Utilizing LED Displays in Higher Education

This is the pro AV podcast your B2B show for the best. Thought leadership in the industry bringing you education information and inspiration only on market scale. Nowadays we put a lot of gravy on the ones and zeros. They want more features that they want to see less hardware. People will welcome into the podcast today we are thrilled to have you along with us I'm your host today Tyler Kern today we are diving into the world of higher education, and how LED can be used for a lot of different things within that world. And so we have three subject matter experts joining us today. We're going to have a fun conversation just about these applications. And the way LED is being deployed right now in higher Ed. First, we have Ryan Wilhelm. He's the Southeast regional sales manager at yuna limited. Ryan, Thanks for joining us, man. Hey, Thanks for having me again. Tyler, I appreciate it. Always good to talk to you soon. And we also have Chris Mazur. He's a project manager for team verticals at spin Attar. Chris, Thanks for joining us. Yeah, no problem. Happy to be here. Absolutely finally, last but not least, the best voice on the show today Shawn defaults. He is a system designer at spin it's hard Shawn. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, definitely. Glad to be here to be an interesting topic definitely definitely a very interesting topic. But Ryan, let's start off just by explaining the relationship that exists between limit and spin star. How do you work together, especially in this particular world. I kind of explained the difference. And the different things that you do that each company does in this process. So people maybe have a better idea of the total ecosystem. Now that's great. Yeah So nanny lemon that's us. And we are the LED manufacturers. So we supply the LED direct view boards and jumbotron as you can see in stadiums and corporate lobbies or classrooms. So But the spin Attar is and correct me, guys from wrong, but you guys are the magic behind all this. Right you're the ones that put it up. You install it, you make it do exactly what the customer wants to do. I mean, for instance, what's really big in higher Ed right now is the gaming world esports and gamification and all that stuff. So they're putting in big LED boards in there and people can use these the space to they can plug-in the Xbox and then have tournaments on there, you can use it as a space where they're watching the Olympics. We've had universities do that. So they're making it. So it's a lot more relevant to there's this era. I mean on our side, it's more of finding out what the needs are especially with us minutes after finding out what the needs are. But progressing with that as well. So typical what we're seeing in that higher Ed spaces. What they're trying to do is it's about recruiting. Right that's what higher. It's really all about. And how do you recruit and retain people and keep them there. Well if you're giving tours and you're seeing old technology call it. I've said this before, and our thing in that jail cell, we have the old video walls that you have the millions there and you can't see the bezel edges, but and it kind of breaks up the image. But if you have a flat wall. And you can get as big or however you want to do these curved size, shape paying it wherever you want to do. But make it the size that you want big small and people and they're doing their tours nowadays from college. What they're noticing is that when college kids are looking at schools to pick from. They could be going to. I mean my school was Michigan State University. When you're touring it and you see a big video wall and LED or thinking, OK. They're progressive enough, that's what the kid is thinking and kids these days. And every day. They want to be those ones that are taking everything. The next level. So if they see that college did this college is progressive and they're putting in technology that's ahead of the time instead of old school technology like just the TV wall or something. They say, OK, they got it. But if they have that TV wall. They might think secondly about going to that school. So again with spinoffs are going into this and you guys can jump in here after. I know I'm talking a lot, but it's the magic behind those walls is how do we make it so that we can have those video games go up. How do we make it. So content going up there and spliced in different ways. I've seen different higher end locations with big video walls that would have five TV is playing at one time one big one. And then three going around the sides are four or five go around the sides and they had an app that they would have on their phone, which was tied to the technology and they would point it at which TV they want. And that would automatically go into their headphones. So they could listen to that TV channel. So if it had ESPN up there and they could watch that and listen to sports on whatever I was listening to money up here you know Bloomberg or something they could put that and put that on their headphones while they're studying. They could watch that and have that in their headphones. So the technology has really progressed in that way. Yeah, that is really exciting just seeing how the technology has progressed so Chris and Shawn talk to me a little bit about some of the trends you're seeing in LED deployment in higher Ed at some of these universities. You know you heard Ryan mentioned some of those examples. But what are you guys seeing as people that are on campuses and seeing first and just how this technology is being used. I can speak to that because my time at Senator I was the ADA coordinator for a very large public University here in Southern California. And just like what you said the technology progressed. We used to do video boards. And video walls for digital signage, but as the direct new technology has come matured more and prices come down. We started switching to direct view LED. So we didn't use women. At the time this was a couple of years ago. But we did a large scale digital signage project for the University where we 16 foot by 9 foot boards on the sides of buildings because the direction. I received from the president and the VP of IT was we want to make it pop we want to make it look like Vegas out here because they were using that to recruit students to the school. So we would have all kinds of content on these direct reality boards that was targeted to the students getting information. Now upcoming events sporting events direct Twitter feed from the president. All this different stuff that we used to feed these boys. And it was used as a showcase and a way to recruit students to bring them into the University. The big thing for that is being able to put these LED walls in places that previously were more cost prohibitive. And that opportunity for us to lead them direction towards having this impressive large scale screen seamless with high brightness and content that can be attractive to the students and just for delivering the right content and the right situation. I mean, we're seeing it a lot more on outdoor LED walls. We've been doing a bunch of those for public announcement and signage and having something high brightness or that can adjust brightness throughout the day in locations like even in classrooms where previously you'd have multiple projectors. You're seeing that getting replaced with just a higher brightness better uniformity straight direct view LED walls. And of course, as we said earlier, the sports arenas. And that's something surprising, even into I've seen some City Colleges getting programs and having college leagues and having a little mini arenas that are surprisingly, you know one of the highest technology driven areas of development right now with very low latency streaming with production quality switching and broadcast cameras Nellie D walls and the other big thing for that is it's just been the accessibility and the now available price points to put these solutions into these spaces where previously they may have gone for front projection rear projection or LED walls and clearly gotten a much less impressive end result versus what we can do for them. Now Definitely definitely. And Sean, you mentioned the outdoor LED. Have you guys seen a trend, especially doing COVID 19. Of people wanting more outdoor signage just to be able to either direct people or for various applications just to enhance social distancing and things along those lines is that a trend that you've been seeing over the last several months. Yeah, definitely. As well as use outside of just signage. So it's a lot more multi-purpose. Is that the man we've been seeing to wear during the day for whatever maybe it may be just direct signage, but then because of space limitations needing to social distance we're requesting more powerful speaker arrays that go farther distances to do mass gatherings and larger screen sizes. So that when they do have these large groups of people outdoors. They can use it as a purpose space. We're having microphone input plates that differ typical outdoor signage you might necessarily need audio in and out from that location. But because of COVID there's no need for outdoor presentations that can hold large amounts of people that you can't really safely space indoors. So we're seeing adjustments to those outdoor systems to where they can use them also as outdoor presentation spaces and cover would definitely be a driving factor of that. Ryan I want to go back to something you said off the top right because I've heard it said by people in the past just that most of the things that you learned in college are going to be out of date by the time you graduate right. And so if you walk into a college and you are a University or a facility along those lines. And look around and see out of date technology doesn't that almost just subconsciously reinforce that idea or reinforce the fact that they're behind the times. How is my education going to be keeping up with everything that's going on. That's new in the world. These days. Oh absolutely. I mean, that really sums it up right there. If you're not current with current trends are ahead of the game with some bleeding edge technology, then subconsciously these people that are making decisions to go to the colleges are deciding not to go. And that's a big hit. I'm sorry to be on companies, universities because universities want more people, more people. They get the know it's all about how did they get the return on it. So they can be progressive in that and thinking, how do we do this. Like I think you Shawn talked about it putting in classrooms right. That's a huge, huge benefit to it because wanted the brighter you can keep the window shades open it keeps when window shades are open. There's a correlation between productivity in classrooms or a boardroom even for that matter. So I think that's a really, really fine point that you put there. So you don't have to sit there and have a projector and change ball orbs all the time. But you can have a director you only do. That's not going to have glare on it from a TV to. So these blinds are open or shades and the windows are open, then you get more productivity out of your students and every education system is just doing a lot better. Yeah, I know I know I've walked into classrooms before too that they just have not been internally on top of replacing bulbs on projector and the projectors very dim horrible. But in situations where the lighting hasn't been completely properly planned well you'll have a track lighting that happens to be slightly washing on a section of the screen or you have those off angle white or seats that aren't getting this good of a viewing angle on projection towards them no direct view do you have constant brightness Yeah better viewing angles. Everything will be legible versus the multiple factors into standard older just regular projection. Absolutely Chris, you know with the relationship between LED manufacturer and then integrator is one kind of built on trust right. You're trusting that unit lumen is going to create and manufacturer quality products and they're trusting that you're going to install them correctly and that everything is going to work on the integration side as well. Talk to me a little bit about that relationship and why it's so important, especially in these higher Ed circumstances you know especially in higher Ed, they have kind of a limited budget. So they the higher Ed institutions, they look to us because they trust us because we've built up relationships over many years and many projects when they come to us for a need for a lady board. They trust us to pick the right solution for them because they on a limited budget they want something that's going to be installed once and not have constant maintenance issues or going to have to be upgraded within a few years. And so that relationship with the manufacturer like, OK, what product should we install here is really important. So that we deliver the product to the end user, the customer right institution that they're expecting they're going to be happy with for five, maybe 10 years due to budgetary constraints. All right institutions definitely in one area that we've really seen explode in terms of just recruitment. And and you know always constantly upping and upping its game is, especially in the athletics realm right. You've seen some of these football facilities and football locker rooms. I don't know. I live in the state of Texas, where we can't seem to spend enough money on our football facilities and that sort of thing. And so places like that as well. There are huge recruitment tools for schools to getting good players. And then when the football team is good your school is getting notoriety that brings more students more interest in the school more money comes in. That sort of thing. And so there can be a cyclical thing right. Have you seen that, especially in the world of athletics just having those types of facilities having incredible LED screens in locker rooms and things along those lines. Yeah you're adding exactly or adding to the fan experience. And that's what it's coming about. That's the student experience as well. The students going to be experience from it with what just go into a sporting event. Right and then the experience of just like you you're talking about outdoor signage you know COVID related or just hanging out there signage indoor signage messaging can get around faster to the University tell students going around with these LED screens being in every dormitory in every classroom area. But it just makes it. So much easier for them to get messaging out there. But the fan experience on the sports side again, truly phenomenal what that has come to from the days when I was in college. It is it has come from the old school school board with just a number on their say and home away you know those painted on there. Now it's now it's moved to these big elaborate videos and the experience that they're coming out and it just gets everybody energized and it's starting from when you're outside tailgating all the way into a football game. Even in a hockey stadium or in the basketball arena. Same thing. It adds to that excitement and that's what it's about for these students is not only the education is fantastic. But the experience they're getting into. Shawn can you speak to the project you did at the facility. I don't want to mention the university's name. Yeah just to enroll right into the hands for these signers specifically. We had one University that specifically for recruitment and for getting players just their lobby essentially are looking at a full sized wall that is an La deal. And their application for it is to have recruits come in and then have content for that player up on the wall in the lobby hyping them up having their stats video animated content just to be key to that players as they enter the facility. They're saying you're here you're big you're important to us that have all come of their highlight reel up into a customized Contentful wall to really kind of wow and show this player. Yes you're important your this is your home. They have the images of them in the schools. Jersey and don't aim on the back of the Jersey and everything. Exactly we've got the student all hyped up about their program. Yeah, no. That's awesome. And that's the sort of thing. I think that that really stands out to me is just to some incredible application of LSD in those circumstances. And it's really cool. You guys have worked on projects like that with the large football programs. And large universities and stuff like that really, really stands out and is a really cool aspect of this to me. So Chris, you mentioned just determining what figuring out what the needs are. And then how to best meet those needs. What does that process look like. How do you go through that process of really walking through assessing what the needs are. And then determining what solutions are going to be best for those to meet those particular needs. So typically the process starts with an account manager building the relationship with the customer. And then the customer will come to the account manager with a project where they don't necessarily know what they want. But they have an idea. And then the account manager working with Sean the designer to come up with the actual parts and smarts that make those requirements work. And then after that, the account manager puts together a proposal just the customer wants it signed off and gets executed then I take it over and execute the project. That's one way projects come in. Another one is where it actually is a bid where it's put together by a design consult company. And then it goes out to bid and then we prepare a proposal to match that bid and we submit a bid and then we win the bid and then I execute the project. But a lot of that some of it comes from Sean working with the account manager and the customer to kind of flesh out their requirements and decide what the best solutions and products are going to be to meet their needs. And then there becomes a project, then we take over the execution side of it. But it's typically done upfront with the account manager who has built that relationship with the customer over the years and multiple projects and being successful in and they say, hey, we've got this great opportunity. We want something, but we're not sure what. And then that's where we come in and help them decide what the best products and solutions are for their needs. Definitely absolutely. Shawn one of the things you've mentioned a couple of different times just throughout the conversation has been the accessibility of LED these days that that prices have come down, which makes these products a little bit more accessible and we've talked about school budgets as well being something that factors into this. How is that added accessibility really enabled. Like a whole new world of creativity and enabled some new solutions when it comes to LED in universities. And then I mean, just not new solutions, but better solutions and problem solving solutions because just from historically LED walls being price prohibitive. It may not be something that the client is considering because I'm not aware it's something that can reach within their budget. So we can go on a field walk and go into a space. And we have a specific need. And just looking at the size requirements from the viewing distance the lighting just the environments. You can run into situations that are perfect for LED walls for direct LED. That's fit the room for the application is just the end user wasn't aware of something within their reach, which today it definitely is. So you can see based on the environment, the seating distance. How far away. People are and the application that can fall into more and more applications because of that accessibility whereas previously prohibitive. And then once the client is aware that it's within their reach then they start to really get excited about it because people do love standard video walls, but there's no one that loves those scenes. So being able to put this newer technology with all of its benefits into locations that they weren't even aware of can. Yeah the possibilities are endless. Right is there any more examples that stand out to you of the implementation of LED in University settings maybe anything that you've been a part of or that you've seen personally and that excites you that has pumped up about this. Yeah and like I was talking about there recruiting with the tours there was a University that we put displays in. And when we were touring around it actually incorporated the technology like Sean and Chris were talking about the application to put in audio into it. So they had a headset microphone on them. So when they walked around it actually went to the whole speaker system. And it was presenting to them welcome aboard. So the whole content and experience while they were getting a tour and gave a history of everything. But it was it was just purely amazing what they did. And like Sean was saying there's an app. The applications are endless. Right now you're putting in curved walls just in a flex area that people that go to sit-in and study. And it just has messaging on there and video on there and could have TV. So the applications are endless the content is infinite. And I think Sean you're just talking about the price point now has made it what it was. ESP cost prohibitive and now it isn't. So Yeah, it's expanding in. So many different arenas. And I enjoy watching it just progress and see what can happen. But again, I wish I was saying, we can put it. You can put it in whatever kind of it's the application, but they put the magic behind it and make sure the right parts are where they need to be for the customer you know. And that's what I really think is the best part of it. Well Sean Chris Ryan is there anything else that we need to discuss about this topic. Any final thoughts, final conclusions that you guys want to make before we wrap up this episode today. I think we're good. And I appreciate your time and Chris and Sean thinks this business been really fun. I know college has changed a lot since I've been there. And I'm not sure what you guys, but definitely change. And it's really cool to see where it's gone. That's very exciting Avenue right now. And it's exciting for me on the design side just having this technology available and having the creativity to integrate it into new environments and seeing it move forward just as leading technology for a lot of projects a lot of these institutions have been doing things a certain way for so long, they don't even know that technology exists out there. So they're looking for a partner like us and you and to kind of show them the way like we can do this a different way. And we can do it for about the same amount of money as your old school methods. And we can give you a much better product. You can be happy with them longer and mostly they're looking at you guys to make it. So easy for them to service. You know so they don't have to service anything. They don't have to get called into it. You know what I mean. Yeah They don't want. They don't want consumables you know they don't want lamps and you know they don't want things filters that are going to change. They're going to have to break down or they've got a three year product lifecycle. They want these things that they kind of by want to buy a couple of spare modules just in case. And then it's up there and it's running for a long time. No absolutely. I think that's the biggest thing is putting something in there. That's quality that's that they don't have to worry about these things less for what 100,000 hours the half life with that 100,000 hours. That's 11.2 years. Right that's a long time, especially compared to you. You were just talking about changing the bulbs on the projectors. I mean, that's a daily task sometimes instruction a University and higher Ed. Yeah the University. I worked at before we had 190 classrooms. We had a team of students that would go around every morning and check the hours on the projectors and preemptively change the bulbs. Once we reached like 2,500 to $3,000 in the bowl just so we didn't disrupt class time. Well, we went with direct deals like we don't need to employ those students anymore. We don't need to go around and check that stuff. We just put it in and we're done. Yeah and you mentioned the same thing. It could be like physically technicians just full job to just service projectors just chugging lamp hours and replacing filters replacing bulbs plus the bulb cost. So just the cost of ownership over time. I don't have anything else to add. I just want to say, as a really good time. Appreciate you having us on here. Well it's been a blast guys in. Yeah thank you all. So much for your time today and for joining us here on the podcast. If you want to learn more about spin it's. It's spin a tired dot.com SBI and IT are spin talk and of course, you know looming is the website if you want to learn more about limit. Guys thank you again for joining us today here on the podcast. I appreciate it. Thank you. Excellent and everybody. Thank you for listening to this episode. We appreciate it very much. Of course, we'll be back soon with more episodes. But until then makes you subscribe to the podcast channel on Apple pie cast or Spotify. And like I said, we'll be back soon with those new episodes. But until then I've been your host today Tyler Perry. Thanks for listening.