School of Communications - Facilities

Facilities

In teaching and researching media communications in their many forms, the School of Communications aims to give students hands-on experience in producing for television and radio broadcast, print and digital media.

For this purpose, the School has the following facilities:

There are six Computer labs with over 55 PCs and 90 Macs (students also have the use of numerous computer labs for the general student body). Each lab has specialist industry standard software to facilitate the students in their production work.

All video production is now HD (High Definition) based from shooting through to editing and final output. We provide camera equipment for field production use and we also have a 3-camera HD television studio on campus. This studio has green screen and autocue facilities. For video post-production, we use the latest version of Apple’s Final Cut Studio HD. This includes video editing and preparation for a variety of formats, from broadcast to Blu-ray to the web.

Audio production is entirely a ‘tapeless’ process. We record entirely on solid state recorders and edit primarily using Pro Tools. Other audio editing packages are available to suit your needs.

Two radio/production studios are available to the students; one of which is large enough to facilitate drama or music production. All studios and labs are linked to each other via our network, so when you are finished working in studio your material is available for you in the labs.

For photography, both digital and film cameras are available to students. Processing facilities in both black & white and colour are provided and there is also a large studio space available. Again, the latest in image processing software is widely available in our computer labs.

Print production is done in our PC labs using the latest Adobe design and photographic software. Production up to A3 is provided for in our labs and there is also a printing facility available on campus for specific printing needs.