I have been working with the new Crestron Capture HD. So far, I am very impressed. What I like most about it is that there is not huge backend required to use it. A simple USB thumb drive will suffice. Therefore, the initial cost is much lower than anything else on the market. What I am not nuts about is that it records in .ts. This format is a real pain to work with. So far, all I have really found that plays nice with .ts is VLC.
In an ideal world, we might leap at the chance to dig into new technologies that promise breathtaking video resolution with minimal tweaking, however digital transitioning also brings the potential to disrupt and/or bankrupt services at a time when few operations have capacity to spare for a major overhaul of RGB-based analog video systems.
Recent discussions regarding the transition from analog to digital video transport suggest that many feel that they have little control over this technological sea-change. We conceived our Analog-to-Digital Transition survey in order to put a finer point on the current “state of digital”. This is the summary of what we learned. Continue reading
Recent discussions regarding the transition from analog to digital video transport suggest that many feel that they have little control over this technological sea-change.
In an ideal world, we might leap at the chance to dig into new technologies that promise breathtaking video resolution with minimal tweaking, however transitioning also brings the potential to disrupt and/or bankrupt services at a time when few operations have capacity to spare for a major overhaul of RGB-based analog video systems.
Please take a moment to respond to the following eight questions so that we may will put a finer point on the “state of digital” — particularly as we approach summer upgrade season.
This survey departs from previous anonymous surveys by asking for your email address. We ask this in preparation for AV-1′s upcoming budget survey series in which we hope to gain a better understanding of prevailing budget and lifecycle practices. An undertaking of this magnitude will take more than six or eight questions, so rather than try your patience, we have devised a plan for a series of short-but-sweet surveys on key operational areas. We hope to use your email address as an internal “key field” to re-assemble your responses across multiple surveys so that we can begin to map data to institutional demographics (i.e. Midwest private liberal arts college with 10,000 enrolled). As always, your survey responses will remain anonymous.
Scott Tiner
Bates College
A recent survey on AV-1 questioned technology manager’s experiences with RS-232 control of their projectors. The results revealed widespread, intermittent RS-232 problems especially with serial-controlled projectors.
90% of survey respondents indicated that at least once a month their projectors have “locked up” and stopped responding to RS-232 commands. Ill-timed, random malfunctions of this sort can result in event interruptions and loss of end user confidence in presentation systems and support services.
Translation: This is a serious issue that must be resolved. Continue reading
Have you ever asked a question to which you were certain that you already knew the answer? On this week’s survey, we thought we had done just that. Expecting to hear that one particular brand of projector, when coupled with one particular control system manufacturer would cause periodic problems with RS-232, we relished the “reveal” moment when we could proclaim, “It was Colonel Mustard in the parlor with a knife!” Sadly, we hadn’t a clue.
Recently in a thread on the AV-1 forum, many members indicated that they had encountered difficulties with projectors locking up. In these cases ‘locking up” was defined as the projector not responding to any commands, either via RS-232, IP or IR. We wondered if it might be possible for AV-1 to assist in some way.
We thought that if our community could identify specific products, or a combination of products that are experiencing these issues, perhaps as a community (of 600+ IT/AV people) we could approach the manufacturers and explain the problems and see if they could develop a solution. Please take a moment to complete our projector/control system malfunction survey.
Scott Tiner
Bates College
Exclusive in-house support is one of the legacies of audiovisual “media services” groups. As technology evolves and becomes much more complex, many organizations find themselves in the position of reconsidering the cost of maintaining an expanding stable of technology specialists.
In-house specialists require regular knowledge upgrades (to preserve efficiency) and salary increases (to ensure retention).
Given these costs, it is little wonder that many organizations have arranged for outboard services in conjunction with large projects that represent workload increases that cannot be absorbed by existing support infrastructure. (According to this survey, more than 62% of the respondents had at least considered managed services.) However, from time to time, most of us have relied upon services on-demand from local integrators, especially when pinched for time or manpower.
What serves the customer best
[easychart type="pie" title="What type of outside support do you use?" groupnames="38% On-Demand (pay by the hour),8% Service Contract,25% Combination of both,25% We never use outside support" group1values="20" group2values="4" group3values="13" group4values="13" chartfadecolor="FFFFFF" hidechartdata="true"]
Only 25% of the respondents do all their work internally. The majority rely on some level of on-demand service, perhaps expecting that outside support is called in only to off-load the few complex technical issues not easily resolved internally.
Do you think that the availability of on-call technicians who can tackle most any problem is a trend for most institutions?
[easychart type="pie" title="What is the biggest disadvantage to having a service contract?" groupnames="15% Too expensive,64% Not immediate enough,8% Uncertain quality,6% Less staff for major events" group1values="8" group2values="34" group3values="4" group4values="3" chartfadecolor="FFFFFF" hidechartdata="true"]
For most respondents, customer service trumps budget-savings. 64% indicated that they need to have someone in their rooms within five-minutes of any reported problems. Simply logging the problems for an outside technician to fix a some later point, would not work.
“After running AV departments in Universities for 20+ years, I have found that having on hand technicians spread out over a campus is crucial, for optimal support and efficiency when something goes wrong or technical assistance to no technical people is required. If the support staff were contracted from a supplier, they would still need to be there full time, either in busy periods for on hand support or in quiet for maintenance and upgrades, the cost factor is almost balanced out.”
While answers to the question, “What would be the biggest advantage of a service contract?” proved to be quite diverse, we believe they follow a similar customer-service-centric theme. For example, without having to worry about training and time off, we could simply focus on getting things working properly.
[easychart type="pie" title="What do you consider the biggest advantage of a service contract?" groupnames="28% Less staff + lower costs,28% highly qualified techs,13% no staff leave-days,15% someone to blame" group1values="15" group2values="15" group3values="7" group4values="8" chartfadecolor="FFFFFF" hidechartdata="true"]
As usual, some of the best thoughts and comments came directly from you, when you were not pushed into a multiple choice question. Here are some of those comments:
“I think there is a break-even point in which the volume of equipment justifies an in-house staff to provide on-demand responses for support, operations and maintenance. At lower levels, it would depend large on competencies of your system integrators.”
“Maybe I am a control freak, but I know the systems and I know what my clients want/need. I can not imagine an outsourced support group provide the “personal” touch and have our innate knowledge of each room.”
“For me to use an outside vendor, I have to play ringleader, where I have to coordinate that service department with the Registrar’s office for access to the classrooms. It’s less downtime and coordination to provide the support ourselves.”
“We have always used on demand service but with the increase of technology rooms, 280+, no increase in staff, equipment reaching its warranty limit, & availability of technology fee funds we are moving toward service contracts this FY July 2010.”
“When we looked at a service contract for 70+ rooms, the contract cost was more than double what we had actually spent on time & material repairs over the past 3 years.”
“Our department of three has been cut to a department of two, so now we’re increasingly finding ourselves short-handed for larger events and without the expertise of the missing employee. Management doesn’t offer any solutions other than vague references to service contracts for upcoming building renovations. Our concern is that we’re in a smaller market which means the contract would go to a local provider who we don’t trust (they’ve goofed up several previous installations) or to a non-local crew who flies in, installs, and then leaves. I’m a big supporter of having in house staff, but cross-training them so they can perform other tasks when A/V needs aren’t paramount.”
“My service contacts consists of warranties and replacement schedules within a 24-hour period. The techs install, program and do trouble calls. If the problem is more that they can handle, we call the vendors who honor the warranties and send the defective equipment out for repair.”
If you missed our survey or have additional ideas and experiences you would like to share, please use the comments section below or start a conversation on the AV-1.forum.
One of the legacies of "media services" or A/V groups in organizations has been in-house technical support. As technology has evolved, and become much more complex, some organizations have re-thought the paradigm. Rather than having in-house support, who needs constant training, and pay increases to compete with commercial integrators, does it make sense to purchase service contracts. Some organizations have done this for years with the large scale projects. Many of us simply use on-demand support from our integrators. AV-1 is interested in knowing what you are doing, or thinking about doing in the future.
Continue reading
Come April, we like to pause a moment to reflect merrily upon all the hi-jinx and lallygagging that carried us through the long, cold winter doldrums. Ah, the leaky basements! Oh, the delayed supply shipments! Jeepers, those goofy budget cuts keep cracking us up!
We turned to our resident comedian, Dave Althoff, Jr. (the guy with the funny titles in his emails) and asked him to come up with questions that would make us laugh, learn and understand the stereotypes of us AV types. (For those of you who don't fit the stereotype, consider this an adventure in tolerance, or better yet, just play along.)
Some of his questions are funny (at least we thought so), some more serious (Joe did get a little misty) but all are meant in good humor. Please take a few minutes to complete our special, super-secret double-detention AV-1 April Fools Day survey.
On Monday, we posed six questions to the AV-1 community about the value of professional development. This is my analysis of your responses. Please let us know what you think.
First, we fall into a pretty tight band with regard to how many Professional Development (PD) opportunities we get per year. 73% of respondents are able to arrange up to six opportunities, and not a single respondent indicated getting over 10 opportunities. Six of us responded that they get no PD.
We would love to hear more from those of you who get no PD… is that by choice or for some other reason?
