If the IT is an umbrella structure covering everything from networks to security to application development to PC hardware, then AV is the most IT of any IT department. We do it all and are constantly asked to do more. What’s that? You’re not part of the IT structure at your school? Well, then you’re doing it wrong.

Have y’all heard of this distance education thing? Apparently, 33% of schools are considering continuing that after COVID. I can only assume that was a poorly-worded survey question as, honestly, who is NOT going to be doing more distance education than ever before?

Also, we hate moveable furniture, and an AV integrator joins the show to provide an outside perspective of working with universities.

Embarrassing commercial AV installations at a “prestigious New York university,” is Higher Ed AV really part of professional AV (yes), and what’s the one thing you’d change about the AV industry?

Ever wondered what sorts of technologies the AV SuperFriends would really like to see from AV and electronics manufacturers? Well, wonder no more, because the dream of ubiquitous multicast video streaming is (almost) here!

Several of the AV SuperFriends vehemently agree with each other about Dell LCDs, the history of aspect ratios and the one aspect ratio to rule them all, and hot dogs as a metaphor for hybrid learning.

With 8K displays sneaking into the market, it’s time to talk about 4K! Are we deploying 4K (no), do we have 4K content (no), and do we have the bandwidth for 4K (yes!)?. Also, where are all the 4K projectors? Seriously!

The AV SuperFriends are interviewed by Erik Ofgang of Tech & Learning about proper feeding and watering of a podcast.

This month’s theme is COVID-related… again. But, instead of re-hashing touchless AV or hybrid learning spaces, we decided to present an episode of this podcast from 20 years in the future, so we can discuss the long-term impacts COVID had on higher ed AV.

Remember when we had to use proprietary hardware appliances to host or join video calls? Isn’t it great that we got away from that with Zoom, Teams, Hangouts, et al? Also, here’s a whole new line of proprietary hardware appliances that demand to be the center of your AV system!

This episode starts with the topic du jour of InfoComm moving to October— could it be a permanent date change? We sure hope so!

Then we argue about central AV management systems. Every manufacturer has one and yet several of us are still talking about building our own. Why is there not one system to control them all?