Testimonials - Synergy 1

Monmouth University looks towards the digital future with their Ross Synergy 1

Chris Cavallaro
Department of Communication Instructor/ Radio-TV Technical Supervisor
Monmouth University
West Long Branch, NJ

Monmouth University is a private, moderate-sized, coeducational, comprehensive University located in Central New Jersey. Serving 6,200 graduate and undergraduate students, the 153-acre campus features 53 buildings, including historic landmarks and state-of-the-art facilities.

The University is a student-centered institution based on a traditional liberal arts model. The focus in our Department's Radio/Television program is not on acquiring engineering skills but on attaining personal growth and gaining command of tools for creative expression. My combination of technical knowledge and creative production experience, in both audio and video, assists me in understanding the challenges our students face and allows me to show them the best methods to use to realize their vision.

The Jules L. Plangere, Jr. Center for Communication and Instructional Technology (CCIT) opened in September 2002 and houses the Department of Communication, the largest academic department on campus, and the facilities that serve the Department's Radio/Television program, and is also home to our three student media organizations: WMCX-FM, The Outlook Newspaper, and Hawk-TV.

At the heart of the Plangere CCIT is the Monty Television Film Studio, and at the studio's heart is a Ross Synergy 1 production switcher.

Our previous television production studio was small and simple - built around an analog Grass 110 switcher. We wanted to retain the 110's intuitive feel, to make transitioning to the new facility as easy as possible for faculty and students. But, of course, we needed to look to the digital future, and to add features and capabilities in-line with contemporary broadcast practices.

At the same time, we were challenged by a very tight equipment budget - a situation common to educational institutions. We looked at brands like Sony and Thompson/Grass Valley, but after a discussion with Harris Broadcast, our system integrator, we learned about Ross. The Synergy 1's combination of digital power, flexibility, scalability and ease of use, unmatched in its price range, made our choice obvious.

Our studio serves a wide variety of users, from students in our Intro to TV Production classes to senior members of Hawk-TV, our campus closed-circuit student-run channel. Due to the ambitious nature of their typical productions, Hawk-TV tends to present the greatest challenges to the Ross Synergy. For example, during their "Snowbound" winter series, they do a live studio show using simultaneous matte color or chroma key backgrounds, Chyron supers and DSK bugs. Sources include the usual 3 or 4 studio cameras, with 1 or 2 roving cameras (our building is designed with numerous tie line connections in lobbies, lounges, classrooms, etc.), 2 or 3 VTR's, and 1 or 2 router sources (again bringing in signals from outside the studio). With the machine control option we recently installed, all these sources can be managed through the Synergy 1 by a skeleton crew.

We are still discovering ways to use the Synergy in our environment and only now are starting to do some 16:9 work alongside the usual 4:3 productions. We're building a new set for our news program, with Squeeze & Tease applications in mind. We're looking at the possibility of server-based still-store and motion video playback commandable from the Ross.