“The technology you use impresses no one. The experience you create with it is everything.”
Sean Gerety
En Vogue | Integrator Insights
There are always new technology trends brewing in professional AV. I’ve been at this now for over 22 years, and I’ve seen some impressive trends come: DVI, HDMI, HDBaseT, large LCD displays, digitally steerable line arrays, affordable direct-view LCD, solid-state light engines for projectors, and so much more. We are a long stretch from the days of 3-tube CRT projectors being fed with super-high-res 5-wire RGBHV coax cables. And the trends continue on to this day. So let’s take a few minutes and look at some of the en vogue AV technologies that may impact higher education.
One trend we have obviously been seeing is the growth of hybrid/hyflex technologies. Do you want to hear one more self-proclaimed expert drone on about how critical this technology is for your current and future classroom experiences? No, I suspect not. Moving on… (To be clear, it really is a vitally important consideration for you, but there is a lot of great content already on this topic, even here at Higher Ed AV Media.)
Next, there is XR or extended reality. XR is a new term that encompasses virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and other associated technologies. As an aside, I do appreciate the development of the XR term because “VR/AR/MR” was unwieldy. To be accurate, XR is certainly trending, but there is nothing new about it; I was building immersive VR systems back in 1999. What is changing is the cost of entry – it is easy to get into XR with just the phone you have in your pocket, or for a few hundred dollars you can pick up a Meta (Oculus) Rift or HTC Vive for a more dedicated experience. Pokemon GO proved that an AR experience could be widely adopted. The potential benefits of education have been widely discussed: simulation, augmented training, experiencing faraway locations or long-ago events, and so much more. In reality, the hardware is not complex to purchase or use. The challenge to more widespread adoption is content. As you will hear me say: “content is king.” Developing content that is compelling and engaging is hard enough, but for higher education, it also needs to be pedagogically useful, accurate, correct, and perhaps even peer-reviewed. As you do need analyses in your school around XR, it is imperative to focus on where the content is coming from. New content is being created at an increasing rate, but if novel content is desired, the cost to develop the content will almost certainly dwarf the cost of the hardware. One of the best pathways to develop new content is to use an established gaming engine like Unity or Unreal (and there are many others). You might even see a curriculum development department near you posting for experienced game engine content developers in the near future. If you really want to get ahead of this trend, consider what it might look like to establish XR content development and support as a service for your institution.
Another growing trend is AV-over-IP. I’ve certainly touched on this a number of times in prior columns. I assume you are all expertly aware, but for the sake of completeness, AV-over-IP is using established IP network infrastructure to distribute audio, video, and control among audiovisual devices and systems. Make no mistake, for many years there will still be plenty of absolutely appropriate use cases in higher education for non-IP connections like simple HDMI or HDBaseT. However, as those capital projects and unique donor-funded opportunities come our way in 2022 and beyond, I suspect IP solutions will be increasingly selected. There are few current technologies that are as standardized, stable, and ubiquitous as an IP network, so it makes perfect sense to build on that foundation. From an integration perspective, it can simplify the physical installation for your team; not only is category cable easy to pull and terminate (I think most of us are happy to pull out our soldering irons less), the installers don’t even have to be as concerned about identifying exactly what port on what device needs to be connected to what port on a different device – all connections simply go to the central location of the network switch. In fact, because it is all networking cables, you should even consider the potential benefits of putting the scope of pulling and terminating network cables onto your cable plant team to complete. As has been well documented, AV-over-IP simply provides incredible benefits in flexibility, scalability, and standardization. It is definitely a technology that is changing the AV landscape in higher education.
Another tending technology is USB-C. Yes, USB-C is simply a connector style – the actual functionality that can come with that can still vary greatly. However, it is currently the ubiquitous connector on every new computer sold – both PC and Apple. This widespread adoption is what should be leading you to seriously consider the opportunities. At the very minimum, we all need to start providing USB-C to HDMI (or, gasp, VGA) adapters in our classrooms. I’ll admit that up to now we have been requiring our instructors to provide their own adapters, but as I see adoption growing it is becoming obvious some methods to provide USB-C connections to the classroom displays and audio needs to become standard classroom kits. Manufacturers, listen up: what would be ideal is a pro AV solution that provides video, audio, power charging, and USB peripheral connections all on a single connection. I just attended a session at the Midwest College and University AV (MCUAV) Summit where docking stations were considered for this purpose; unfortunately, the end results were still too unreliable. A reliable solution for this could truly be a game-changer. The other current challenge with USB-C is cable length. Getting a reliable USB-C cable that can support 60W charging and 4K video that is longer than 6’ is still relatively expensive for an item I’d consider a consumable. I look forward to a growth of new reasonable-priced and reliable cable options or other solutions to overcome this 6’ length challenge. Also, look for the increasing adoption of Thunderbolt 4 and USB4; while the two technologies are different, expect to see the two terms become synonymous within 2022.
The last technology I want to discuss is 8K. I’m going to get on a little technical soapbox here. Frankly, for all but an exquisitely small number of applications, there will never (yep, never) be a reasonable need for an 8K display in higher education. Even 4K has very limited use cases. Why? Visual acuity. All these manufacturers want to talk about 8K displays but really don’t want you to think about the actual perceptive benefits. With 20/20 vision a human can distinguish about 1 arc minute of detail or about 0.0167 degrees. With a little geometry, we can determine the smallest pixels that can be discerned at a certain distance. Let’s talk about your living room. At 8 feet, your pixel resolution limit is about 35 pixels per inch (PPI). For 3840 (UHD) pixels wide, that is 109” wide; so sure, that ginormous 125” diagonal UHD TV will work great from 8 feet away. For 7680 (8K) pixels, you now need a 250” diagonal 8K display at 8 feet to actually perceive the pixels. Your living room would need to be MUCH bigger than mine. Let’s take this to a classroom. At 20 feet, your pixel resolution limit is about 14.3 PPI. For UHD that leads to around a 22’ wide x 12.5’ tall screen; better hope, you have tall ceilings! For 8K at 20 feet away that screen would need to be almost 46’ wide by 25’ tall; there is simply no rational value here. For reasonably sized displays (<=85”) in a living room or reasonably sized screens in a classroom, an average human simply cannot perceive the pixel differences on a 4K display, let alone an 8K display. For specialty areas like medicine, engineering, biology, or astronomy, small-group very close-up viewing of large 8K displays could eventually provide some benefit, but I’m talking LARGE displays VERY close up. For larger group efforts, 8K simply provides no perceptive benefit without unreasonably sized displays. You can officially count me out of the 8K bandwagon, and for like reasons, I’ve still been off the 4K bandwagon from the start for that matter. And don’t even get me started about the 16K rumors, ugh. Feel free to check my science and math. (Note: some industry experts have developed some reasonable science that justifies 8K displays, but it relies on Nyquist sampling frequency theory that I personally question applies to biology and still only applies to people with perfect vision and filling up 45 degrees of your central vision. I’ll leave it up to you to decide.)
Well, there you have it, my round-up of a few of the en vogue audiovisual technologies. Some of these technologies have real promise to make a significant difference in higher education, and others simply don’t make sense for any widespread adoption. What do you think? Let us know on social media!
