Wake Forest Preps State-of-the-Art MBA School with AMX AV Gear

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 01/04/12

A new state-of-the-art facility scheduled to open in January at Wake Forest University will feature a presentation switcher from AMX to simplify the use of audio-visual components. The institution's new Wake Forest Charlotte Center will host the school's Working Professionals MBA program. That program has about 180 students in two groups, one meeting evenings and the other on Saturdays.

The new center will feature a number of spaces for collaboration, including flexible classrooms, which allow for group breakouts; two lecture rooms equipped to stream video with the university's main campus in Winston-Salem; and seating areas outside of the classrooms for discussions and laptop usage.

The new presentation switcher, AMX's Enova DVX-3150HD, provides a way to manage diverse audio and video delivery to classrooms, auditoriums, and other rooms remotely over the network. It integrates audio-visual switching, a scaler, an analog-to-digital signal converter, a twisted pair transmitter, and an amplifier with professional grade audio processing.

According to the company, the product is especially well suited for rooms that have a mix of analog and digital sources and multiple displays or that require support for video conferencing. A major benefit, AMX said in a statement, is that the device can handle HDMI/HDCP switching without workarounds or resolution incompatibilities. (HDMI is a digital interface for delivering high definition multimedia. HDCP is an Intel technology that acts as a security feature by encrypting digital signals.) The appliance includes SmartScale software that is designed to deliver video automatically scaled appropriately for each connected display.

Wake Forest took delivery of the first unit put out by the company. The university is deploying multiple DVX units in its new Charlotte center. Wake Forest was an early adopter of the AMX's Enova DVX-2100HD, a predecessor product released in 2009.

"Wake Forest strategically invests in AV technologies that provide the necessary functionality and show an ROI," said IT Director John Owen. "This new solution also provides the opportunity for us to teach with future-proof, innovative technologies that work. Plus, the university will see [a return on investment] not only through the ease of installation but also through network-based management of all our AV/IT resources using AMX's Resource Management Suite (RMS) software."

RMS will allow Wake Forest's support staff to monitor and manage the equipment remotely from its main campus, which is an hour and a half away from the satellite facility. "This provides a return on both revenue and manpower," Owen noted.

The implementation of the new gear is being done by AMX partner Strategic Connections, a service provider in North Carolina that does commercial-grade audio-visual installations.