“A computer – how does it work, how do I use it?” This sentence sums up the three-day course on digital equipment attended by some twenty technicians and engineers from ENTV.

The course is led by Sébastien Guimont and Maurice Ghariani, from GRETA (Basque Country) under contract to the EBU and under the responsibility of Natalie Labourdette from the EBU's International Training section, and supported by Amina Debbache, ENTV director of Training and Professional Improvement, and Mohamed Bendaoud, director of ENTV’s Engineering Department. It's aim was to explain how digital audio and video equipment works and how to use it. It also was designed to round off two months of online training, as well as answer the group’s questions.

Top to bottom: 
Mahomed Bendaoud, Maurice Ghariani, 
Sébastien Guimont and Amina Debbache, 
interns, 
autopsy of a PC 
 

Tailor made

Entitled “Technology of Audiovisual Equipment and Media”, it is a six month online training course, punctuated by three meetings with trainers travelling to Algiers. 

For the online part, an Internet platform was made available to ENTV on an exclusive basis. Participants follow a training course tailored to their professional backgrounds and competencies, based on a number of modules comprising instruction, video illustrations, exercises, coaching and compulsory validation. 

ENTV has been preparing this project in conjunction with the EBU's International Training section for the past year. For this purpose, it has equipped a room with new PCs where participants can meet each day and attend training courses after their day’s work. ENTV’s input is essential in providing the participants with both logistical organization and personal support. 

Each individual participant is supported by an in-house tutor. Group emulation as well as each participant's strong individual initiative are the major driving forces behind the training: in working on the exercises participants are expected to help one another or search for guidance on the Internet. This provides a real-life foretaste of digital television, where networking is of the essence.

This meeting is an essential part of online training as the participants meet the trainer and ask questions they have been unable to answer via the Internet. 

When presenting the course results, trainer Maurice Ghariani congratulated participants on their sterling efforts and explained why strict demands have to be met in this field. 

PROGRAMME

• Anatomy of a computer
• Windows NT recovery console – FAT start and structure disk
• Spectral representation of an audio signal – spectralab
• Microphone pickup principles – comparison
• Networking of computers – addressing of a subnetwork
• NT domain: client server
• Functionalities of an analogue mixing panel ­– of a digitally processed mixing panel (YAMAHA 01V)
• How the Internet works
• VNC: distant handling
• Principles of modulation: AM – FM
• Video signals in analogue components and composites
• Measurements on colour bar test cards
• Questions-answers at all training levels  

pj / ep