AV SuperFriends

Recorded February 24, 2023 This is the audio recording of our live session at the HETMA 2023 Conference. We proclaimed that AV is dead and simply part of the larger IT umbrella… or is it! We were joined by Ryan Gray of Yavapai College who wrote in a few weeks earlier suggesting a new approach to the continuing AV/IT convergence, so we put him on the panel. Thanks to HETMA for the opportunity to sh...

Recorded Feb 3, 2023 We cover all the news from ISE… *cough* The state of Arkansas is buying Phoenix… or something. We hash out what it might mean for the future of higher education when traditional universities buy online for-profit schools. Then, training. What training are we working on? What about our staff? Are we focused on technical skills or wider professional development? And where does t...

Recorded January 11, 2023 This month's topic is BYOD and why that's a terrible idea all around. Wait, it's not? Well, you'll have to convince me. We discuss BYOD for conferencing vs. BYOD for presentation only, BYOD for meetings, BYOD for student devices, wired vs wireless connections, why all wireless sharing appliances are bad, and even campus-wide iPad/Chromebook/laptop programs. Larry introduc...

In light of so much recent AI-related news, we skip the news and dive right into AI. Will AI take over or is it just the newest fad in technology? Afterall, we've been using AI-generated artwork for months, so that means even this podcast is AI-enabled, right? The current spate of AI search engines are really just cranking out the top result from Google, Wikipedia, Stack Overflow, and other sites,...

Recorded January 20, 2023 In a change of pace for Off the Rails, we're going to stick to one subject: USB. We're joined by Joe Cornwall, Legrand's AV Technology Evangelist to dive deep into USB and why it seems to be anything but universal. We all get the question from users that their laptop, tablet, phone has USB-C for charging, so why can't we do that in an AV system? We'll also cover such ques...

Recorded December 14, 2022 It's our annual prediction show! But first, a Festivus Miracle— ClearOne and Shure have settled their dispute over squares, or whatever it was. Anyway, we review our predictions from January 2022 to see how right (or wrong) we were and then make bold predictions for 2023. Marc talks AR and VR, Chris foresees a student-driven redefining of the college experience, Rachel i...

Recorded Dec 16, 2022 Apple is including a new application in all their devices with a new service pack called Freeform. While it may look like any other whiteboarding app, it is a harbinger of the types of second or third channel content that students will bring with them to our classrooms as it's now pre-installed on billions of devices. Then we review the concept of designing on expected system...

Recorded December 09, 2022 (Watch the video of this show: https://avsf.live ) In our second live show, we host a typical awkward office holiday party complete with ugly sweaters, a gift exchange, seasons greetings from the Higher Ed AV community, some special guests join us to share what they've been up to, and AVSF trivia to give away AVSF swag (and everyone likes swag, right?). And Chris Neto br...

Recorded October 26, 2022 In the spirit of American retail annual sales scheduling, here's a holiday episode recorded in October. Our theme for this show is stocking stuffers, so we all have a little gift to share (aka a "recommendation") or something from our AV wish list that will hopefully arrive soon. Little Marc gives everyone AVoIP decoders, little Chris gives "secret" analog I/O for QSC Cor...

Join the AV SuperFriends: Live! https://avsf.live

Recorded November 11, 2022 Remember movie theaters? Enormous sodas, greasy popcorn, giant candies, and … Zoom? Have you ever wished you could combine the experience of a summer blockbuster with a Zoom meeting? Neither have we, but it's coming to a theater near you. Then we return to the topic of AR, VR, XR, and other Rs. Larry makes a cogent argument about AR and Marc broadens his definition to en...

Recorded November 4, 2022 Meetings! We love 'em! We need more of 'em! Or do we? And are all these fancy spaces we've built out to support hybrid meetings just adding to the problem? Next we dive deep into the hardware side (and a few software bits, too) of selecting AVoIP encoders and decoders. We're putting together a list of criteria, separating them into Nice to Have and Need to Have and are in...

Recorded October 28, 2022 In the news, Chris shares his thoughts from the recent CCUMC conference at UCF in Orlando. Also, CCUMC has changed their inscrutable name to the slightly more scrutable ETC. Then we're joined by Jason Zapf from the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay to discuss how to (or how not to) provide hybrid capability in active learning environments. While the temptation is go big...

Recorded October 21, 2022 For Thanksgiving, the AV SuperFriends all gathered at Marc's house and stood around the kitchen waiting for the turkey to cook in the indoor deep-fryer. In addition to an assortment of side dishes, we all brought an AV Turkey to share. Marc reminds us of the nonsense of touchless AV control, Chris complains bitterly about wireless sharing appliances, Justin gives up on St...

Recorded September 28, 2022 In a change of pace, we've collected our scariest and creepiest tales of AV projects, equipment, customers, and support. Join the AV SuperFriends as we sit around the bonfire and share our tales of fright. Justin brings an Old Kentucky Fable, Marc recounts his end of summer waking nightmare, Larry reminds us that our worst fears can come true during the Year of Good Eno...

Recorded September 16, 2022 We had a different news story selected for this week but given the recent public email exchanges between Aurora Multimedia and Crestron, we had to discuss it. Is Crestron being the bully or getting taken advantage of? Marc raises the possibility that this is all a staged act to generate publicity and we all like the idea of a Crestron - Aurora conspiracy! Then, we're jo...

Recorded September 9, 2022 The AV SuperFriends kick off Season 3 with some announcements of upcoming changes and a new show, AVSF: Live! Yes, live-- on video, that is-- but live! With video and you! We want you to join us! The link is below. Then we return to our Twitter poll from a few weeks ago to share the results. With equipment lead times continuing to be a challenge, what are other schools d...

This month's topic is software AV and we couldn't decide between software AVoIP content, software AV control, or software management platforms, so we'll cover all three! We start with an article about a semiconductor manufacturer widening software (and hardware) support for SMPTE 2110, which gets us one step closer to HDBaseT-style interoperability… in theory. Then, it's a whirlwind tour of softwa...

Recorded August 12, 2022 We fire up the AVSF time machine and travel back to 2010… to talk about HDBaseT. It's all in good fun, but it's a weird article to see in 2022. Then, what's your threshold for standardization? That is, are you looking to broaden you AV equipment portfolio or just waiting out the on-going equipment delays? What happens if that wait becomes six, eight, 12, 16 months or more?...

Recorded August 5, 2022 Panopto is buying Kaltura! Sorta. The investment firm who owns Panopto also wants to own Kaltura. While this could mean we'll see a really cool platform come from this "merger," most likely it'll be bad for all of us. Look for your license fees to increase dramatically. Then, what do you mean by "AV design?" What does it mean to be an AV designer? How much time are you spen...

Recorded July 15, 2022 It's Back to School season! What will the 2022 - 2023 school year bring? We start with an article from EdSurge about schools who put massive student CRM systems on hold and are now restarting those massive projects. Regardless of how many times we've all been through this process, the end result seems to be the same: a litany of complaints, nostalgic stories of the previous...

We start with an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education that asks why colleges and universities are constructing so many new buildings, but leaving older facilities to rot? We're all guilty of focusing on the new hotness and ignoring the old and busted, but what will happen now that enrollment is set to drop? Then, active learning rooms. Do they really need all that stuff (no) or all those...

Recorded July 8, 2022 Marc starts us off with an article about new, high resolution and AI-driven optical microphones that will never be a product, but will be in almost every audio product in five years... and probably in your phone, too. If this technology goes where we think it will, it'll be the next version of beam-tracking & beam-steering. Then, with apologies to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, we ap...