City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has a well-earned reputation as an innovative hub for research and professional education focused on addressing global issues, and empowering positive change. According to metrics compiled by Stanford University, over 140 CityU faculty members are listed among the top 2% of the world’s most highly cited scientists and are recognized across a range of significant global rankings.
THE CHALLENGE
When students could return to face-to-face teaching following the pandemic, CityU needed to ensure safe distancing measures were adopted and returning students had to be further split into different classes or venues, while others had to attend online lectures. Due to the split-class arrangements, CityU required better teaching technologies to connect quickly and seamlessly with students whether they attended class in-person or virtually.
THE SOLUTION
CityU worked with the Crestron team in Hong Kong and systems integrator Asia Theatre Engineering Ltd. to upgrade its legacy Creston all-in-one presentation switchers to AV-over-IP technology in all classrooms and some of the lecture theatres. Crestron’s DM NVX® AVover-IP technology can easily connect and distribute broadcast signals across the different teaching venues. Crestron touch screens and room scheduling panels were also added across campus for easy control and management of the learning spaces for faculty and students.
THE TECHNOLOGY
Crestron’s DM NVX AV-over-IP solution was installed at the heart of the university’s teaching technologies to address the challenge of transmitting the lectures to different venues within the university as faculty was split into groups to comply with safe distancing measures.
DM NVX is based on standard IT technology protocols that allowed the university to leverage the existing IT network infrastructure. To ensure seamless and non-disruptive transmission and distribution of content, the DM NVX Quality of Service (QoS) feature helps prioritize DM NVX traffic over other traffic at both the source and the destination, thus ensuring teachers and students have a seamless uninterrupted experience.
Complementing the experience, Asia Theatre also installed Crestron touch screens at the lecture theatres to control AV equipment and other peripherals by lecturers. Staff and faculty are able to use a simplified interface connected to Crestron’s powerful control processors to help the systems work quickly and efficiently.
Implementing the Crestron solutions helped the university achieve higher video and audio quality for teaching and learning. Asia Theatre had put additional effort in unifying the user interface on the touch screens for a seamless user experience. The unified user experience ensured familiarity and consistency for anyone who may leverage the technology across CityU. Keeping possible future requirements in mind, the Crestron solutions will allow for flexibility and scalability when needed, to address new requirements that may arise.
RESULTS
Crestron has created a unified experience across campus that has helped CityU reduce the learning curve for those using the systems. The monitoring of the systems has also improved with better clarity on equipment statuses, allowing AV technicians to perform remote status checks when required.
“There was a steep learning curve for the technical staff, but we were able to overcome the hurdles. As they say, you reap what you sow. We are reaping its benefits daily now. The future is in AV-over-IP, and with the convergence of IT and AV, we either take the lead to learn now or miss out on this great opportunity,” says Batra.