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aloofman

macrumors 68020
Dec 17, 2002
2,206
3
Socal
I went to one of the top high schools in California (1st or 2nd each year I was there) and we had no media production department of any kind. Until I got to college, I'd never even heard of a high school having that.

My video career was launched in college on U-matic SP in the mid-'90s. If we were really lucky, we managed to reserve the one 3-chip Hi8 camera they had. It was like winning the lottery.
 

Littleodie914

macrumors 68000
Jun 9, 2004
1,813
8
Rochester, NY
Hah... A video production studio? We don't have enough money to purchase the education version of Microsoft Office (OpenOffice is all we've got), I caught our (40 year old) computer administrator sharing his P2P limewire tunes across the network openly, our school has an $815,000 deficit, and many people expect it to be under in less than 5 years...

Glad I'm a senior! :cool: :D
 

ac2102

macrumors member
May 12, 2003
96
0
Bristol - England
aloofman said:
My video career was launched in college on U-matic SP in the mid-'90s.

Best way to learn, as far as i am concerned! I learned to film and edit the hard way using linear, bulky U-Matic SP and wish the rest of the pupils following me at my school had had the same opportunity. Editing is one thing, cutting video together on a computer is another, much easier task.

I found that the students i was teaching to edit at my college who followed after me picked up the computing side of it much faster than i ever did, but took twice as long to learn how to actually edit. My own experience with a non-correctable, linear U-Matic SP edit suite proved invaluable when editing on FCP as I was able to appreciate its ease while putting it to good use.

For the record, when i started at college (in the UK, 9 years ago) we had a U-matic SP edit suite, moving to a Media 100 suite, run on a g3 (similar spec to the post made above). We upgraded the computer from time to time to keep the other software (Boris Graffiti, mainly) running up to scratch. Then, when the time came for computers to run video editing software well without the need for dedicated cards, the entire suite was upgraded to Final Cut Pro. Camera wise, we used 2 sony M7's up until they were completely wasted (the image quality before compression was top notch) and then moved on to a DVCAM based system. I have since left the college and only pop back now and then to check on how it is all running and to maintain the current hardware.

I consider it a real privilege to have been at a school where we had such high end equipment, and , more importantly, where i had access to it. I don't for one minute take it for granted.

I hope that the rest of you who are attending, or about to attend high school with such brilliant (or better for that matter!) facilities will appreciate it as much as i did, while making full use of it and going on to great things.

Multo benne,

ac2102
 

Photorun

macrumors 65816
Sep 1, 2003
1,216
0
NYC
College I work at went from old big clunky editing boards to FCP on a shiny G5 PowerMacs. Looking through the glass walls into the editing bays and seeing all those G5s with 23" Cinema Displays brings tears of joy to my eyes.
 

Les Kern

macrumors 68040
Apr 26, 2002
3,063
76
Alabama
We indeed have that, as well as a full TV studio. Right now they have G4's running Media 100 and a RAID server. I just made up the order for all new gear. Towers with 1TB of HD space, 4GB RAM, 20" Studios, XSan, Final Cut Studio. We have several high end studio cameras as well as top of the line video cameras for field work. All together our TV set up was about 200K. They even have personal FireWire drives, wireless sound equipment, more.

http://www.mchstech.net

We consider ourselves, like you, to be at the forefront of technology and education.
I'm now developing plans for a new school in 2007-2008. Check back... it's going to ROCK.
 

puckhead193

macrumors G3
May 25, 2004
9,570
852
NY
my college as a small tv studio but very new. no clue on brands and stuff just know how to use it.. I do know we have 3 sony cameras with Teleprompter, avid editing suite, no idea whats we have, but its not FCS :(

my school isn't a fan of macs....
 

Sweetfeld28

macrumors 65816
Feb 10, 2003
1,490
30
Buckeye Country, O-H
In my School of Technology building we have a Video Editing Lab. In it there are about 25 Dual 1.8 G5's. They each have a Sony or some other branded DV tape deck, a Sony TV Monitor, with a 20" Studio display, 2GB of RAM, and Final Cut Pro 4.5 HD.

The instructors desk is the only diffrent one, in that it has a 30" Cinema Display.

Oh the computer also have the Macromedia Studio 8, and Adobe CS2 on them, because this also fuctions as the Flash animation/Adobe After Effects Lab when not in use.

Overall, i would say its decent.
 

OutThere

macrumors 603
Dec 19, 2002
5,730
3
NYC
My high school (small, private, boarding prep school in CT) has 4 DP G5s, each with ~700gb hard drive space, ~2gb ram and a cinema display.

For shooting we have a few Sony VX2000s.

For a school with only 500 kids, it's damn good. Nevermind the fact that the absurd tuition pays for it all...:rolleyes:
 

mikemodena

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 30, 2005
552
0
Connecticut
OutThere said:
My high school (small, private, boarding prep school in CT) has 4 DP G5s, each with ~700gb hard drive space, ~2gb ram and a cinema display.

For shooting we have a few Sony VX2000s.

For a school with only 500 kids, it's damn good. Nevermind the fact that the absurd tuition pays for it all...:rolleyes:

Just curious as to what school if you don't mind me asking? Not Fairfield Prep is it? I think Prep is a big school so maybe not. I go to West Haven High.
 

Lebowski

macrumors 6502
Oct 10, 2005
342
0
Phoenix, AZ
hmm.... last time i checked, 4 GL-2's = about 8k.....

so how did you get a couple hard drives, consumer cams, and a duo core as well?





somethings fishy.....
 

mikemodena

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 30, 2005
552
0
Connecticut
Lebowski said:
hmm.... last time i checked, 4 GL-2's = about 8k.....

so how did you get a couple hard drives, consumer cams, and a duo core as well?





somethings fishy.....

We got them for 1239 each.. When school gets back from April vacation I can get the info for anyone thats interested. It's not even a discounted price. Which times 4 is 5k. Chock up an education Core Duo and we're looking at 6200ish. Stll 1800 for consumer cams and hard drives.
 

ITASOR

macrumors 601
Mar 20, 2005
4,398
3
My high school has a brand new video studio with 3 20" iMacs and FCP. It's noting really great, but it's not bad...
 

OutThere

macrumors 603
Dec 19, 2002
5,730
3
NYC
mikemodena said:
Just curious as to what school if you don't mind me asking? Not Fairfield Prep is it? I think Prep is a big school so maybe not. I go to West Haven High.

I'm a senior at Hotchkiss

Middle of nowhere NW connecticut...


Good school, it's definitely a different experience from public school, and some of our facilities are phenomenal (hey, some alumni people with waaay too much money donated it all, so I'll at least appreciate it all while I have it all), though I have a lot of trouble justifying the tuition. I would have been just fine with public school for $0/year, but whatever.


I have a bunch of friends from Fairfield county...Greenwich/Stamford/New Canaan etc, so I do have an idea of your area.
 

mikemodena

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 30, 2005
552
0
Connecticut
OutThere said:
I'm a senior at Hotchkiss

Middle of nowhere NW connecticut...


Good school, it's definitely a different experience from public school, and some of our facilities are phenomenal (hey, some alumni people with waaay too much money donated it all, so I'll at least appreciate it all while I have it all), though I have a lot of trouble justifying the tuition. I would have been just fine with public school for $0/year, but whatever.


I have a bunch of friends from Fairfield county...Greenwich/Stamford/New Canaan etc, so I do have an idea of your area.

That's cool, I've heard of Hotchkiss. I'm not from Fairfield County, I'm from New Haven County. I just asked if it was Fairfield Prep because that's the only school I could think of at the time.:p
 

Texas04

macrumors 6502a
Jul 2, 2005
886
1
Texas
God DAMN! lol. I thought our district had money....

In all HS we are basically limited to the same thing, we have 5 PC's running Adobe Premire Suite including Aftereffects and Photoshop. We have 1 "TV" Camera that we used to use for newscasts but we can't anymore cause we turn out green. We have a hand me down Production Thing that no one knows what it is called. We just use it for our newscasts. We started out the year horribly with 1 MiniDV camera with a mic input that would work when it pleased.
Im pleading for a few macs since the PC's will work when they wish only.. but no luck because it would be to hard to try and transition everyone over to the new platform. They are not very computer literate.. sadly..
Our Superintendents and board are sooo old that they are barely learning how to type e-mails and when they do they look like
"YEs Id o BeLiEive so"
-AsssisStaNt SuPPerINdENDTEnt

Brilliant people not computer literate

We do broadcast on our own station and at Disctrict HQ we have TV studio w/ 3 PowerMacs and a few PC's. They have all the good equipment while our school finally has 3 lil MiniDV Cameras with Mic Inputs... FINALLY!
 

bigandy

macrumors G3
Apr 30, 2004
8,852
7
Murka
fatsoforgotso said:
We have a brand new £500,000 UK pounds, full blown Sony HD studio suite, with sound recording room, high end multi-cam and a whole arsenal of dollies and steadicams. I will never use any of it. Not my kinda thing.

We also have 4 x PowerMac G5's, 2.3 Dual Core with 4 GB of RAM and 1TB HD in each.

...and 4 x Hewlett Packard monsters with Dual Processors and 3.5 GB RAM and 980 GB HD's.

All PowerMacs have dual 20" Cinema Displays, and Final Cut Studio with Combustion and Avid DV.

All PC's have capture devices and studio monitors, Avid and a whole host of other video production programs that i've not had any time to fiddle with.

We also have a room with some eMacs and some PowerMac G4s all with iMovie and Premiere 6.5.

Rich.


where the hell are you?
 

eatrains

macrumors 6502a
Mar 11, 2006
633
4,844
Wow. Where do you guys go to school? Our whole school is run on PCs. We have one computer class, and all it is is some 80 year old teaching kids how to open Word files. If you try to log on to any of the computers around the school, all these errors pop up, and our wireless network keeps going out. The three IT people just sit in their closet watching basketball. We only have one Mac, a G5 for the yearbook designers. And the teacher who's in charge of it won't let anyone use it because he thinks it's broken because the fans come on. The one time he did allow us to use it I had to bring my own copy of FCE. You guys with 20 Macs and greenscreens and highend cameras and stuff are so incredibly lucky. I want to go to your school. :(
 

ILoveiBooks

macrumors member
Aug 13, 2005
33
0
In my old school, (which I graduated from last year) had a complete studio. We had one high end Canon camera and like a dozen MiniDV cam's. We had a whole bunch of broadcast quality equipment (switching boards, CG developers etc.). A G4 with Final Cut Pro (I didn't get to learn how to use it though :( ) a G3 with Avid Cinema that we used to do the intro with and also used for slideshows and graphics.

I was permanent crew for two years and in my last year at the school, I became executive producer and basically took over everything. I completely redesigned the slideshows, intro video (with the help of Flash) and knew how to control everything. I was also a host one time.

We broadcasted live to the local cable company ever morning at 9:05. We watched it all throughout our school, and anyone with cable in our county could see it.

Boy, do I miss that. *Sobs*

Also, we had a 25 computer eMac lab and at least 4 Macs in every class.
 

OutThere

macrumors 603
Dec 19, 2002
5,730
3
NYC
mikemodena said:
That's cool, I've heard of Hotchkiss. I'm not from Fairfield County, I'm from New Haven County. I just asked if it was Fairfield Prep because that's the only school I could think of at the time.:p

Oopsies....my mistake, I wasn't thinking clearly, yesterday was kind of a long day. :)
 

blckout20

macrumors member
Mar 2, 2006
54
1
CT
mikemodena said:
Just curious as to what school if you don't mind me asking? Not Fairfield Prep is it? I think Prep is a big school so maybe not. I go to West Haven High.

I was at West Haven High like two weeks ago maybe for our lacrosse game. I play at Newington, you have an amazing athletic facility set up. You seriously get to go ice skating for gym? That's so cool.


I don't really go near our schools film department. As interested in digital video as I may be, the teacher is a real jerk so I never took a photo/video class in high school and that is why I know very little about video work. I'm going to try and start learning things on my own because I want to start making movies in college.
 

mikemodena

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 30, 2005
552
0
Connecticut
blckout20 said:
I was at West Haven High like two weeks ago maybe for our lacrosse game. I play at Newington, you have an amazing athletic facility set up. You seriously get to go ice skating for gym? That's so cool.


I don't really go near our schools film department. As interested in digital video as I may be, the teacher is a real jerk so I never took a photo/video class in high school and that is why I know very little about video work. I'm going to try and start learning things on my own because I want to start making movies in college.

Yeah the school takes alot of pride in the Athletics. I had gym freshman and sophomore year and took ice skating. I decided not to play lacrosse this year, but I did play last year and I don't think we played Newington though.
 

Malfoy

macrumors 6502a
Nov 1, 2005
688
2
I attend Rochester Institute of Technology and we have one of the best film programs on the East Coast. We also have some very nice video editing equipment. :)
 

jesselav1108

macrumors newbie
Apr 16, 2006
4
0
Pshh..riight.

Well, I go to one of my local public schools. Not only am I in a small town where only two people know anything good about cinematograph, but I also attend the poorest school. We did have a small studio at one point. They did the school news on it, which was lame (this was before I got into video stuff). I guess that's one reason why I don't see why all of these schools spend so much money on that stuff. BUt I'm happy for the ones who get to use it. I mean, I can probably do just as much stuff on my Powerbook that most schools can do with a room full of editing stations. It's all in how you use it.
 

DMPDX

macrumors 6502
Dec 4, 2005
309
0
I didnt read the other posts, but I can guess youre from vancouver washington (something like ______ Bay High School. Because our tech teacher raves about it, and how its "the best in the NW". I go to school in portland or. We have 1 imac G5, 1 server-ized emac, and 20 public emacs. And 2 sony budget mini dv cams.
Pretty dope eh? not really, but my PB that I bring in runs FCP 5.0 well enough to get it done. But it's wierd, In middle school we had a morning show, but now in HS we dont?
-dsm
 

mikemodena

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 30, 2005
552
0
Connecticut
DMPDX said:
I didnt read the other posts, but I can guess youre from vancouver washington (something like ______ Bay High School. Because our tech teacher raves about it, and how its "the best in the NW". I go to school in portland or. We have 1 imac G5, 1 server-ized emac, and 20 public emacs. And 2 sony budget mini dv cams.
Pretty dope eh? not really, but my PB that I bring in runs FCP 5.0 well enough to get it done. But it's wierd, In middle school we had a morning show, but now in HS we dont?
-dsm

Are you referring to me? Because I'm from West Haven High School in West Haven, Connecticut.
 
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