We wanted to welcome all new students to Drexel University and welcome back returning students!

We are very excited to start the new academic year and here are some new changes:

Editing Rooms Location Change:

As you can probably tell, the post production labs have changed spaces. Here are the new locations for the labs:

-UCROSS 032 Instructional Editing Lab is currently open

-UCROSS 017 = Open Editing Lab will open Tuesday, October 1 @ 9AM 

-UCROSS 017 = Pre Production Dell Machines will open Tuesday, October 1 @ 9AM 

-UCROSS 018 = Color Grading will open Tuesday, October 1 @ 9AM 

New Software

We have upgraded to the latest version of the Adobe Video products with the CC package. All editing stations will have the following:

-Adobe Prelude CC

-Adobe Premiere Pro CC

-Adobe Audition CC

-Adobe Photoshop CC

-Adobe Flash Pro CC

-Adobe After Effects CC

-Adobe Media Encoder CC

We’re working out details with Adobe to bring back Encore CS6, as Adobe has discontinued it. I’ll post more info on Encore as I recieve it

We also have upgraded to Pro Tools 11. More details coming soon on that. Expect a mid October launch.

We also updated to MS Office 2013, DaVinci Resolve 10 and more.

New Post Hardware

UCROSS 035 is being transformed into a new Mix & Edit suite, complete with Pro Tools 11, Adobe CC, Avid Media Composer 6.5 and more. The Mac Pro 1,1 was replaced with a fire breathing HP Z820 boasting 32GB ram, Quadro K4000 with 3GB VRAM, Blackmagic Video card hooked up to a 42″ TV and more. This should launch by mid October. Access will be granted by Chip Murphy and John Avarese.

We also are adding a “DIT Station” to the arsenal. Students will be able to sign out a cart, tabletop, rackmount PC in flight case, Tangent Wave control surface and more in order to bring post production to the field. The rackmount PC contains dual blackmagic decklink cards to facilitate a DaVinci Resolve Live system. This enables students to color correct footage from a camera in real-time so that the crew can see a non flat image. More details and training pertaining to this unit will be coming soon.

Need Help?

Remember, if you need computer help please email Support.Westphal@Drexel.edu. Thanks!

-Chip Murphy

The Mac Pros in UCROSS 015 and the color suites in UCROSS 025 now have USB3 / eSata combo PCI cards installed.

To harness the speed of USB3, you must plug your drives into the blue USB port or the eSata port on the backside of the computer.

Email Support.Westphal@Drexel.edu if you have any issues.

-Chip Murphy

Welcome back and we hope you enjoyed your spring break.

We were busy doing lots of updates over break. You’ll find new versions of DaVinci Resolve 9, Blackmagic Intensity Pro drivers in UCROSS 015, CS6 and other minor updates.

We also added a fourth DaVinci Resolve suite with triple GPUS in UCROSS 026.

Please note that this is the final term for Mac OSX in UCROSS.

The OSX boot drives in 015, 026 and 035 will be pulled once spring term concludes. Please use this time to migrate to Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 or Avid Media Composer 6.5. Check out our training videos for Premiere on Vimeo. From this point on, we will be strictly focusing on Windows in order to give the best possible post production experience.

Thanks guys! and don’t forget to email Support.Westphal@drexel.edu when experiencing computer problems!

Just a heads up, but we just added a Rhino Slider Pro with the pulley into the equipment room for checkout. Email Chip Murphy (cjm67 [at] Drexel [dot] edu) to get access.

CineTV and FMVD Network Files have been migrated over to our new AWExpress!

Please note that Westphal IT is proud to introduce you to AWexpress!

Background Information:

• AWexpress is the replacement for AWstorage
• AWexpress provides more storage for departments than AWstorage
• AWexpress is also faster than AWstorage from on campus
• AWexpress, from off campus, will require a VPN connection
• AWexpress is a redundant server, but if you have vital data you should have multiple copies of it

Here’s a quick quide on how to access AWexpress!

Hello FMVD, TVPR and SCRP students,

Here’s how to connect to the temporary AWstorage location:

Mac = smb://129.25.130.112 via the “connect to server” command in finder

Windows = \\129.25.130.112 in the windows explorer address bar

Please note that there will be no student_work folder for a month or so until the new server comes online. I will instantly delete rogue items if they pop up. If you need to grab files from the old AWstorage, email support.westphal@drexel.edu with the location and file names of the files. Let me know if you guys need any help. Thanks!

-Chip

Just letting you know that we added a GoPro HD Hero 3 Black Edition to the CineTV Equipment Room’s arsenal.

If you want to gain access to sign it out, you will need to attend a required training session which will be held on February 20^th from 12pm-3pm in the shooting studio. The training session will review camera operations, wifi monitoring and the post workflow for Avid Media Composer/Adobe Premiere Pro with a touch of DaVinci.

Please fill out this form if you’re going to attend the training session.

In the meantime, check out the PR video from GoPro if you’re not sold yet…

Hey guys,

For future Post room access, we are migrating to an online system to reserve individual suites. The following suites will be able to be signed out online.

-UCROSS 025 – Color Suite 01

-UCROSS 025  -Color Suite 02

-UCROSS 025 – Color Suite 03

-UCROSS 026 – Audio Post Classrooom – 5.1 Surround Sound Mixing Suite (once you are certified)

-UCROSS 035 –  Audio Post 1

Please note, that to access the color rooms, you need to have taken my color grading class and to access the audio post rooms you need to have taken Audio Post with John Avarese.

Here’s the link to the reservation page and the online room calendar. You can access it by going to DrexelCine.TV and going to Facilities  and clicking the Room Request Form link. Please give yourself 1 business day for the request to cycle through as we have to approve or deny the request via email.

DO NOT use the rooms without a reservation. We’re going to have a 3 strikes rule similar to the equipment room’s no show/late/broken gear policy.

Thanks guys! Let me know if you like (or hate) the policy via email. Have a great winter term.

–Chip