Blue Raider Video on the move...

An essential part of moving the Blue Raider Football headquarters south to New Orleans requires moving all video equipment. Video is essential to the program because coaches use it scout the opponent, show it in meetings and of course practices at the bowl site must be recorded and analyzed.

This is no simple task, its much more than just bringing down a few computers and screens. Video Coordinator Andrew Rossetti and his staff of six students drove to the hotel Tuesday night into Wednesday morning so that they could have enough setup time to be ready for the team's arrival on Wednesday afternoon.

Once the truck arrived early Wednesday morning Rossetti's staff unloaded their equipment and finished setup in less than 3 hours. Not impressed? Well consider some of the following projects completed in that time...
- Setup of a video office that includes, a 400lb video server linking all the coaches' laptops The office also includes 2 video input stations & 2 video stations for film editing
- Running over 2,000ft of ether-net cord to 8 meeting rooms along with using around 1,500ft of tape to secure the cords
- Setting up laptops, projecters and video screens in 8 meeting rooms and linking them to main server
- Sound checking the portable sound system used in the team room for highlight tapes

Along with this setup at the beginning of our trip the video staff must record each day's practice and enter the film into the computer system so coaches can view it after practice. To get this done in time Rossetti must set up a make-shift office at the Saints facility so he can begin entering film at the end of each period of practice. Then when the bus arrives back at the hotel all the video is entered and logged into the server so coaches can view it in their own meeting rooms.


This is a shot of the video office in the hotel, notice the brains of the operation in the corner, that's the 400lb server