Tyrell Supplies IT Carlow with Avid Technology | The Irish Film & Television Network

In 2009, IT Carlow introduced a new degree course in TV and Media Production and set about a complete overhaul of their digital media facilities to support their wide-ranging and dynamic programs. Tyrell CCT provided the college with a dedicated high capacity media storage and distribution network to support two new media laboratories that host a combination of Avid, Apple and Adobe editing clients. IT Carlow also invested in an ingest solution that looks to capture media from multiple devices for seamless delivery into their shared storage solution. The new Avid infrastructure now forms the backbone for media storage, manipulation and distribution across the entire Institute. The solution supports the digital technology requirements for a number of programs at IT Carlow including the BA in TV and Media Production, the BA in PR/Communication and the sports analysis programs for IT Carlow’s BA in Sports and Exercise courses (Rugby, Soccer and GAA).

Avid Unity ISIS is a shared storage network for storing, accessing and sharing media in collaborative workgroup environments. The system allows IT Carlow to allocate storage space to individual students as well as giving students access to common storage space for group work. The workflow is designed to capture media once and make it available to the students for simultaneous real-time editing on MAC or PC applications and on any of their editing platforms (Avid, Apple or Adobe). Working in an editing environment modelled on today’s collaborative production facilities, lecturers can instantly access and review student work over the network. The system can scale to support up to 330 clients and 384TB of storage giving the college the required platform to facilitate the expected growth in student numbers. The result is a shared workspace allowing significantly improved throughput of material.

Tyrell CCT also provided Carlow IT with an ingest solution based around MOG Technologies mxfSPEEDRAIL S1000 series ‘SDI Recorder’. MOG specialise in MXF file based solutions and are part of the organisation that developed the MXF standard. IT Carlow required a simple ingest solution that would capture media from various video sources such as HDV, Mini DV, DVD and VHS and generate media files that are compatible with both Apple Final Cut Pro and Avid Media Composer. To accommodate a number of simultaneous ingests Tyrell CCT provided the college with four S1100 servers each coupled with a Blackmagic Design Broadcast Converter to allow a wide range of analog and digital video signals to be ingested. The S1100 has the ability to place the generated media files directly on to IT Carlow’s Avid ISIS shared storage, so that captured files can be immediately edited by any of the connected MacPro workstations. Carlow IT has also invested in a technical support contract with Tyrell CCT to maximize the availability and use of their systems.

“Driven by increasing competition and rising student expectations, third-level colleges are really focusing on investment in the latest digital technologies that will allow them to effectively simulate real-world collaborative media environments,” commented David O Beirne, Education Manager, Tyrell CCT . “IT Carlow has acquired a progressive media storage infrastructure that supports the media department’s ambitious plans and allows students to get a solid insight into the collaborative ethos of shared workflow that they will encounter in the film and post production industry.”

“It was important for IT Carlow that the system provided could accommodate the widest range of editing environments available today and allow us to scale to accommodate future expansion,” said Fergal Flanagan, IT Manager, IT Carlow. “Avid Unity ISIS is a completely robust and scalable solution and we can continue to add storage space as we need it and slot new technologies in to it as we grow. Tyrell CCT’s education and technical specialists provided an invaluable insight into the technologies available and proved that they really understood the unique challenges and requirements in the education field.”

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