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 month and you can listen to everything we record over at AVSuperFriends.com ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀...
Jun 14, 2024•29 min•Season 1Ep. 5
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 totally invented on the spot. We also welcome by a motley crew of fellow higher ed tech managers fro...
Jun 14, 2024•43 min•Season 1Ep. 4
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 Friday every month and you can listen to everything we record over at AVSuperFriends.com ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT...
Jun 13, 2024•27 min•Season 1Ep. 3
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 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikebrandesav/ David on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-...
Jun 13, 2024•54 min•Season 1Ep. 2
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 in a traditional teaching environment. We stream live on the first and third Friday every month and y...
Jun 12, 2024•22 min•Season 1Ep. 1
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 special AVSF swag! Alternate show titles: Networked… Stuff Zoom-enabled projector Smart-ish micropho...
Jun 07, 2024•30 min•Season 4Ep. 9
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 how we determine what is and isn’t covered. It’s… messy. Finally, just what happens when someone pres...
May 31, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 4Ep. 15
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 provide eleven things, but you get the point. Even the AV SuperFriends compromise on some of these f...
May 21, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Season 4Ep. 14
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/avsuperfriends ► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avsuperfriends ► Email: mailbag@avsuperfr...
May 08, 2024•28 min•Season 4Ep. 8
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 things. Heck, there are entire organizations who seem to exist solely for the purpose of drinking a...
May 03, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Season 4Ep. 13
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://www.avsuperfriends.com ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/avsuperfriends ► LinkedIn: https://www.linked...
May 01, 2024•30 min•Season 1Ep. 9
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, so we pick up from where we left off and work through topics such as auto-tracking cameras, microphon...
Apr 30, 2024•59 min•Season 1Ep. 8
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’t build these. There’s too many compromises and the experience is terrible. What people really want...
Apr 29, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 4Ep. 12
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 removing tiny displays from big rooms, Jamie is throwing away older monitors with weird resolutions, Chris...
Apr 08, 2024•27 min•Season 4Ep. 7
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 introduces touch panels, Chris provides the capability for BYOD UCC (but no one has asked for it yet)...
Apr 01, 2024•50 min•Season 4Ep. 11
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 get out of our level 1 and into level 2… sorta. If nothing else, it’s highly informative for AVSF int...
Mar 13, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 4Ep. 10
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 single monitors on lecterns). We stream live on the 3rd Friday every month and you can listen to everyth...
Mar 08, 2024•29 min•Season 4Ep. 6
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 rigid systems in place and nevermind all the exceptions. News articles discussed: https://www.instal...
Mar 05, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Season 4Ep. 9
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 neatly into three or four categories (hint: nope!) or are we all over the road? Marc confidently dec...
Feb 16, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Season 4Ep. 8
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 platforms, so look for those unannounced live streams on the socials. Alternate titles: I was thinking ...
Feb 08, 2024•28 min•Season 4Ep. 5
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: https://www.avsuperfriends.com ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/avsuperfriends ► LinkedIn: https://www.l...
Feb 02, 2024•20 min•Season 1Ep. 7
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... unless you’re running Dante microphone arrays as analog sources. Price be damned, we’re AVoIP everywh...
Jan 22, 2024•51 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Recorded January 5, 2024 It’s a new year and we’re starting 2024 by looking backward! We return to a previous topic: working with integrators. On Off the Rails 78, we debated Marc’s question about how to ensure we get delivered what we wanted from AV integrators… and that conversation prompted quite the debate on Twitter, led by friend of the show, Joe Way. So, we invited Joe on the show to talk in more than 140 characters. Did we solve it this time? We also review an article from the Harvard Bu...
Jan 10, 2024•1 hr 26 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Recorded December 20, 2023 (Part 2 of 2) It’s our third annual prediction show! And I predict we’ll do it again next year. We first review our predictions from last year to see just how well we did. Some of us were dead on, others were hit & miss, and yet others seem to be deliberately vague just to claim accuracy regardless of outcome. Then, we each prognosticate on what to expect in 2024. Much of it seems to be around AI and Teams. Sorry. This discussion lasted almost an hour, so we split ...
Jan 09, 2024•34 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Recorded December 20, 2023 (Part 1 of 2) It’s our third annual prediction show! And I predict we’ll do it again next year. We first review our predictions from last year to see just how well we did. Some of us were dead on, others were hit & miss, and yet others seem to be deliberately vague just to claim accuracy regardless of outcome. Then, we each prognosticate on what to expect in 2024. Much of it seems to be around AI and Teams. Sorry. This discussion lasted almost an hour, so we split ...
Jan 08, 2024•21 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Recorded December 8, 2023 Today’s news is a summary of the Geometry of Learning research project from friend of the show, Dr. Jon Dorbolo, about teaching in round classrooms. Done well, these are fantastic learning spaces with untold opportunity. Done poorly, they are technology-driven failures. Those two outcomes are not mutually exclusive. Then, we attempted to discuss how to document projects so that external contracted integrators deliver what we need, regardless of who is providing the desi...
Dec 12, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Recorded November 15, 2023 It’s December, so it’s time for a holiday wishlist! Each of us shares the AV device or service that we’d really like under the Christmas tree. Some of these are real products, others are slight variations on commonly available products, and one requires a time machine. Merry Christmas, y’all! ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀ ► Website: https://www.avsuperfriends.com ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/avsuperfriends ► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avsuperfriends ► Ema...
Dec 08, 2023•45 min•Season 4Ep. 2
Recorded December 1, 2023 Our news comes from the Chronicle of Higher Education who now recognizes that teaching via lecture and teaching via active learning are not mutually exclusive nor diametrically opposed. Shocker! It’s possible to effectively teach via lecture in an active learning classroom and engage students in active learning in a lecture hall. But we all knew that, didn’t we? Speaking of multi-use spaces, how are we designing and deploying our multi-purpose classrooms and event space...
Dec 08, 2023•55 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Join the AV SuperFriends LIVE on Dec 15 at 3p EST for a higher ed AV-themed Holiday Party! We will have live guests, a Santa's workshop photo exchange, and the official AVSFmas tree! It should be a great time of holiday cheer! https://avsf.live
Dec 04, 2023•3 min
Recorded November 17, 2023 Our news article this week is really more of an opinion piece by a friend of the show and all around good guy, Steve Greenblatt of Control Concepts. He opines that maybe, just maybe, contractors shouldn’t be chasing only profit margins, but providing solutions that customers will really appreciate. Blasphemy! Then we’re joined by Mike Pedersen from Iowa State University to talk about in-house integration. Mike shares his trials and tribulations of building an internal ...
Nov 22, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Season 4Ep. 3
