Transforming a Simple Meeting Room into an Advanced Collaboration Center via AV over IP Technology

Transforming Meetings with Extron's NAV Pro AV Over IP System

The Caldwell County School System in North Carolina has revolutionised its meeting room into a hub of innovation and collaboration, thanks to Extron's NAV Pro AV over IP system. This state-of-the-art technology has impressed not only the local community but also neighbouring school districts and states.

The room is equipped with eight AV-equipped workstations lined along the walls, each with a unique colour ID signified by the colour of the buttons on its touchpanel user interface. At the heart of the system is a modern audiovisual (AV) system that displays meeting agendas and presentations on multiple screens for both in-person and virtual attendees.

Each workstation is equipped with its own PC, NAV encoder, NAV scaling decoder, and TouchLink Pro touchpanel. The AV system design is simplified with ShareLink, as it has a built-in switcher to transfer between wired and wireless content sharing. ShareLink Pro wireless presentation systems allow wireless sharing from portable devices, including Chromebooks.

NAV encoders and scaling decoders provide ingress and egress to the IP network, switching and transporting AV content from the sources to the displays. A NAV Pro AV over IP 1 Gbps network links all displays to all content origination workstations, allowing any source to be shown on any or all of the displays.

Each workstation can independently originate and display AV content that can be shared with the other workstations and the Internet. Multicolor LED light strips are used to indicate at a glance which station is originating the content on the screen. The bottom backlight shows the workstation's own colour ID, while the top backlight shows the colour ID of the workstation supplying the displayed content.

The room boasts two touchscreen displays (86-inch) and six non-touchscreen displays (98-inch) spaced equidistantly around the room. The touchscreen displays are mounted on opposite walls to accommodate classes at either end of the room. They are used for teaching sessions where instructors can interact with the content.

Non-touchscreen displays are used during board meetings and community events for easily readable information or background ambiance. The room hosts community forums, teacher in-service training sessions, K-12 classes, and monthly school board meetings.

The system delivers real-time, lossless 4K video streaming at 60 Hz with full 4:4:4 color sampling, using Extron's patented PURE3 codec. It supports seamless interoperability between 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet encoders and decoders, enabling flexible, scalable AV distribution suited for demanding ProAV applications.

Key benefits demonstrated include secure and centralised control, integration with collaboration technologies, the ability to automate AV functions, and future-proofing and scalability. The NAV Pro delivers a high-quality, secure, and interoperable AV over IP platform that supports advanced control integration and automation, enhancing meeting room usability while accommodating evolving educational and enterprise collaboration needs.

Cody Greene, technology director at Caldwell County School System, operates and maintains the AV system. The district's in-house IT/AV team designed, installed, programmed, and operates the boardroom AV system. The system has proven to be rock solid in continuous day-to-day operation, with minimal maintenance required.

[1] Extron Electronics. (n.d.). NAV Pro AV over IP 1 Gbps Series. Retrieved from https://www.extron.com/navpro [2] Extron Electronics. (n.d.). ShareLink Pro Wireless Presentation System. Retrieved from https://www.extron.com/sharelinkpro [3] Extron Electronics. (n.d.). TouchLink Pro Touchpanel Series. Retrieved from https://www.extron.com/touchlinkpro

Transforming a Simple Meeting Room into an Advanced Collaboration Center via AV over IP Technology