AV SuperFriends

Recorded June 12, 2024 In something of a lost recording that Chris couldn't find, Justin, Larry, and Chris visit with Liberty AV and speak with Kevin Peterman about AVoIP solutions, Corey Briggs about cloud monitoring, and Ed Jankowski about Liberty's approach to the AV industry. Special thanks to Brad Thomas for wrangling colleagues. We stream live on the first and third Friday every month and yo...

Recorded June 21, 2024 The AV SuperFriends have returned from InfoComm which means it's an InfoComm recap show! Short version: there was far less "AI" braggadocio and way more cloud cloud cloud. For those of you who weren't able to join us on our traditional Friday AM show floor tour, we review our selections from that and links are below. We also discuss some additional products and solutions tha...

Recorded June 14, 2024 Larry, Justin, and Chris visit with Zach Snook from Biamp (while sitting on the most comfortable chairs on the show floor) to discuss their newest announcements and product updates, including the long-awaited analog input on the VBC conferencing bars. Jamie will be disappointed at no AVB connectivity for expansion, so he'll have to be satisfied with LAN control and monitorin...

Recorded June 14, 2024 Larry, Chris, and Justin review their thoughts from Day 2 and what they're looking for during Day 3. There's been more LED displays (including lots of all-in-one units) at far more reasonable prices, lots of USB-C (could it actually be an option for wide deployments in the future?), and some dude on the very top of a ladder. We stream live on the first and third Friday every...

Recorded June 13, 2024 (Note: Our super duper awesome recorder died right in the middle of this episode, so it cuts off abruptly; see the episode artwork. Unrelated: anyone want to buy a multichannel recorder?) Larry, Justin, and Chris invade the Computer Comforts booth to talk classroom furniture, the development process, partnerships with university customers, and even some new ideas that Chris...

Recorded June 13, 2024 Larry, Justin, and Chris share their thoughts about Day 1 at InfoComm and trends they're seeing at the show. AI is MIA, there's lots of iterative software improvements to existing hardware, and be sure to stop by the Panasonic booth to see the mist display. We also discuss our approaches to automatic cameras and hybrid seminar spaces. We stream live on the first and third Fr...

Recorded June 12, 2024 Justin, Larry, and Chris are joined by Mike Brandes, David Maksa, and Jonathan Moore from Q-SYS for an unorthodox and honest discussion of product ecosystems, working with partner manufacturers, computes vs. computeRs, adding software features years after shipping hardware, NDI emulation mode, and darn near everything in between. Thanks for sitting in with us! Mike on Linked...

Recorded June 12, 2024 Even after a few false starts and a recalcitrant multi-channel recorder, we did manage to squeeze out an early morning episode before the show floor opened. Justin, Larry, and Chris talk high level trends and solutions we expect to see this week. We're expecting better AI-enabled automatic cameras, cloud-connected everything, and room systems that we can actually integrate i...

Recorded (and streamed live) on May 17, 2024 This month's topic is "InfoComm" so we saw that as an opportunity to discuss what trends we're seeing, what we're looking forward to and what types of products we're looking for at the show. We also teased some of the recordings and events we'll be attending at InfoComm so follow us on the Tweeters and LinkedIn to find us on the show floor and get some...

Recorded May 24, 2024 MIT has invented revolutionary electrified material for sound masking and absorption… aka, curtains. That's not entirely fair and it's not yet a real thing, but this technology might become commonplace in the future. Then we discuss just what services we provide to campus and to whom. We also cover who qualifies and why and how we determine who gets supported (everyone) and h...

Recorded May 10, 2024 After pushing for higher and higher resolutions, some broadcasters are giving up and returning to the comfort of 1080P. Besides, if most people are watching said broadcasts on a 5" phone stream over mobile data, then what's the point of 4K or 8K? Then we revisit a presentation we gave recently at NWMET on the Top 10 Things to Avoid in Your Next AV Project. We can't count and...

Recorded April 16, 2024 This month's topic is "Commencement" and we don't want to talk about that. So, instead, we're going to talk about working with students, graduating students to the next level of their academic and professional careers, and converting student workers into full time employees. ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀ ► Website: https://www.avsuperfriends.com ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/a...

Recorded April 26, 2024 The AV industry has a bit of a drinking problem and step one is admitting it. Thanks to friends of the show Brittany DiCesare and Steve Greenblatt for their editorial in Commercial Integrator. To be clear, we're not anti-alcohol and we all enjoy a drink or four at our industry events, but when event after event after event is nothing but drinking, maybe it's time to rethink...

Recorded (and broadcast live) on March 28, 2024 We're still at NWMET and hosting a morning fireside chat show! Jamie and Larry are impressed by NWMET, Justin's bad knee, the long road our portable recording kit took to get from Kentucky or Oregon, the well-rounded but focused atmosphere of NWMET, and our special NWMET bucks. NWMET: https://www.nwmet.org ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀ ► Website: https:/...

Recorded (and broadcast live) on March 25, 2024 For the first time since last summer, (almost) all of the AV SuperFriends were together in one place at NWMET 2024 in Corvallis, Oregon, so we figured we might as well record a show. And yes, we're really in a bowling alley. Earlier that day, we hosted a town hall open forum at Biamp HQ and we had so many topics, we simply couldn't get to them all, s...

Recorded April 17, 2024 Rather than a single news story, we cover a handful of product announcements from (and prior to) NAB. Blackmagic announced a bunch of SMPTE 2110 devices (sorta), Osbot has an NDI adapter that goes the wrong way, Cleanfeed is now supporting video (yea!), and PTZ Optics has an entire software production suite for their cameras. Then, we get into One Button Studios. Please don...

Recorded March 15, 2024 It's time to get out the mops and brooms, clear out those storage closets, gather up all your old Class A amplifiers, analog cameras, and CRT monitors and throw them in the nearest waterway. If anyone asks, you have a permit and you're just returning those parts to nature. Besides, it's all biodegradable if you wait long enough… Marc is getting rid of wires, Larry is removi...

Recorded March 22, 2024 It's not really news as much as a product announcement that almost hits the mark. We really like this neat little camera on paper but then… limited I/O and guaranteed bloated software. Let's call it a swing and a miss. Then we return to how we tier our AV systems and, honestly, it's getting messy enough that we probably need a comparison matrix to keep track. Marc finally i...

Recorded March 8, 2024 More and more AVoIP systems are being sold because more and more AVoIP systems are getting specified into new projects. It's an amazing coincidence! We cover an article from Commercial Integrator about how commercial integrators see AVoIP. Then in part 27 of our 213 part series on how we organize our AV systems into buckets, tiers, levels, types, packages, etc., we finally g...

Recorded (and streamed live) on February 16, 2016 This month's topic is "rethinking spaces" so we decided to discuss projects that we've completed recently that we wish we'd approached differently. Marc hates microphones, Chris hates complexity, Justin hates how the AV services are marketed on campus, Jamie hates treating rooms as clones of one another, and Larry hates blanket approaches (and sing...

Recorded February 23, 2024 While planning the episode, we couldn't decide between a news story on VR or a news story on holograms, so we decided to cover them both. Hint: they're not real Then we continue our discussion of how we each stratify and organize the different types of systems we commonly deploy on our campuses. It's just as messy as you'd think with us all declaring confidently we have...

Recorded February 9, 2024 Did y'all know ISE was just last week? That means we're obligated to talk about it at least one more time for the news, so we have an article that identifies three trends from ISE that we'll see again at InfoComm. Two of them are nothingburgers, but the third… so close, but yet so far. Then we dive deep into how we structure our AV systems and room types. Do they all fit...

Recorded January 19, 2024 Our topic for February is "things just won't go away" or "things that keep coming back year after year" like Groundhog Day. We've each selected items that we all hope might see their shadow and disappear for a while. BYOD, VR, terrible marketing, wireless sharing, and more. We're also testing some format changes to On Topic to keep the show shorter and LIVE on various pla...

Recorded Feb 02, 2024 LIVE from ISE! Well, not really, but given some of the other coverage from Barcelona, it's still more timely and more in depth from 5,000 miles away. This is our take on the news from ISE this week. In true AVSF style, this discussion is spicy, yet reasonable, as we review the new products, the coverage, the people, and the show itself. ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀ ► Website: ht...

Recorded January 12, 2024 Remember when refrigerators would just sit there in the kitchen and keep food cold and we really, really wanted them to tell us what to cook? No? Well, too bad! We cover a story from CES about an AI-powered, excuse me, "AI" powered fridge that wants to scan your tomatoes! Then, we delve into the concept of basing every AV system on the same equipment and same cabling... u...