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Technology at the Rogers Communications Centre
For Research - The infrastructure provided by the Rogers Centre is central to Ryerson's Faculty of Communication and Design's research infrastructure. It provides a futuristic technological platform on which opportunities arise for ground breaking research essential to the next generation pillars that will form Ontario's economic advancement. Numerous research labs and projects are housed in the Centre and they currently include; The Infoscape Research Lab - hosts research projects that focus on the cultural impact of digital code. The lab engages in software and other new media tool development, code mapping, interface design, and new media content analysis. The lab is funded in part with grants from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Media Research Consortium. For more information on the The Infoscape Research Lab contact the Infoscape Director, Greg Elmer Evolving Stories Studios - a research project investigating the impact of new media on story telling, memory, ethics and aesthetics. For more information contact Lila Pine Accessfabrik Lab - is a platform for developing collaborative research projects in the world of interactivity and multimedia design. The Accessfabrik team has been working with national and international partners to develop state of the art communication and design tools. Among our partners are: CITO, Autodesk & Alias, Magna, Fraunhofer IAO, and Daimler Chrysler. For more information on the Accessfabrik Lab contact Michael Murphy EDGE: Experiential Design and Gaming Environment Lab - is composed of satellite research facilities, connected via wireless and fibre optic links to indoor and outdoor performance venues within and around the Ryerson campus. Th lab will be used to conduct research on experiential and gaming media in urban mixed-reality environments. Click Here for further information. Internet and Emerging Technology Impact Lab – is a lab where future communications technologies can be explored in a completely experimental manner and is connected to undergraduate and graduate programs. Internet and Emerging Technology Impact Lab contact Brad Fortner. Digital Cinema and Advanced Visualization Laboratory - The $2.9 million, 1,600-square-foot lab is dedicated to “Future Cinema” was established in 2006 by Dr. Abby Goodrum and Dr. Paul Hearty. For information on the Digital Cinema and Advanced Visualization Laboratory contact Abby Goodrum News Research Lab - For information contact Abby Goodrum Digital Media Value Lab - For information contact Charles Davis Digital Media Zone – the RCC provides direct support to Ryerson's Digital Media Zone through loans and access to advanced technology and software. Click Here for further information.  3D For Faculty and Students who want to work on the leading edge in 3D media - Ryerson’s Rogers Communications Centre (RCC) is home to a number of technologies to explore the new digital 3D medium that goes well beyond that found in the Cinema. 3D media is currently produced via the RCC’s Digital Cinema and Advanced Visualization Laboratory, experimented with in its Internet and Emerging Technology Impact Lab and shot by students who gain access to 3D camera technology from outside the University and make use of the Advanced Digital Cinema Editing Suite located in the Centre. Technology includes FinePix REAL 3D cameras and autostereoscopic LCD displays, a 34 seat portable AV3DRrover 3D projection system, a Minoru 3D Webcam for 3D web streaming, immersive eyeware technology that allos for 3D augmented reality applications, CineForm’s Neo3D professional 3D editing software that works with Final Cut Pro for both film and broadcast media and JVC's 46” GD-463D10 3D color monitor which was the model used by James Cameron in the creation of AVATAR. With this diverse structure in place Ryerson’s approach to the use of 3D crosses many mediums and is reflective of todays converged media landscape.
 The Centre houses three television studios - including Canada's first four-camera HDTV television studio facility. FCAD's audio production capabilities are currently comprised of a bevy of interconnected labs with advanced audio production capabilities that employ six servers to support its back end. Dedicated sound facilities include over fifty audio production computers, five multi-track audio mixing control rooms and an additional nine recording studio's. They are used to record, mix and edit voice, music, radio programs, hybrid radio/television content and produce sound effects for movies and television by employing the Foley process. Facilities accross the Centre and accross campus are connected together using Ethernet employing an Axia Pathfinder IP Audio System. There are few Universities in the world that can match Rogers Communications Centre's converged facilities in terms of audio, video and Internet/Mobile production capability. The Rogers Communications Centre is home to one of the world's first Internet radio stations - SPIRITLive. Updated in 2009 SPIRT was modernized for an era of IP based audio transport. The rebuild extended its radio automation beyond live to the Internet to include the automatic creation of Podcasts from programs as well as other forms of on-demand downloadable content. The station was also constructed as a modern Radio/Television hybrid environment. SPIRIT provides HDTV quality video distribution via its six camera HDTV video infrastructure to a new campus wide television station -RUTV- that is the worlds first distributed IPTV 1080p channel and is integrated into Ryerson University's digital signage initiative.  For broadcast news five Avid iNEWS based electronic newsrooms - comprise over 120 seats that service the news writing needs for Journalism and RTA. Video editing is supported by Grass Valley’s NewsEdit system for journalistic activities while an X-SAN based Apple Final Cut Pro editing system supports craft editing. Students can migrate from their own hardware, editing in either standard or high definition formats to any of the seventy-five+ Final Cut Pro computers located in both the Rogers Communications Centre and the Image Arts building.  The Rogers Communication Centre’s Advanced Media Lab provides 24 hour a day access - to thirty one Blu-ray writable Mac Pro based fibre-to-the-desktop-computers that include After Effects, Photoshop CS5 and the Final Cut Studio package for non-linear editing. Final Cut Studio is comprised of Final Cut Pro 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Compressor 3, DVD Studio Pro 4, and Color — a brand-new application for professional colour grading —. The Visual Computing Lab provides high powered, networked hardware for the creation of animation using MAYA Unlimited or Macromedia’s Flash software and was one of the first labs at Ryerson to be equipped with a fully integrated SMART Board that included LanSchool software management tools to enhance the teaching process.
 To support learning activities - the Rogers Communications Centre includes a 1000 square foot room that is dedicated to production training and practice relating to Electronic Field Production. To support high end digital cinema and video editing, the Centre has eight enclosed editing suites containing Final Cut Studio 2. Each of the enclosed facilities are comprised of the latest generation eight core Intel Apple Mac Pro computers and JL Cooper’s Eclipse Colour Correction surface that ties directly to Apple’s Final Cut Studio’s Color software. For critical colour correction grading monitors are provided that consist of Matrox MXO units and Apple’s 23-inch Cinema Displays providing artifact-free, true-color video display with a vertical refresh rate of 59.94 Hz. With 24 frame RAW based digital cinema media on the horizon from companies such as RED Digital and Canon Inc., the colour correction process is an important and essential part of video and film production workflow for next generation filmmakers.  In total, over 110 lab-based computers - are equipped with IEEE-1394a and b, USB 2.0 interfaces and rendered based video editing software to support video editing needs. As a result of its long history of research efforts in interactive television, 4K digital cinema, streaming media, 3D cinema and advanced networking platforms the Rogers Communications Centre is at the forefront of digital film, Internet and broadcasting technology.
 Our 24 hour accessible Visual Computing Lab - provides a unique teaching and learning experience. It employs LanSchool classroom management software and a SMART Board 600i Interactive Whiteboard System that keeps lectures on track and is unique to the University. Supported by a gigabit –to- the-desktop network The Visual Computing Lab consists of 34 multi-core 27" iMacs and houses MAYA Unlimited as its 3D package. For distributed processing to assist with MAYA and 3D Max the lab renders using Uberware's SMEDGE is used as the group rendering package.  Blu-ray and DVD production is available - in a number of the facilities located in the Rogers Communications Centre. Dual layer burning is accessible in the Visual Computing Lab and Apple Computer’s DVD Studio is available 24 hours a day in the Advanced Media Lab. The Centre has adopted Blu-Ray as the medium through which 24P media will move about the University beyond its file based networks and has equipped all of its Final Cut Studio Apple Intel Macintosh computers with Blu-ray writers.  To advance knowledge in Presentation Media for Live Shows and Installations - the School of Radio and Television Arts and the Rogers Communications Centre has obtained Coolux Pandoras Box technology which combines advanced projection and interactivity. Pandoras Box™ real-time compositing media server is a turnkey solution that unites state-of-the-art rendering technology with intuitive media control. The software allows users to arrange video and images freely; change the color, form and position of images; synchronize 3-D sound; or animate 3-D objects. Pandoras Box Media Server features a 4K workspace in dual channels of 2K HD/SD outputs for on-air and pre- and post-production. Designed to enable creativity in multimedia design, the 3-D compositing and rendering system from Coolux Media Systems provides real-time on-location media control that is customizable to the needs of each project.
Click here for more information on the Computer Labs operated by the Rogers Communications Centre.  For The Study Of Television - the Centre operates a 10 Channel SnapStream DVR appliance that can be expanded to record and search the content of up to 50 television channels simultaneously. The system can store months of content from each channel that it records. For students or faculty requiring the study of how emerging issues or emerging trends are handled by the television medium this technology is of great value.  The Rogers Communications Centre provides Computer Networks – that deliver data to Ryerson’s first gigabit-to-the-desktop Visual Computing Lab and range from the Fiber Channel Network that support the Media SAN environment, as well as including Canada’s first media installation; employing 10 Gig Ethernet network cabling. These networks link the Rogers Communications Centre both locally at unparalleled network speed as well as globally through the Internet. The multicast enabled network allows for advanced development in new media areas such as grid computing,the Access Grid and CineGrid, which the Rogers Centre is actively champions an educational and research specific collaboration tool. The scale of APPLE's X-SAN deployment in the Rogers Communications Centre is unparalleled for media creation in Canada. - The X-SAN network, that is used to house student productions during the non-linear editing process is centered around a Cisco MDS 9509 Multilayer Fiber Channel Director that connects 15 workstations, including five Mac Pro workstations located in the Advanced Media Lab, to a multi-terrabyte storage system that is be deployed for collaborative editing based around Apple's Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Server software packages. In 2009 the Rogers Communications Centre initiated X-SAN connectivity across campus by pulling 144 fibre optic cables to the Image Arts Building at 122 Bond Street. Ultimately the combination of these technologies will allow students to work directly with their media on fiber connected workstations or “check their projects out” for editing on campus Ethernet networks or via the Internet. Backend rendering hardware will allow for productions to be rendered for distribution to iPods, DVD's, Blu-ray, streaming media, a variety of High Definition formats, digital cinema and 3D. The Centre's staff have worked tirelessly - in conjunction with the Centre's Operations Committee, to extend the development of the Mixed Reality Production Cluster across the Faculty of Communication and Design. This network will extend both the X-SAN storage environment and the 10 gig network infrastructure, both pioneered and housed in the Rogers Communications Centre, across the various buildings, schools and research facilities that comprise the division. The unique combination - of research, technology, industry involvement and academic activity found in the Rogers Communications Centre creates a dynamic in digital communications, unprecedented in Canadian educational institutions that are dedicated to the study of media and design.
 The Rogers Communications Centre - pioneered Canada's first systematized High Definition Television editing facilities using off-the-shelf Apple G3, G4 and G5 Final Cut Pro editing systems and DV format videotape. By January 2009 the Rogers Centre had worked to convert all of the centre's editing facilities to a file based operation. The Centre made Ryerson's initial investments in Canon 5D Mark II DSLR and Red Digital One cameras. To facilitate advanced digital media production technologies, the Rogers Communications Centre opened Canada's inaugural student accessible Advanced Digital Cinema Editing Suite. It contains Ryerson's most advanced Apple Mac Pro installation featuring a 46” JVC 3D monitor, dual 30” Digital Cinema Displays, 8 Core Intel XEON CPU’s, 32 gigs of RAM and fiber optic X-SAN interconnectivity for storage. The Advanced Digital Cinema Editing Suite is designed for advanced 3D and 4K digital cinema editing containing a Red Rocket 4K card and NEO3D software for Final Cut Studio.
As One Of Canada's Top Educators In Television
Production - Ryerson University was instrumental in the birth of television in Canada. It was home to the country’s first television studio broadcast back in 1949 and provided training to both the Montreal and Toronto CBC engineering and production teams prior to the launch of the television network in 1952. Since then, and for six decades, it has been active in the development of Canada’s television industry. Today, the Rogers Communications Centre operates four television studios and provides nine production trunk line plates located throughout the building for remote TV production. While the largest television studio (TV Studio A) provides an undergraduate teaching environment for the School of Radio and Television Arts, a third TV studio, TV Studio D, provides a modern robotically oriented television control room and news production studio for the School of Journalism. Television Studio C was the country’s first all-digital - 16*9 aspect ratio, television studio. It continues to provide additional support to all communication and design programs as well as providing experimental space for new media television production. In 2005, the School Of Radio and Television Arts Television Studio A, became home to Canada’s first three-camera 1080i high definition television studio and one of North America’s first fixed, multi-purpose HDTV installations.  Ryerson University Television (RUTV) – RUtv is a student operated community television station broadcasting content from a variety of genres including drama, comedy, music, entertainment, news, current affairs, reality, lifestyle, sports, events and more. It features student-produced content, with a student-centric perspective, and content can be created by any student at Ryerson University. RUtv is available for viewing on high definition displays across the Ryerson University campus, in residence on Channel 66, online, and is currently working to be available for distribution on ORION's global fibre optic network. RUTV's Master Control - consists of a system manufactured by Broadcast Unifying Gears's or BUG TV. BUG TV makes use of both X-SAN and Openfiler where the stations program content is stored. Given the automated capabilities of Final Cut Server and the X-SAN, the BUG-TV infrastructure is built on top of the RCC's invested infrastructure. Once operable, students will be able to create content on the X-SAN using Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Server and then transfer the finished file to RUTV's storage account where via BUG TV it can then be scheduled for playback. Openfiler is a powerful, intuitive browser-based network open source storage software distribution that delivers file-based Network Attached Storage and block-based Storage Area Networking in a single framework.Click here for more info on Ryerson University Television (RUTV). 
Interformat Facility - allows for many video formats to be exchanged between mediums. The formats that the facility can copy from include MiniDV, DVCPro 25, DVCPro HD 720p, DVCPro HD 1080i, VHS, S-VHS and DVD. Formats that the facility can copy to include MiniDV, DVCPro 25, DVCPro HD 1080i, VHS, S-VHS and DVD. Because of the large library of Betacam material available in the world the RCC will provide a limited dubbing service from Betacam to mediums that Ryerson students require for their productions on a biweekly basis. Please note that the facility does not provide dubs to Betacam or sell materials. Users are expected to supply all blank materials. Special arrangements can also be made to dub from or to HDCAM on request. Please note the chart below and that dubbing charges may apply.Click here for a table of services provided by the Interformat Facility. Click here for more information on the technology in the Interformat Room.  The Rogers Communications Centre operates Ryerson's most advanced streaming server capacity - with all campus based video and audio production facilities are fed sound effects and production music from the Centre’s Media Server System. The Media Server System serves up both the Canadian Broadcast History Website and the Rogers Communications Centre website and is integrated into Journalism's On-line program. For SPIRITLIVE the system distributes Shoutcast MP3, Windows Media and Quicktime. It's in the process of being upgraded to better incorporate emerging technologies like H.264 and improve streaming to mobile devices by employing Wowza Media Server.
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Since
our inception - the Centre has been designed
to support and enhance educational and professional
efforts in Broadcasting, Broadband and New Media
technology in education. The Centre is committed
to providing a leading edge learning and research
environment that is an accurate reflection of
today's workplace while furnishing the technological
infrastructure to serve the developing communication
needs of tomorrow. 
Academic
Focus In The Rogers Communications Centre
-The Rogers Communications Centre serves the Faculty of Communication and Design’s acclaimed degree granting programs as they relate to media and electronic communications. Specific to the Rogers Communications Centre are the schools of Journalism and Radio and Television Arts (RTA). The Centre supplies additional lab support to the schools of Image Arts, Professional Communications, Fashion, Interieor Design and Theatre. Its role has recently expanded to include the Graduate Program in Communications and Culture, the Master of Arts in Media, the Master of Journalism, the Master in Professional Communication and the Master of Fine Arts in Documentary Media out of the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Graduate School for Advanced Communications. 
The Rogers Communications Centre - is a fully interactive and highly adaptable communications world, featuring state-of-the-art computing laboratories and networked media and print facilities housed in its 140,000 square foot structure. Its network infrastructure was the first media building in Canada to be wired to accommodate 10 gigabit Ethernet applications and it was one of the first educational facilities in Canada to go completely file based for all of its video and digital cinema production processes. In addition, it was the first building at Ryerson University to wire its News, Apple Media Lab and Visual Computing facilities to provide 10 gigabit Ethernet to the desktop. Numerous eight core Apple Mac Pro computers are spread across the Centre and are used in print, design, HDTV and digital cinema editing applications. In addition, the Toronto Star Newswriting Centre adds 120 PC seats. The building acts as a fibre optic hub for the Faculty Of Communication and Design with 144 fibre optic cables interconnecting the divisions media intensive schools all across campus.
For Electronic Field Production and Digital Cinema - the Centre supports well over 100 High Definition and Digital Cinema field cameras. These include a fleet of cameras manufactured by Panasonic that store materials on either P2 or Secure Digital (SD) formatted media as AVCHD, cameras manufactured by SONY that use ExpressCard flash media or a RED ONE 4K digital Cinema Camera that uses compact flash media. Students can use either personally owned portable storage and/or can make use of the X-SAN facility when editing 4K digital cinema or 3D media to store and edit file based materials. The Centre has equipped each of its Final Cut Pro workstations with E-SATA interconnectivity so the proper bandwidth can be achieved to edit HD materials on student owned portable hard drives. For students using their own tape based DV Camcorders firewire connections are available on all Rogers Communications Centre Final Cut Pro workstations.
The Hybrid Media Computing Lab - is located in the Centre and was specifically created for the development of media related to physical computing and mobile applications. Part of the Mixed Reality Production Cluster the lab centres on the use of MAX/MSP and Jitter software employing a combination of fifty 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBooks and MacBook Pro's with 15 inch widescreen displays for the development of interactive multimedia installations. The MacBooks connect to Ryerson's Virtual Application server providing access to Adobe Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, and Stock Photos as well as Maple 11, MATLAB R2007a, Microsoft Access, Excel, Power Point, Publisher, Word, SAS 9 1 and SPSS 15. The lab also contains a plethora of gaming and mobile devices that include an Apple iPod, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS Lite, SONY PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, SONY Playstation Portable, Nokia N800 and N900 NSeries Internet Tablets, HP iPAQ hx2490 Pocket PC and an Envision 32-inch LCD TV. The combination of ATSC high definition broadcast WI-FI, Bluetooth and peer to peer in the UPuP environment are establishing new kinds of collaboration networks critical to the next generation media production workflow and design.
Hybrid Media also involves the emerging area of Open Source software - as it relates to media production and distribution. Technology is available including three XO (One Laptop Per Child) laptops, a number of triple boot Linux, OSx, and Windows computers that are used to study, test and develop Open Source media software. The study will not only assists students in the Centre in better understanding high quality Open Source media production tools as they emerge but is useful in the development of research projects as Ryerson's communication based Graduate programs come on-line in the next few years.
The Rogers Communications Centre has also been at the forefront of developments in Mobile technologies - Students developing applications for Apple platforms can draw from a pool of over 20 Apple iPhone, iTouch and iPad devices while those developinging for ANDROID devices can access a growing plethora of ANDROID DEV1 and DEV2 devices in addition to a number of Eclipse equipped workstations equipped with the ANDROID SDK.
The Rogers Communications Centre has pioneered much of Ryerson’s 24 hour lab access to for students - Recent innovations include classroom technology dispensed through vending machines, 24 hour-a-day laptop loans and automated key distribution for lab access.
For The Creation Of Digital Interactive Media - our computers are equipped with the most popular packages from Apple, Adobe and Macromedia including Flash, Cold Fusion, Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects. Cycling 74's MAX/MSP and Jitter software is fully deployed in all of the Rogers Communications Centre's shared labs including the Apple Learning Lab, The Visual Computing Lab and the Hybrid Media Computing Lab.
In the area of Broadcast Graphics - the School of Radio and Television Arts makes use of Harris Inscriber Software to develop character generation for use in any of the three SDI and HDSDI based all digital studios including the HDTV Inscriber Generator found in the country’s first HDTV television studio. Inscriber extends into Harris InfoCaster Digital Signage software of which the Rogers Communications Centre has worked with the University to establish a campus wide digital signage system. The system will carries Ryerson University Television (RUTV) --Ryerson's community TV station-- to all of Ryerson's high traffic area's across campus. In 2010 the Centre fired up one of the worlds first distributed 1080p digital signage systems to carry messaging and RUTV, while developing Haivision technology to transmit h264 1080p across Orion and University IP networks to enhance live TV production capability.
