WOODBURY, N.Y.—North Carolina Central University’s NCCU TV Studio has a mission of training students for their professional careers through hands-on experience. To help with that mission, the school recently purchased three SK-UHD4000 UHD cameras from Hitachi Kokusai.

NCCU TV has been working to upgrade from its legacy standard-definition equipment, so that it can transition from its current 1080p HD to Ultra HD when the time comes. The school got a recommendation for the SK-UHD4000s from systems integrator Digital Video Group.

The new Hitachi cameras arrived on campus in February 2019 and were included in the renovated NCCU TV Studio that opened in April of that year. Deployed on Vinten Osprey Light pedestals, the SK-UHD4000s are used for a variety of productions, with broadcast curriculum students operating them.

Felecia Casey-Hicks, NCCU TV Studio manager, highlights the cameras’ ease of use that allow the students to balance the operation and creative aspects of production.

“The students are very excited, and some of our first group of students that used the cameras last year came back this past semester to help train the next students behind them,” said Casey-Hicks. “If they’re learning well enough to subsequently teach somebody else, then we’re doing our jobs right—and the Hitachi cameras are a big part of that.”

For more information, visit www.hitachikokusai.com.  

WOODBURY, N.Y.—To help give its students experience with industry-standard equipment, Santa Ana College’s TV and Video Communications department has purchased six SK-UHD4000 UD cameras from Hitachi Kokusai Electric America.

While it touts its TV and video production studio as one of the largest in the community college system, as recently as 2015 SAC still relied on SD cameras for studio production. SAC’s goal with purchasing the SK-UHD4000s was to future-proof its programs.

“By going with cameras that could do both HD and 4K, we could be ready to basically flip a switch and move to a 4K production model when we upgrade the rest of the studio environment to 4K,” said Michael Taylor, SAC’s department chair. “We plan to do that when the overall television industry has greater adoption of 4K, since we’re preparing our students for careers in that field.”

Taylor said they were attracted to Hitachi’s cameras capability to be used in both 1080p and 4K, as well as the ability to integrate with Ross Dashboard. While not currently using the camera’s 4K imaging, Taylor praises the image quality the cameras produce in HD mode.

With the cameras, Taylor says they are able to prepare their students for careers post-graduation, but there is also a benefit for the school itself, as the high-quality equipment emphasizes that SAC is a competitive program that is able to properly train students while creating professional-level productions.

WOODYBURY, N.Y.—Hitachi’s SK-UHD4000 4K camera has landed on the island of Oahu as Brigham Young University-Hawaii has added four studio and field cameras to its Media Production Center.

The new 4K cameras replace six-year-old HD cameras in the aim of future proofing content for subsequent workflow upgrades. Programming created by BYU-Hawaii’s MPC include recruiting videos, educational shows, sports broadcasts and the university’s weekly devotional on topics for the Latter Day Saints Church.

The SK-UHD4000 cameras are connected over the campus’ fiber infrastructure to CU-UHD4000 camera control units (CCUs) in the university’s centrally-located studio control room. The 4K footage can be archived to Atomos Shogun standalone recorders directly from the CCUs.

The press release indicates that the cameras will continue to be an asset as the university continues to transition its production workflow to 4K.