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Bob Doyle (Brown '58) had built a small studio with three Sony color cameras and a sophisticated Shintron switcher in the lab at DTV Group. Bob was trying to replicate in video the multi-track editing he had pioneered with Super-8 film at Super8 Sound. In 1986 he offered the equipment to BTV to get their studio started in Faunce House.
Bartis and Liman started with this equipment and in the following year Brown received a $250,000 grant to build out the Faunce House cable television studio.
BTV members were active in the National Association of College Broadcasters (NACB), a trade association for student radio and TV stations that was based at Brown University. NACB published the monthly College Broadcaster magazine. It also ran U Network, a non-commercial, non-profit network distributing collegiate programming throughout the world. In its heyday NACB was run by a small three person staff, several interns, and many volunteers. NACB sponsored conferences geared toward college radio and television, and operated an Internet listserver. Today most college video and audio programming is distributed via the web. See College Broadcasters.
Brown students have occasionally tried to reactivate BTV, but in the age of highly portable camcorders suitable for on-location production, inexpensive video editing solutions like Apple Final Cut Pro, and web video distribution like YouTube and UStream, there is less demand for professional multi-camera studios, which are more suited to live broadcasting.
