Specified by Huddersfield University's senior technician and manager of resources for drama, theatre & performance - David Wainwright, the new Hippotizer HD will be used by students on the BA Honours courses in Technical Theatre and Drama.
As an experienced provider of industry-standard technical facilities to leading educational institutions and markets, AC-ET were approached by the University when deciding to replace their original Hippotizer media servers with the very latest and most powerful HD video playback technology currently available on the market.
"Our research confirmed that the Hippotizer HD is arguably the most popular and appropriate media server for the theatrical and performance orientated environment in which we teach" explains Wainwright, adding that "There was never any other real competition - our previous Hippotizers worked extremely well, they were dynamic and reliable, so we stuck with a brand that we know and trust."
Producing around 40 shows a year, plus an end of year Drama Festival, the department and its students also work offsite producing shows in schools, community centres and a wide variety of venues in the locality.
Included in the package from AC-ET - which was co-ordinated by Alistair Smyth - was a comprehensive two-day on-site staff training course conducted by Green Hippo's Simon Harris. This training enabled David and his team to learn in-depth how to utilise the many features available on the Hippotizer HD and ensured that they were able to maximise the full potential of their new investment.
Recently revealed at PLASA 2012, Green Hippo announced some new V3 Hippotizer software features including 3D VideoMapper - which enables users to select an area of the source and map to an area of the output; Multi-Select - which allows users to select layers from multiple machines over Hipponet and control them together; and Mackie Protocol Support - which enables a Mackie MCU-Pro to act as a Hippotizer tactile interface.
(Jim Evans)
