Students will have access to first-class technical facilities such as state of the art editing suites, moving image studios, 3D workshops and other specialist resources. These include a number of Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) developer kits. Students will be able to develop for this platform under an academic development agreement with Sony. In addition several other platforms are available including Xboxes with Microsoft XNA Game Studio developer software. Students also have access to a body modelling suit.

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The Games Development Suite contains a number of Sony PlayStation Portable developer kits (PSP). Students will be able to develop for this platform under an academic development agreement with Sony. In addition students have access to Xboxes and Microsoft XNA Game Studio developer software. A number of other consoles are also available including Wii's and Sony Playstation 3. The lab is equipped with 3D graphics software such as Maya. Students also have access to a body modelling suit.

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The IGS-190-M mobile capture suit is one of the most mature gyroscopic inertial motion systems and features nineteen matchbox-sized gyros attached to individual straps on a flexible lycra suit. The gyros are the fastest in the market (at 1,200 deg/sec). Eight suits can be used simultaneously with a wireless range of over 100 metres radius and sensor resolution is 0.1 degree. Setup time is approximately 15 minutes; the suite requires a small amount of calibration and time for the gyros to settle. The suit was purchased from Animazoo, a specialist in the area of motion capture with an IGS-190-M being used to animate the cartoon character ‘The Crazy Frog’ amongst many other cartoons and computer games.

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A multimedia and graphics studio that houses 39 Pentium 4 PCs all with DVD writers and our full graphics software which includes Maya complete, Adobe Production Studio; Premiere Pro, Photoshop CS4, Illustrator, After Effects, Encore, Audition, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Combustion.

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This area comprises a studio of 100 square metres and has all you need to record broadcast quality programming. The space has a 14 metre infinity cove painted white, heavy black curtains and an 8 metre professional film blue screen. The studio space has been built with flexibility in mind and any combination of setups can be accommodated within the area with regard to filming. The studio is equipped with three Panasonic HVX200 high definition cameras in a studio specification with matte boxes, dolly tripods and P2 16GB cards. The lighting array consists of a Kino Flow system combining Image, Zip and Para Beam light fixtures with Dedo modelling spots. The whole array is controlled by a 64 channel DMX desk. Our filming environment and animation suite house the latest technology, including:

• — 100m sq filming space with 14m infinity cove and 8m professional film blue screen;
• — three Panasonic HVX200 Hi Definition cameras;
• — Kino Flow lighting system controlled by a 64-channel DMX desk;
• — Stanton Jimi Jib with a remote head and 4m reach;
• — post-production suite containing 10 Macintosh computers with 20 terrabytes of storage hosting the latest editing software;
• — animation suite containing four rostrum cameras running professional stop motion capture systems as used by Aardman Animation (the Oscar-winning makers of Wallace and Gromit), Diva light setup by Kino Flow, light boxes and additional animator-friendly equipment;
• — sound recording suite, perfect for interviews, voice over and recording music.

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The Digital Media workshops provide a wide range of software and specialist technical support in the key areas of CAD, 2D & 3D design, digital imaging and processing, high quality photographic printing, audio and video production, mono and colour printing (up to A3+), and large format plotting (up to B0+). All 132 computers in the Digital Media Workshop are set up as dual boot workstations. This means that both the Windows XP and Macintosh OS X platforms are available on each machine. You are therefore able to choose the platform (PC or Mac) that you want to work with at any given time.

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Our professional-level photography suite has two new digital darkrooms featuring:

• — high-end workstations with calibrated monitors;
• — quality input and output devices within a colour managed workflow ensuring colour accuracy;
• — hardware including Mac Pro computers, Nec Spectraview Monitors, Imacon and Nikon Film Scanners, A3 Epson Pro Flatbed Scanners, Digital Card Readers and Epson large format printers.

The professional photography suite includes two digital imaging areas providing 26 Mac Pro computers running Photoshop software for digital image development and high quality digital scanning. Professional quality digital printing, from A4 to A2 is also available. The Photography Suite is supported by a team of technical and academic staff.

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The PPS comprises 10 top of the range Macintosh computers, the majority of which are running the Intel CPU. They are all based on the Black Magic uncompressed broadcast system and are controlled by a central video server running the Apple XSan network. There is a massive 20 Terrabytes of storage and we can stream up to 10 full HD streams across the network in real-time. At SD we can stream approximately 40 streams of video at once.

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This suite consists of networked G5 Macintosh Power PCs with Dual 2.3 GHz processors, 2 Gigabytes RAM and a GeForce 6600 Graphics Card or a Radeon 9600XT graphics card running the full version of Maya 2008. The Apple Xsan Server and Intel Mac Pro FailOver server have an Infortrend 15 TB disk array, QLogic 15 port Fibre switch, Fibre Optic Channel duplex AV data transfer with Netgear 24 port ethernet switch, Ethernet Meta data transfer and 48 port patch bay with 16 port fibre distribution interface.

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This area comprises a control room and an audio booth with talkback and video monitoring facilities. There is an extensive sound FX library and high quality transducers suitable for high quality voice and / or sound track recording. The studio is able to cater for both post and pre-production sound to image work and runs with Final Cut Pro / Soundtrack Pro as its central engine.

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These large, open-access 3D CAD workshop has been the focus of significant investment over the past year, and now features state-of-the art equipment including the latest computer-aided 2D and 3D modelling equipment and programmes.

• — CNC lathe (computer-aided hard materials cutting machine);
• — two 3-axis CNC routers (computer-aided wood cutting machine);
• — rapid prototyper (computer-aided sculpting machine);
• — 3D scanner;
• — laser cutter.

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Based on the latest developments in neuro-technology, Emotiv has developed a revolutionary new personal interface for human computer interaction. The Emotiv EPOC is a high resolution, neuro-signal acquisition and processing wireless neuroheadset. It uses a set of sensors to tune into electric signals produced by the brain to detect player thoughts, feelings and expressions and connects wirelessly to most PCs.