TORONTO – A professor and broadcasting researcher at Ryerson University is developing a one-of-a-kind worldwide broadcast network that has been dubbed “the CNN of the university world”.
Using high-speed Internet connections and Canadian-made video streaming technology, Richard Grunberg has founded the Global Campus Network (GCN) which will connect 4,100 colleges and universities around the world. Using high-definition video streaming technology that is sent and received over high-speed Internet, Grunberg says that the network offers a number of advantages over traditional satellite transmission such as a shortened time delay; bi-directional communication, meaning that operators in different countries to both send and receive full HD video, intercom, IFB and audio; and, is much cheaper too.
GCN will soon establish its first permanent university connection with the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand before expanding to include ‘news bureaus’ at universities around the world. These bureaus will generate and air student content, which will then be distributed by the network’s member schools, with Ryerson as the central hub.
Grunberg said that networks such as NBC, CBC and TVO have all expressed interest in this type of technology.
“Collaborative technologies such as the one adopted by the Global Campus Network have the potential to break down cultural barriers and open up the broadcast environment”, Grunberg said in a release. “Recent citizen reporting on events in the Middle East is a prime example of this. In our case, we are giving the viewing public the opportunity to choose what content they watch from selected viewpoints around the globe and the chance to interact with or contribute to that coverage.”
