Belmont’s Curb College Invests $2 Million-Plus In Technology Upgrades for Virtual Access
Belmont University’s Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business recently invested more than $2 million in technology upgrades. The university’s strategy to augment its facilities for media, motion pictures and entertainment studies will help students stay on track whether attending on campus, remotely or in a hybrid model.
The college also signed a five-year software subscription agreement for Avid’s editing and creation tools (Media Composer and Pro Tools), and the open MediaCentral platform, so that students can access them from any location.
Curb College Dean Doug Howard said, “In the same way that we were the first university to have a full Dolby Atmos mixing stage, we are again leading the field in building a virtual copy of our Johnson Center technology, allowing students and faculty virtual access to our most sophisticated systems from anywhere in the world. I am incredibly grateful to Belmont’s leadership for their commitment to invest in systems that keep our students at the forefront of the industry.”
Among the significant upgrades:
New S6 Mixing Console: A new Avid S6™ control surface, one of the most sought after consoles in sound for film and television, was installed in the Johnson Center Theater. (See time lapse video of the install below.)
Remote Access: Belmont installed 87 computers that are purposely built to be high-end video and audio editing remote workstations. Students can access these systems on their own personal computers from anywhere with an internet connection, providing them access to industry standard editing software Avid Media Composer®, Pro Tools® and Belmont’s Avid NEXIS Server (all connected via LeoStream).
Server Upgrade: The central media server was upgraded to an Avid NEXIS system with 1.6 petabytes of storage space, increasing storage by more than six times. Students in production-oriented classes use the server to store their projects.
The upgrades will continue throughout the spring and summer with the addition of Avid MediaCentral, which allows even more seamless integration with servers from anywhere, and JetStream, which provides a fast and secure way for students to transfer large files to and from the server from any location.
