Tokyo's Tohdai Delivers Online College Prep Courses with AJA HELO to Help Med Students Make the Grade

To pass rigorous university entrance exams, prospective Japanese medical students turn to comprehensive online training courses from Tohdai. The Tokyo-based medical software developer and education provider is a leading resource for students, with web-based courses taught through the company’s Hayabusa college preparatory program, captured using hardware from AJA Video Systems.

Seeking a flexible and user-friendly recording solution, Tohdai recently adopted AJA HELO for capturing Hayabusa video classes. HELO is AJA’s powerful and portable H.264 video recording, streaming and delivery device, featuring compatibility with 3G-SDI and HDMI sources and the ability to capture up to 1080p 60.

Prior to integrating HELO, Hayabusa class footage was recorded onto standard flash memory SxS cards, which proved a less than optimal solution due to lacking versatility and high unit cost. Introducing HELO into Tohdai’s proAV education workflow provides the team with a standalone solution for flexible recording to a variety of affordable media, including SD cards and USB storage drives.

Hayabusa classes are shot on two Sony PXW-X160 cameras with a TASCAM DR-10L pin microphone tapped for audio recording. Camera and audio sources are input to a Roland video switcher and routed to HELO for recording, which enables the team to switch simultaneously between the two cameras signals throughout video capture. All recording data is copied and transferred onto PCs for final edit via Adobe Premiere Pro.

“Our team is new to working with proAV equipment and figuring out a streamlined approach for recording our classes was a challenging hurdle for us,” said Tohdai’s Kazuki Aizawa. “HELO’s simple operation and easy-to-use recording features enable us to capture footage from multiple cameras and switch back-and-forth between sources, which saves us valuable time and steps throughout production.”

About HELO
AJA’s HELO allows users to simultaneously stream video signals to Web Content Delivery Networks while encoding and recording H.264 files to SD cards, USB storage or network-based storage with the push of a button. Supporting a range of professional workflows, the H.254 streaming, recording and encoding device includes 3G-SDI and HDMI inputs and outputs and the power to handle up to 1080p recording formats among other features. www.aja.com/products/helo

About AJA Video Systems, Inc.
Since 1993, AJA Video has been a leading manufacturer of video interface technologies, converters, digital video recording solutions and professional cameras, bringing high quality, cost effective products to the professional, broadcast and postproduction markets. AJA products are designed and manufactured at our facilities in Grass Valley, California, and sold through an extensive sales channel of resellers and systems integrators around the world. For further information, please see our website at www.aja.com.