UCLA Installs Barix Instreamer IP Audio Encoders in 43 Classrooms
Automated solution enables lecture recordings and Web-accessible Podcasting
LOS ANGELES, October 15, 2007 — Barix AG, a pioneer in IP-based audio, intercom, control and monitoring, today announced that the UCLA (University of California in Los Angeles) Office of Instructional Development (OID) has installed Barix Instreamer IP audio encoding devices in 43 of the university’s general assignment classrooms across the campus. UCLA’s OID has been deploying the Barix Instreamers in phases since December 2005, with plans to roll them out to all 200 classrooms.
“With the Barix Instreamer in the classroom, we’re able to economically record lectures in high audio quality and place them on our website so that students can retrieve them as podcasts, or listen to them as streaming media on a Real player,“ said Daniel Bustos, instructional technology and design coordinator for classroom services at UCLA, in Los Angeles, Calif. (www.oid.ucla.edu.) “We are finding that podcasting and webcasting are very effective learning tools.“
“Our students love it for obvious reasons—they can go back and review lectures at their convenience from their PCs or portable players. It’s been particularly beneficial to students with learning disabilities and those that speak English as a second language,“ said Bustos. “Our faculty members are pleased because their students can easily review the lectures, and as a result come to class better prepared and ask sharper questions.“
Each classroom is equipped with a wireless microphone worn by the instructor that transmits the audio to a companion wireless receiver. The receiver feeds that audio into the house PA system—which accepts audio devices such as DVD players and laptops—and feeds it into a micro-mixer, which sends it into a Barix Instreamer for realtime encoding into an MP3 stream.
All Barix Instreamers across campus send MP3 streams to a centralized recording area within UCLA’s main campus library that is equipped with six PCs, each of which is set-up to record up to eight Barix IP audio feeds simultaneously. Using High Criteria’s Total Recorder, each PC records the Barix IP audio streams and pushes them to UCLA’s central podcast server which makes them available for download from www.bruincast.ucla.edu within minutes of class being over.
On the website, students are given a list of participating courses offered by UCLA in subject areas like chemistry, psychology, political science, mathematics, astronomy, earth science, and biology.
“The Barix Instreamer is ideally suited to classroom recording. The only thing the faculty member has to do is to turn the microphone on at the appointed time. The recording starts and stops automatically in every participating classroom according to a schedule,“ said Bustos. “The rest of the workflow is fully automated once the initial set-up is completed. We have found the Barix Instreamer to be a solid, reliable, economical solution, and our goal is to make it more widely available to our students.“
Please visit www.barix.com or call 866-815-0866 for more information.