The media laboratory offers extensive facilities for high-quality professional film, television studio and sound studio productions. It is available for teaching and research at the Institute of Media Technology and comprises three main functional rooms: recording room, video and audio control room. An additional editing room can be used for meetings. Students can familiarize themselves with modern digital camera and processing technology during their training.
A professional video editing suite is available for processing studio recordings (non-linear video editing, color grading, compositing, encoding and authoring). A separate audio control room with a voice-over booth allows for high-quality audio productions as well as dubbing work for existing video material.
The studio's professional video/audio and lighting equipment provides the basis for diverse projects in research and teaching. It allows film productions based on high-quality, digital standards in 4K/UHD and HD quality. TV studio and film cameras from Arri, RED and Sony are available for this purpose.
The TV studio, equipped with camera, mixer, video editing, measurement and recording technology, also offers possibilities for live productions. With the latest video-over-IP components from Lawo, the infrastructure for IP-based studio production as a new future-oriented technology in 4K/UHD has been laid. Two separate studio areas in the recording room with their equipment support both classic studio productions with real backdrops and virtual studio productions in which real and computer-generated worlds are mixed. In addition to the classic studio components, the following components are used in the virtual studio:
Tracking: sensor-based (Orad), IR tracking (Qualisys, Optitrack)
Rendering: VizArtist (Vizrt) and in the future Unity
In addition to digital film and television recording, the studio also offers:
various 360° video recording systems (Insta360, Kandao)
stereoscopic 3D filming with a professional mirror rig in UHD quality
measurement and evaluation of film cameras and photo cameras at a camera measuring station with integrating sphere
Motion capturing with the Qualisys Track Manager
Recording room
Height 5.50 m, usable area approx. 180 sqm The recording room offers space for two recording areas (conventional and virtual studio), which are separated by a black molleton curtain.
The studio lighting is mounted on a truss system. All luminaires can be moved in rails and some are height-adjustable on panthographs:
68 stepped lenses (halogen 1 and 2 kW)
16 halogen horizontal luminaires
15 fluorescent area lights
In the conventional studio, an opera foil (length 14 m x height 4 m) with fluorescent backlighting (60 LHGL each with red, green, blue, white) is available for background design.
A bluebox is used in the Virtual Studio (floor space 9 m x 10 m, height 4 m).
TU Ilmenau/M. Reichel
The extensive equipment includes the following technology:
5.1 reference monitoring system from Geithain, RL 904 loudspeakers plus Base 1 subwoofer.
Digital Audio Workstation (DAW): Pro Tools 10 HD Native - with Avid HD I/O 16×16 interface via ADAT connection to the studio - with Pro Control for control
PCI interface card: Hammerfall DSP 9652 from RME - with ADAT for optimal connection of further audio software
Host PC: Win7 PC system from DA-X in silent design - with Intel Core i7 CPU, 16GB Ram, system SSD, 2 x 1TB HDDs, special ATI graphics card
The AVID Pro Tools system includes many of the popular plugins from Waves, Sonox, Flux, Iosono, TC etc. as well as various AVID software synthesizers. Still ready for use is the completely upgraded predecessor system with surround-capable Pro Tools 5.1 DSP system based on MacOS, which additionally offers 24 I/O channels and a wide range of special plug-ins.
The audio control center of the studio is a Sony DMX R100 mixing console with 48 channels, including 24 analog and 24 digital inputs (ADAT+AES/EBU). It offers extensive routing options and can be optimally operated via touchscreen. The maximum possible studio clock is 96 kHz.
The following external players are available:
CD Player Denon C680
CD Player Technics SLPS-670D
DAT machine Tascam DA-45HR
Mini Disc Denon M1050R • MC Tape Denon 790R
8 channel multitrack digital tape machine Tascam DA 78 HR
Hardware sound generators and effects units:
Emu Ultra 5000 Sampler
Kurzweil K2000 Synthesizer
Yamaha S30 Synthesizer
Lexicon PCM 91 Reverb
Yamaha SPX1000 MultiFX
Urei 1178 Analog Compressor/Limiter
All digital capable devices are connected via ADAT+AES/EBU and are synchronized via a Timemachine from C-Lab using word clock. Audio routing is completely freely configurable via two audio routers from RME and Friend Chip. Analog connections are made via three Neutrik patchbays.
Furthermore, there is a 64-channel MADI connection via optical fiber to the institute's Audio Technology Lab.
Headphones from AKG, Sennheiser and beyerdynamic as well as very high-quality electrostatic headphones from the Japanese company STAX are available for monitoring or listening tests. The speaker room of the audioregion is acoustically damped and makes professional live recordings of speech and vocals possible. More elaborate recordings, such as of a complete live band, are possible in the studio room of the media lab. For this purpose, a very extensive equipment of extremely high-quality microphones from Neumann, Sennheiser, Oktava, ELV and Shure is available. The high-quality SPL Channel One and the SPL Gold Mike can be used as special preamplifiers for the microphone and the instruments.
For the more elaborate dubbing of video productions or presentations, there is a beamer with an acoustically permeable screen. For TV productions, the audio control room can be used independently for the sound. Both simple stereo productions and elaborate productions in 5.1 surround can be realized.
The audio control room of the media laboratory offers optimal possibilities for perfect audio processing and is available to the staff of the institute as well as to students for research and teaching.
The video editing suite integrated into the media lab's studio environment supports high-quality video post-production in HD/UHD/4K/8K 60P resolution, stereo 3D video editing, as well as in uncompressed SD and HD quality. The editing suite is connected to the Avid ISIS 5000 video editing server via a network connection and also to the video editing workstations in the Post Production Pool (RTK5)
Information on the use of the media lab outside of official courses:
Student projects of the Institute for Media Technology - Use of the media lab by students.
Before use: Acceptance of the general usage regulations by signature Instruction in the technology to be used in the lab rooms Provision of proof by signature of the supervisor with the following information: Name of supervisor:in, project name, project worker:in, duration of use and laboratory rooms for which access is desired.
Use of the studio by iSTUFF
For each iSTUFF broadcast, the respective broadcast team has to submit an application to the responsible university professor Prof. Dr.-Ing. Raake. The following information is important: broadcast team, short description of the broadcast with reasons for the use of the media lab, team leader, persons present, broadcast date, rehearsal dates, desired lab access The team leader must have received a briefing for the media lab and must have a magnetic card from the IMT for access to the lab. This will be unlocked for the requested broadcast and rehearsal dates. All other persons present must accept the general rules of use for the IMT laboratories by signature. After internal broadcasting appointments of iSTUFF at the beginning of each semester, a central briefing appointment is offered for interested persons. Please arrange this with Dr. Thomas Wöhner.
Use of the studio by persons belonging to other institutes of the TU Ilmenau
These persons submit an application to the university professor in charge, Prof. Dr.-Ing. It will be decided on a case-by-case basis to what extent personnel support will be provided by the IMT for the use of the studio.
Theusage regulations.pdf for the laboratories at the Institute of Media Technology apply.
