The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), is providing journalism and media studies students with cutting-edge TV and radio experience from a new campus building featuring technical facilities that rival the most sophisticated broadcast stations.
Designed by Russ Berger Design Group (RBDG), the facilities located in Greenspun Hall give UNLV students first-hand knowledge of how actual programming is produced. While a major goal of the new facility was to provide students with a superior learning environment, it also was intended to give students access to professional broadcast facilities, said Dan Grimes, UNLV manager of instructional production and engineering.
RBDG designed the 28,000sq-ft, digital HD broadcast facility to include two TV studios, three radio production and performance studios, video and audio production control, editing bays, post-production suites and a full broadcast newsroom organized around a central equipment hub of media servers and broadcast gear.
Instructional environments include labs for writing, nonlinear editing and convergent media. The complex also has a 200-seat auditorium built to accommodate broadcast production as well as multimedia lectures and presentations.
The new facility is part of Greenspun Hall, an 117,000sq-ft building designed by New York architectural firm Robert A.M. Stern Architects together with HKS Architects in Dallas.
The new technical facilities incorporate a workflow that is almost entirely tapeless and uses the latest broadcast equipment. The TV studios are outfitted with four Sony HDC 1400 cameras, a Sony MVS 6000 production switcher, a Harris Inscriber CG and Harris terminal gear. The facility uses Avid Media Composer for editing, Avid iNEWS for its newsroom system, Avid Unity ISIS for storage and Avid Air Speed Multi Stream for its playout and record servers.
