Brian's World

RPI TV News

RPI TV is not in the position to produce or broadcast anything under the title or association of “news”. The 3 day broadcast delay removes any chance of news being timely or relevant to today or tomorrow and the facilities don’t exist to allow for a regular weekly or daily newscast. Real-time news at RPI is lacking, when breaking news occurs student have no where to turn but the Administration, which releases information to student very slowly. The Poly is lucky to have a “news bulletin” out the next day by noon, in the meantime students are left to discuss on facebook or livejournal. Clearly there is a need for some news oriented production on campus, something that can tell students what they want to know, answer their questions or at least try, and do it quickly, not 24 hours later.

For RPI TV to do news there would need to be 2 major changes. First, production facilities. RPI TV would need a more-permanent home, or something that slightly resembled it. Two closets in the basement of Sharp Hall can not hold a full news crew and the campus’s (one?) green screen room (I didn’t say studio) is shared between several groups, making a permanent setup impossible. The work related to breaking down and doing a full setup every week (dare I say day) takes too much time off the news end of things and puts it all on the setup and testing of equipment.

What we need? Honestly we need a full studio, with close to permanent cameras, video switcher, audio mixer, the works. So that a news crew, or crew of any show really, can move a few cameras, turn everything on and be ready to film in under 15mins. Not the 1-2 hours it takes to setup for a multi-camera shoot.

Secondly, we’d need a must faster way to get on TV. Non of this 3day nonsense, maybe thats a digital video server, maybe its a “live” feed that we control to MMS, maybe its a head end. But something must be done.

My parents are paying approximately a lot of money to send me to RPI, and also paying under $2 each money on the cable bill for a PEG fee. That fee goes towards a local PEG station, which in South Hadley is housed in the high school. I lived in that place for 4 years, and its a whole lot better than most things I’ve found at RPI. No, they don’t have an XL-2, but they have 3JVC DV-550’s and a permanent studio setup. You can’t say its financially not possible, and if you argue it is raise a fee by $1 (tuition or housing)

I was surprised to arrive at RPI to find a lack of television facilities, as if computers were the only thing people cared about. So far I’ve yet to find any “studio” at RPI that looks like and works like a TV studio, and I can’t seem to explain why such a place doesn’t exist. Television and broadcast media isn’t going away, the technology is changing, integrating heavily with theinternet and IPTV yet nothing exists at RPI to allow a group of students to come in, film a linear production, and be gone in under the hour.

Maybe the campus doesn’t like to be on the cutting edge, if so someone should tell admissions, cause I can guarantee they are selling that idea to prospective students.

I’m open for some discussion or thoughts. Please submit some. If you’re interested in reading more, this is an expert from “what I type about RPI TV when I’m bored, frustrated, and wanting to change the world”. I can send you a link to the google doc.

P.S. I’m sorry if anyone strongly disagrees and thinks that I’m a freshmen/sophomore that doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I think I have a little idea, but you can always enlighten me.