Customer Success Story
Ryerson University
The RTA School of Media at Ryerson University is Canada’s premier school of media production, media art and broadcasting. RTA provides students with an intense and rewarding education in all aspects of media creation, art and scholarship.
Ryerson University is Canada’s leader in innovative, career-oriented education and a university clearly on the move. With a mission to serve societal need, and a long-standing commitment to engaging its community, Ryerson offers more than 100 undergraduate and graduate programs.
The Challenge
The RTA School of Media needed a new production facility that would serve as an educational hub for its sport media program at the Mattamy Athletic Centre (formerly the Maple Leaf Gardens). Here, students would be trained to cover live sporting events,including Ryerson’s varsity athletics programs. RTA Associate Professor Rick Grunberg, who designed the facility with key engineers and technical staff, stated that “It’s primary purpose is to provide a platform to educate the next generation of students entering into the sports broadcast and mediacast marketplace, that gives them access to the latest and highest quality industry standard technologies.”
The Solution
The RTA School of Media has a strong relationship with Ross Video, whose intuitive technology fulfills its media education needs. Speaking to this storied relationship with Ross, Grunberg said that, “We have been happily and proudly using Ross equipment for many years because of our comfort level with the technology. Reliable, cost effective, and intuitive, this high-end technology is easy for students to use and as such, they have become comfortable with it quite quickly. Reliability and ease of use are paramount to us or we could not function or teach.”
For their new production centre, Ryerson decided on the Acuity 3ME switcher, Ross XPression graphics system, NK Series routing system, and the Ross openGear terminal equipment platform.
The Result
With the Acuity 3ME switcher, the Sportsnet RTA Production Centre is able to create live sports telecasts that are on par with major network broadcasts. Brian Withers said that, “Acuity has given us the ability to cover sports in a way we were previously unable to do. It allows us to provide industry level experiences to students, which in turn motivates them to constantly push the envelope with their productions. Not only has Ross equipment made stellar educational tools for students but it has given RTA the freedom to educate its students on a tight schedule. Both XPression and Acuity are highly flexible systems. Our facility has high turnover between labs, co-curricular productions, student driven projects, and more. Flexibility and ease of use are crucial for us as it allows for quick turnaround to meet our academic needs.”
With Ross equipment and the support of the Ross community behind them, RTA has been able to maintain its credibility as the forefront leader in media production education in Canada. Withers noted that, “Our students understand and use Ross technology in all of our video production facilities. When they see that same technology utilized in the work place, it re-affirms that they made the right decision in coming to RTA.”
On RTA’s experience with Ross, Withers said that, “Thankfully, our experience with Ross is ongoing. We continue to benefit from the technology, training, and support we receive. We have come to rely upon the stability and ease of use that their products afford us, which allows us to confidently deliver our curriculum and provide industry-level training opportunities to our students.” Adding to this, Grunberg said that, “We’ve had an excellent experience over the many years we have been dealing with Ross and their people… why else would we keep coming back for more?”
Most significantly, the introduction of PIERO Live Down & Distance has elevated the game-day production to a standard that in many cases exceeds what is seen in professional leagues, which has strengthened recruiting efforts – a win-win for Texas A&M.