TV Systems for Universities Need Flexibility –Upgrade Options

Television systems in universities need to be upgraded to provide a mix of services to different types of devices that can be rapidly setup, provisioned, and modified. Peter Maag from Haivision explained to me at the IBC trade show that the RF distribution systems used in schools cannot provide the new types of services needed by the students and faculties. Some of these new services include distance education (via the Internet), remote classrooms (such as continuous presence viewing), campus TV stations, and secure content distribution (some universities distribute unprotected premium content). University TV systems should be able to provide these services using live, on demand (VOD), and scheduled access programming. In addition to flexible architecture, simple and usable controls are important. Some of the people at universities who control the programming may have limited technical expertise so the TV systems must be intuitive and easy to setup.