Microsoft Campus Tours (HD) - Channel 9

A little bit over a year ago, Golnaz, Kaitlin, and Matthew crawled out of a windowless studio and saw the sun for the first time in years. Their old manager, Larry, decided to help rebuild a studio so they could see the sun more regularly. Thus, the new Channel 9 Studio was born. After a year of enjoying their new digs, Golnaz, Kaitlin, and Matthew, joined by Cameron and Christina, want to show you around. It's like a housewarming, but with minimal social interaction, zero small talk, and you don't need to leave the comfort of your own couch. Enjoy.

Microsoft Reactor is principally a community hub for making connections, resources and talent more accessible to local startups and the developer community. All developers are welcome, regardless of their platform or tool preferences. To be a contributing member of the local community, and inspire and motivate developers to create. To learn more about upcoming events and how to get involved go to http://microsoftreactor.com/

In this episode of Microsoft Campus Tours we take you inside the Channel 9 studio where the majority of Channel 9 homepage content is shot, edited and live streamed. In 2011 we had Microsoft Campus Tours - Channel 9 Behind The Scenes where we took a sneak peek inside the Channel 9 studios. Four years later, we are back again to show you the latest gear, upgrades and remodel of the studio. Is this how you imagined it?

Larry Larsen, Eric Havir and Jamey Tisdale take a tour of the newly renovated Building 20. This building is the home of the Channel 9 studio and it is now used to host designers, partners and developers to run workshops, executive engagements and hackathons. In this video, we learn about the remodel process, artwork and new building features.

Recently Daniel Hubbel from the Windows team met with us to talk about the Ease of Access features in Windows. Last week he invited us over to see the lab where all of these features are tested. The lab, tucked away behind a discreet door in a typical Microsoft hallway, is setup with a living room area and several stations that represent the workspaces of fictional users with various challenges and needs. With these stations and additional accessibilty hardware, researchers and developers can test scenarios and real-world use cases.

Did you know that Microsoft has a full service television and production studio on campus? From Steve Ballmer appearances on Bloomberg to MSNBC broadcasts to Channel 9 Halloween videos, the Microsoft Studios team cover an extremely wide gamut of production services. In this Microsoft Campus Tours, Laura Foy takes us behind the scenes of MS Studios for a look at what it takes to keep the cameras rolling.

Building 4, one of the original buildings on the Redmond campus, has just undergone a massive refurbishment, transforming it from the traditional one-office-per-employee layout to a modern, open space with an emphasis on collaboration and natural light. John Snavely from the Office RED team gives us a tour of the new and improved work spaces in building 4 including the bike rack, work shop, Garage and "Soda-TRON 2000".

Joe Farro from the Surface team gives us a tour of PaTTY the robot who is responsible for stress testing the upcoming Surface 2.0 units. PaTTY is capable of testing draw speeds of up to 25 inches per second thanks to a pair of very powerful motors which means she requires constant monitoring to ensure she doesn't break free from her confines and roam the Microsoft campus.

The Microsoft SoundLab is a group at Microsoft that supports our needs for sounds and sound effects, mostly for video games. They have handled most of the Microsoft Game Studio sounds, for games like Halo, Fable, and Forza. Mike Caviezel walks us through the SoundLab and talks about what it's like to create interesting noises for a living.

Vince Jesus gives Clint Rutkas a tour of the Microsoft Hardware Model Shop (not to be confused with the Microsoft Research Model Shop) where napkin doodles become working prototypes and then eventually finished products like the Arc Touch Mouse. 3D Printers, CNC Machines and Paint Guns are just some of the toys this team gets to play with each and every day as they help design, create and evolve the Microsoft Hardware product line. For more, head to the Next at Microsoft blog where Steve Clayton is covering Microsoft Campus Tours all this week.