Higher Ed Solutions
Acoustical Treatment
Ensure that your systems will sound great with custom solutions for better room acoustics
The most important aspect of sound reproduction and intelligibility is also the most overlooked and neglected aspect of a properly designed audio system. Poor room acoustics have a major effect on the transmission of sound from the source to the listener. Controlling background noise, distance from source to the listener, and early and late reverberation are all equally as important as the audio system itself. By properly treating room surfaces to control sound and eliminate noise, undesirables such as reflection, vibration, and transmission can be reduced
This system is often included in the following room types:
Assisted Listening
Quality control and custom sound engineering for any voice amplification device
While in recent years communication has become a convergence of email, text messaging, video calls and data conferencing, nothing unifies and clarifies these tools more than the human voice. With the ability to add context from subtleties such as tone and the power of real-time feedback through conversation, effective voice communication cannot be replaced. At Presentation Products, we believe that clear and accurate voice systems are the most important part of any presentation or conferencing system. Whether on a conference call, video call, or during distance collaboration, speech inteligibility is paramount to participants understanding one another. Our in-house engineers and sound professionals will design, install, and configure your systems for unmatched voice quality, clarity, and intelligibility.
This system is often included in the following room types:
Control Systems
Improve technology adoption rates with easy to use, custom programmed control panels and keypads
Complete control of all audiovisual and room components is at your fingertips. Custom programmed touch screen control panels and keypads from Crestron, AMX, RTI and Extron replace the myriad of remote controls, light switches, thermostats, volume knobs, shade controls, intercoms and alarm keypads with a sleek, modern user-friendly touch panel. Mounted on the wall, at the table, or mobile, simply tap the screen to wake up a room, lower the shades, lights and projection screen while simultaneously turning on the display device or projector to begin your presentation, all with a single touch of a screen.
This system is often included in the following room types:
Digital Signage
Share campus news and guide visitors around your university with eye-catching digital displays
Sharing campus news has never been more critical. Of course, most educational communities have many events that could use more exposure. Campus communications are no longer just about quality of life, they can also be about saving lives. Digital Signage Systems make it quick and easy to push urgent updates, even to mobile devices and remote campuses. Students, staff and visitors are generally savvy when it comes to technology, and they’re more responsive when notified visually. Visual communication software also makes it possible to share sophisticated multimedia presentations that enhance campus life by engaging and informing audiences about the many details of residential life, social and athletic programs, administrative announcements, and promotions from retailers.Communications can be tailored to any educational community’s unique setting. Deliver targeted messages and media to specific campus locations, no matter how geographically dispersed, or broadcast the same display campus-wide. Automatically display greetings, instructions and updated scheduling throughout the day. And if your creative resources are limited, we offer creative backgrounds and templates to create effective, eye-catching displays.
This system is often included in the following room types:
Interactive Technology
Inspire collaboration and innovation with an interactive whiteboard for the university classroom
The SMART interactive whiteboard’s ease of use and finger-touch capability are unique features that make them educators’ most popular choice.We offer a range of intuitive and interactive technology products that can help instructors enhance teaching and learning in their classrooms and beyond. Use interactive technology to facilitate small-group collaboration and whole-class interaction, support different learning styles with flexible, interactive learning opportunities, engage students with multimedia using smartboards combined with other technology products, such as document cameras, DVDs, the Internet, laptops and handheld computing devices, spontaneously highlight or add digital notes to lesson material with the SMART Podium interactive pen display, and then share the notes or entire lessons with students online and allow students to connect to a class remotely using Bridgit conferencing software.
This system is often included in the following room types:
Lecture Capture
Record and stream lectures for students with easy to adopt audiovisual systems
Would you like to capture a presentation from your computer? Or record video of your lecture? Why choose?
Our podcasting systems are capable of capturing audio only, full screen computer graphics, while simultaneously capturing full motion video from the camera of your choice. You decide whether to overlay the feeds into a picture-in-picture layout, or display them side-by-side. Recorded content can be delivered via Moodle, Blackboard or any other web based content management system as well as with all podcast feed readers, including iTunes and Google Reader.
This system is often included in the following room types:
Room scheduler
Make room reservation and display room use schedules right at the door
Colleges and Universities need to schedule people, space and events. Inefficient scheduling can lead to over bookings of resources resulting in inefficient use of rooms and resources.
Room schedulers simplify meeting room reservations and communicate room availability and changes to faculty and students for classrooms, lectures halls, meeting rooms and study rooms. Room scheduling technology increases utilization, eliminates scheduling conflicts, and minimizes interruptions – saving space, time and money. Our interactive room schedulers:
- Streamline the process of academic scheduling
- Increase facility scheduling and event management efficiency
- Improve communication among faculty, students and staff
This system is often included in the following room types:
BYOD Collaboration Systems
Bring collaboration to a new level with BYOD systems
Over the last decade, laptops have become more and more integral to the college experience. Even more recently, the smart phone and the tablet have become ubiquitous on campus as well. Because of this, the modern appetite for “bring your own device,” or BYOD, classrooms and study spaces is larger than ever. A BYOD environment gives students the ability to walk into a study space – or professors the ability to walk into a classroom – and show content from their device on a large display. BYOD systems usually feature cables to plug into, but thanks to improvements in wireless video technology over the last few years, many systems now feature wireless connectivity as well. This makes the process even easier. Additionally, BYOD systems like Extron’s “Show Me” allow fast-paced switching from device to device, enabling a dynamic content sharing environment. Bring your own device systems make study room, classroom, lecture hall, and board room lectures, study sessions, and presentations easier than ever for both professors and students. Contact PPI to start the BYOD conversation today. Room Types:
Distance Learning
Don’t let your location determine your education
These days, you don’t have to be in the classroom to be a part of the class. Universities are more focused than ever on allowing students who live elsewhere, who are sick, who have disabilities, or who otherwise cannot make it to the classroom to still be involved in the lesson. This is called distance education, and technology is what makes it possible. High definition, pan-tilt zoom cameras and wired or wireless microphones capture the video and audio of both the professor and the students. Video conferencing codecs, of both the hardware variety (like Cisco and Polycom) and the software (BlueJeans and Microsoft Lync) do the video processing and transmit camera feeds and content to the far end. They also often record lectures so that students can view them after the fact. Large format TVs or projectors and screens allow students to view lecture content as well as, optionally, students who are not in the classroom. Previously, distance learning systems were generally installed in standard classrooms which often functioned only as such – a standard classroom. Now, with the increase in distance education, more and more dedicated distance education rooms, used solely for this purpose, are being built. There is no reason to think that this trend won’t continue. Room Types:
Distributed Audio System
Address your students, no matter where they are on campus.
On higher education campuses, there is always a need for the ability to disseminate information quickly. Digital signage accomplishes this for video. On the audio side, this is achieved via a distributed audio system. PPI will design and outline zones and sub-zones of speakers, and then install them throughout building hallways, classrooms, and common spaces. Loudspeakers are typically mounted in the ceiling or flush on the wall. Administrators can control what is routed to the speakers, including announcements and background music. Distributed audio systems can be run via a network, standard analog audio cabling, or fiber cabling. Control panels allow administrators to choose what audio is played in what zones, and at what volume. Though often building-wide, networked and fiber-based distributed audio systems can be campus wide as well, allowing the whole university to hear the same information at the same time. Room Types:
Projection Systems
Illustrate your point perfectly with the right Projection System.
In a small classroom, a large TV on the front wall is a nice solution for displaying lecture content. This solution, however, is not appropriate for midsize or larger classrooms – students in the back simply won’t be able to see. This is where projection systems, comprised of a projector and a projection screen, come into play. Projection systems are seen almost everywhere in the AV world – from corporate to higher education to K12, from conference rooms to classrooms to auditoriums. High definition, high brightness, widescreen projectors are more affordable than ever, enabling crisp, 1080p images across almost limitless screen sizes. Unlike TVs, projection systems are more complicated to design properly – ceiling height, viewer distance from screen, viewing angles, content type, ambient light readings, mounting locations, and more all need to be taken into account. Additionally, in some situations, rear projection – which involves a glass screen rather than a fabric screen – is more appropriate than front projection as well, adding another layer of options. But when done right, projection systems are the eye-catching, brilliant visual focal point of your audiovisual system, whatever the type of room. PPI has been designing projection systems since the company’s inception – contact an Account Manager to start the discussion today. Room Types:
Video and Audio Teleconferencing
See and hear what you need to, when you need to.
Higher education audiovisual systems aren’t just for classrooms, student lounges lecture halls, and other student areas. Board rooms and meeting rooms, used by Deans and upper level university staff, are outfitted with AV systems that allow them to make important university decisions efficiently. Some of the most prevalent board room and meeting room systems are video and audio teleconferencing. These systems, featuring TVs, high definition pan-tilt-zoom cameras, microphones in the table or the ceiling, video conferencing processors and audio digital signal processors, allow users to communicate and collaborate face-to-face (or voice-to-voice) in real time. Video conferencing processors, depending on the application, can be hardware-based (like Cisco and Polycom) or software-based (like BlueJeans and Skype) – either way, they take video and transmit it over IP to the other end of the call. Teleconferencing is prevalent in the corporate world, the hospitality world, and even the K12 world – and it is certainly common in higher education as well. Video conferencing systems are also used in the classroom for distance learning – see our distance learning system type for more detail. Room Types:
AV Furniture
Couple your furniture and AV equipment for a sleek and streamlined system
A key element of any AV system is its interaction with other elements in the room. AV is just one piece of the puzzle – lights, furniture, millwork, flooring, ceilings, and much more combine to complete a space. With this in mind, manufacturers and integrators alike have worked hard at integrating AV into furniture in order to keep rooms as clean, simple, and functional as possible. PPI is a firm believer in this strategy. Podiums at the front of lecture halls and classrooms may feature gooseneck microphones, built-in touch panels, laptop connections, annotatable touch screens, and even small racks for AV equipment to ensure simple and efficient presenter usage. Credenzas with sufficient interior space and proper ventilation for AV equipment are key elements in the majority of conference room installations. PPI coordinates with furniture providers to ensure cutouts are made in conference tables for microphone installation. Failure to coordinate AV furniture is an easy pitfall for a disorganized build out team – PPI puts a strong emphasis on this process from the start to ensure its smooth execution. Contact an Account Manager today to discuss how AV and furniture interact in your space. Room Types:
Video Distribution
Ensure that your systems will sound great with custom solutions for better room acoustics
AV systems aren’t confined to just a single room. Sometimes, singular systems span floors, buildings, and even campuses. This has myriad advantages: content can be routed to a variety of locations; administrators have only one system to be responsible for and a single point of control; and its usually cheaper to only need one large video processor, one large control processor, etc. than it is to need many small ones. Video distribution systems are one of the most popular large-scale systems. Corporate offices often have dozens of TVs across their floors – some in conference rooms for presentations and video conferences, and some in common areas for TV channel monitoring and digital signage. A single video distribution system, which can be installed via category cable, fiber cable, or over IP, allows content from any source to be shown on any combination of TVs. This allows maximum flexibility of use – conference room presentations can be broadcast into common areas, welcome signs for visitors can be displayed everywhere, etc. Hotels and college campuses can use the same flexibility to their advantage as well. Video distribution systems unify otherwise independent and uncoordinated AV systems across hotels, office buildings, and campuses. The systems streamline messages to viewers, ease use and control for administrators, and do not break the bank for decision makers. Contact PPI today to start the conversation.
This system is often included in the following room types:
