Studer Vista 5 SR Digital Console Installed At Kent’s Ravensbourne College

For two days every year, Ravensbourne College in Kent, is transformed into one of the country’s most exciting and innovative broadcasters, as students go on-air for their annual broadcasting event, ‘Rave On Air’.

The college has some notable ex students including Stella McCartney, Bruce Oldfield and Darren Woolfson, now Group Director of Technology at Pinewood Studios.

Adrian Curtis, VP of Sales for Soundcraft Studer said, “We were contacted by the college to help them with a console for a mixture of live and broadcast applications, given the breadth of requirements they had, we loaned them our flagship Vista 5 SR to cope with these demands.”

Rave On Air is an entirely student-led event with over 5 hours of live programming broadcast over the internet and local digital terrestrial television channels (800 and 801). Attended by broadcasting and creative industry professionals including BBC, Endemol and Channel 4, this graduate showcase gives Ravensbourne students the chance to gain experience of creating and delivering a range of content for broadcasting in real-time. It is also a major opportunity to showcase Ravensbourne talent and help students network and build industry contacts that prepare them for a broadcasting career after they graduate.

The Royal Television Society visited Rave On Air to host one of their regular public events – a conference on 360 degree broadcasting with speakers John Denton (BBC Future Media and Technology, Managing Editor TV Platforms) and Matt Millington (BBC Sport, Video Portals Editor). The Vista 5 SR was used on the live broadcast from the college’s amphitheater. Level 3 BA Sound Design student Samuel Burkinshaw commented on the desk’s Vistonics user interface: "The Studer desk was really easy to get to grips with, and it was great to have Andrew Hills from Studer come down and show us how it worked. It was really quick to set up, easy to understand, and the interface was a joy to use."

The Vista 5 and 5 SR has been quickly accepted by some of the world’s largest hire and tour companies, such as Clair Brothers in the US, and has been used recently on major international tours, including Celine Dion, Katie Melua, Rascal Flatts, Billy Joel, Mylène Farmer and Keith Urban as well as prestigious installations such as The Palace Theatre on New York’s Broadway (West Side Story) and The Kennedy Center in Washington DC.

Rave On Air is broadcast over two channels simultaneously, mixing live magazine shows, fashion catwalks and interview spots with pre-recorded dramas, documentaries, animations and quiz shows, all written, produced, directed and masterminded by broadcast students from all levels. The Vista 5 SR allows tudents from all disciplines of the college experiment with new technologies and new ways of interacting with their audience.

Freddie Gaffney, Deputy Head of the Faculty of Communication Media said, "Rave On Air is a unique opportunity and a great chance for our students to stand out from thousands of other graduates across the country. The students this year have met the challenge head on and they’ve really excelled themselves and can justifiably call themselves young professionals. As always, I am very proud to be associated with them."

Next year’s event marks the 40th year of Rave On Air, and the last one at the college’s current campus before it relocates to Greenwich Peninsula in 2010. The new Ravensbourne building will house two HD television studios, digital media studios and production suites, virtual environments and a postgraduate centre for enterprise and innovation. Its proximity to London will encourage even greater opportunities for Ravensbourne students to collaborate and network within the broadcast media industry.