and CEO Michael Wellesley-Wesley helps open the new Chyron Media Center at Arizona State University.
Arizona State University (ASU), in Phoenix, is home to the award-winning Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The program continues to produce some of the nation's most promising news professionals, working across a wide spectrum of disciplines.
As part of this stored program, the school maintains a TV production department that is responsible for such noteworthy programs as its nightly "NewsWatch" newscast (in English and Spanish), a sports show (that airs on Fox Sports Arizona) and the Cronkite News Service (cronkitenewsonline.com), a wire feed of news coming out of the state of Arizona that's produced daily by students. The local PBS station, KAET, also shares the building for its studios and often broadcasts content produced by students in the department.
In its effort to update the equipment and technology for its students, the school often seeks outside donations and sponsorships (or "professional partnerships") to help make ends meet. In its three years since it opened the department's production facilities, both Apple (hundreds of Final Cut Pro systems, XSAN and servers) and Sony (EX-1 field and HDVS studio cameras with Fujinon lenses, an MVS8000 HD switcher and other gear) have stepped up with discounted equipment and free networking expertise.
The latest such generosity is from broadcast graphics equipment vendor Chyron (http://www.chyron/, in Melville, NY), which has made it possible for the school to buy (at a drastically discounted rate) a Chyron cloud-based Axis World Graphics and Camio graphics management system for one of its newsrooms. The gear, which was installed a few months ago, is all tied together with Chyron's BlueNet networking technology, which Chyron staff has set up and trained students on.
"We have a long-standing relationship with Chyron that goes back before we were in our new facility," said Mark Lodato, assistant dean and news director of the Cronkite School. "We're pleased that Chyron is continuing to support our mission and that students continue to have access to the latest technology out there. We're now able to put students in one space providing content to multiple distribution platforms. These sorts of professional partnerships allow us to take our program to a higher level than we would be able to accomplish by ourselves."
BlueNet works with Chyron's suite of graphics tools (including Camio) to streamline the ordering and clip management of graphics elements. This fosters collaborative graphics creation and real-time playout. At ASU productions will benefit from a tight integration between BlueNet and the AXIS cloud-based service. Chyron said that throughout the graphics workflow, BlueNet gives users fast access to the tools and resources they need. If a graphic already exists locally, producers and journalists working in the newsroom or in the field can fulfill a template request and move it to air in seconds.
"The requirements being put on journalists these days is different from the past," said Michael Wellesley-Wesley, president and CEO at Chyron. "You still have to properly research and write good news stories, but an awful lot more is expected of reporters now. They often have to shoot, edit and add graphics to their stories. So, we're looking to put easy-to-use tools into the hands of people who are going to graduate and face this challenge of having to multitask."
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