Bloomington Herald-Times Articles
December 20, 2007
IU partners with Sony
Deal gives electronics to IU, discounts to IU people, info to Sony
By James Boyd
December 20, 2007
A new partnership between Indiana University and Sony Electronics will allow students and faculty members the opportunity to see things a little more clearly in the near future.
The electronics giant will provide equipment to the university for use in a variety of ways, including high-definition broadcast technology for WTIU and other equipment for use by students, faculty, and staff members.
In return, IU will help provide feedback on current and future Sony products, funnel high-qualified students into internships, and give the possibility of a lab environment where those products can be tested.
Individuals affiliated with the university will also be given the opportunity to purchase Sony goods at discount rates, similar to a deal IU already has in place with Dell Computers. Specifics on what products will be available at discounted rates are not yet available.
"In talking with Sony, we tried to make this always about something that both groups could walk away from the table with," IU Radio and Television Services executive director Perry Metz said.
Metz already has five high-definition studio cameras on order that will go into the WTIU facility soon. He next hopes to begin looking at field packages of equipment for shooting and producing footage outside of the broadcast studios.
As all television stations prepare to make the transition into digital broadcasting — a federal mandate requires all television signals be sent in digital form by February 2009 — the demand and need for high-definition programming is going to continue to grow at a fast pace, Metz said.
"This is opening the door to a faster transition to high-definition and local productions in high-definition," he said. "I'd hope we'd be able to do that by next spring or summer."
WTIU already broadcasts a high-definition signal, but new and better equipment will allow the station to capture images most haven't seen before on a traditional television set.
"The quality of HD is so high compared with what we're used to as a consuming public that no medium will want to be without it," Metz said.
IU Vice President for Information Technology and CIO Brad Wheeler said the partnership will ultimately benefit many, many people.
"Sony is really a world leader in digital lifestyles, from its consumer line all the way through its higher-end products," Wheeler said. "We're a world-leading IT (information technology) university. There are opportunities to do some things of interest around understanding the millenials, this generation of students and how they interact with digital media."
Opportunities will also exist for faculty members looking to do research in a technological field.
"Let's say a professor wants to do a project on X or Y, and Sony wants to do a project on X or Y," Wheeler said. "This (partnership) makes it a lot easier and us more nimble to do those kinds of things."
With its new equipment, the university will be able to shoot educational and promotional materials, and show productions from places such as the Jacobs School of Music in HD.
Metz credited Jay Kincaid, a WTIU director, with the idea of a partnership between IU and Sony.
"Jay has this national and international experience, and he'd seen the depth and breadth of what the Sony corporation could do," Metz said. "He outlined all the benefits he could imagine for faculty members."
Kincaid, who has directed broadcasts for the Olympics and SEC football games, had worked with Sony's products and had a vision for how they could help IU, Metz said.
From Sony's perspective, they're going to be able to tap into the minds of not only renowned communications and IT faculty members, but also those of thousands of 18- to 22-year-olds.
"I think ... that by working with a large university like IU, it's a great way for us to really work together and come up with new ideas for using technology, not just in traditional ways, but in innovative ways," said Shari Sentlowitz, government and education marketing manager for Sony.
"It's a way for us to basically explore new digital applications at the university. HD camcorders are being used now to record campus events and lectures. We have widescreen projectors that really make lecture hall presentations much more engaging."
Sentlowitz said Sony and IU seemed like a good fit.
"We're really looking for universities who are not just looking for the next best deal," she said. "We're looking for schools that will work with us to develop new ideas."
Concerned about Sampson; To the editor:
As a high schooler who lives in Bloomington, I am a huge IU basketball fan, but I do have a lot of problems with how things were handled. How can Sampson violate the rules again, and still not get in any major trouble? The most disturbing part is when I read the article, I saw that as punishment Sampson's $500,000 bonus was been taking away. The first thing that struck me is why are they taking money away from his bonus? Why don't they take it away from his base salary?
It is very hard to support a coach who promised his fans that he would not commit the same mistake, and then, he turns around and does it again. The worst part out all of this is that Rob Senderoff resigned to take the fall for IU basketball; therefore, I would like to thank Rob Senderoff for taking the fall, and would like to wish the best to his family.
-RAFI GELLAR, Bloomington
