With a focus on the education market, Darryl Krall, national sales manager at Panasonic, has seen and has been part of many evolutionary and revolutionary changes. “Today, we’re seeing a seismic change in academia, where they’re saying, ‘We have the additional tools now, and we’re not just going to throw them away. Can we utilize these as the new modality in teaching?’”
Flexible Solutions for Hybrid Learning
To address the migration challenge of classroom learning to hybrid learning, Panasonic offers a solutions-based architecture that simplifies the adoption of hybrid learning and creates interactive and collaborative solutions to encourage flexible engagement between educators and students while replicating an in-classroom experience. “Universities need to quickly implement solutions for remote and hybrid learning for many classroom environments to deliver the best interactive and collaborative experience,” Krall says. “The PVE configurations provide a great deal of flexibility and customization.”
The Panasonic Virtual Experience provides the AV tools needed to effectively stream lectures, lessons and other activities that previously occurred in the classroom. Configurations are available to meet every budget requirement and various environmental scenarios. Configurations include Panasonic’s professional-grade displays, pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras, wireless microphones and mounting accessories. Combine any package with your preferred cloud-based software platform to effectively stream lectures, lessons and other activities that previously occurred in the classroom for engaging hybrid experiences.
Wireless Presentation System
Panasonic’s PressIT Wireless Presentation System is a plug-and-play system designed to eliminate the need for cables and to facilitate the sharing of content between PCs, making meetings more efficient while sharing information quickly among attendees. By simply connecting the receiver to the projector or professional display in the classroom and plugging the transmitter into the presenting devices, students can press a button and instantly share content. This takes the guesswork out of dealing with uncooperative, unreliable and complicated technology—allowing educators and students to focus on efficiently and quickly sharing content. The system also allows for simultaneous collaboration, as four presenters are able to display visual and audio content at one time. No network setup, software, or driver installation is required.
The PressIT Wireless Presentation System makes collaboration easier than ever, allowing students to quickly share their ideas with intuitive and easy-to-use technology. “You can package PressIT with an interactive display—and that gives a lot of flexibility for collaboration with wireless connectivity,” Krall says. “It’s very easy to set up. It’s pretty much plug-and-play.”
Image Matters
Panasonic professional imaging and visual system products are flexible for many campus venues, from small huddle rooms to midsize classrooms to large auditoriums, plus common areas, providing clear, crisp and ultra-bright 4K visuals to effectively share information throughout the campus. Besides outstanding picture quality, flexible installation and long-lasting reliability, Panasonic’s entire AV portfolio is engineered with features that minimize maintenance and maximize uptime.
Award-Winning Projectors
PT-FRZ60 Series 1-Chip DLP® SOLID SHINE Laser Projectors are easy to manage and offer clear pictures in bright rooms with flexible integration in the classroom. Understanding the need to create productive and information-sharing classroom environments, the PT-FRZ60 Series projectors are engineered for these purposes, providing highly visible, bright images in well-lit rooms with minimal noise operation. Available in 5,000lm to 6,000lm, the projectors are compact, lightweight and feature a 2.0x optical zoom (2) to increase throw-distance range for easy, flexible 360-degree installation. To assist collaborative and group-work conditions, the PT-FRZ60 projectors support a 4K signal input via DIGITAL LINK and HDMI terminals with CEC compatibility.
PT-MZ16KL Series 3LCD Laser Projectors are perfect for large lecture halls and auditoriums and provide clear, crisp and ultra-bright visuals that are essential to effectively share information with an audience that may be spread out and seated far from the screen. Designed with large-scale education venues in mind, the compact and lightweight (less than 50lbs.) 16,000lm PT-MZ16KL harnesses innovation, design and engineering to deliver quiet, yet powerful, vivid large-screen projection. Audiences will experience exceptional levels of viewing clarity with 4K/60p signal input via HDMI® or DIGITAL LINK. To round out the MZ16KL Series, additional projectors offer 13,000lm (PT-MZ13K) and 10,000lm (PT-MZ10K).
PT-LRZ35 Series 1-Chip DLP RGB LED Projectors are made for solving unnecessary distractions in smaller classrooms, offering whisper-quiet operation (as low as 24dB) without sacrificing image quality. These small and lightweight DLP RGB LED projectors are Panasonic’s first portable projectors to use a discrete RGB LED light source. This provides superior color reproduction and enhanced picture quality, ideal for art or science classrooms and any application requiring precise color accuracy, such as presentations or artistic renderings.
Professional Displays
BQ1W Series Professional Displays are a perfect fit for unique classroom spaces looking to incorporate collaboration technology. These 75- and 65-inch displays can be leveraged as a screen and whiteboard. They are simple to use and encourage collaboration with the option to switch effortlessly between display and white-board mode. All touch and writing capabilities are built directly into the display for easy annotation, so there is no need to load software or have additional components. The BQ1W displays include a blue light reduction feature to ease eye fatigue, while also supporting universal color design to relay correct information to viewers with various color viewing conditions. Integrated with the Intel Smart Display Module (SDM) the displays can be enhanced with third-party applications for additional interactive capabilities.
CQE1W Series Professional Displays offer numerous versatile connection points for multidevice ecosystems with four HDMI connections for CEC-compatible devices, as well as a standard USB-C terminal for mobile connectivity. Available in seven models, from 43-inch to 98-inch sizes, the displays offer 4K picture quality for highly legible images to meet the viewing needs of various educational scenarios. Their continuous operational capability of up to 16 hours a day makes them reliable and ideal for everyday use in higher-education institutions. The displays are built to VESA Standards, and suspension from the ceiling or mounting on a wall is simple using a standard mounting bracket.
Professional Audio: Wireless Microphone Systems
Panasonic’s WX-SR200P digital wireless microphone system uses DECT to transmit audio over a 1.9 GHz spectrum—enabling a solid, secure connection that is likely to protect against mandated frequency spectrum changes. Optimized for presentations, the system delivers excellent sound quality in small to large spaces with an internal low-cut filter switch to enhance speech. Panasonic’s wireless microphones, bodypacks, and receivers are easy to set up, making the system a best-in-class solution for in-room or remote presentations for many education scenarios.
Teachers and students have been wearing masks in most classrooms. Masks act as a low-pass filter, attenuating high frequencies (2000-7000 Hz) with the decibel (dB) level of attenuation differing by mask type. Panasonic research found surgical masks performed better than homemade cloth masks with the PM 2.1 filter inserted, while N95 masks were the hardest to hear frequencies above 2 kHz by 12 to 14 dB. Students are more likely to hear and understand teachers wearing a lavalier microphone with a three-layer mask. To counteract the effect masks have on speech intelligibility, deploying audio technology focused on optimizing sound quality for speaking is key to meeting these challenges.
Professional Video: Pan/Tilt/Zoom Cameras
Panasonic’s top-selling 4K and HD pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) cameras offer exceptional image quality, versatility, reliability and innovation. From the classroom to lecture halls, from live event broadcasts to videostreaming from a professor’s home, our best-in-class PTZ cameras offer all the capabilities for these assignments and more.
Panasonic’s Auto Tracking Software for its PTZ cameras supports automated lecture and presentation capture with high-precision tracking using motion detection, facial recognition and new body detection powered by deep learning algorithms. The AW-SF100 is available for single camera operation, and the AW-SF200 supports multicamera operation. With the ability to track a person and manage multiple PTZ cameras independently, this software is perfect for classrooms, lecture halls, auditoriums, conference rooms and stage environments.
Holistic Hybrid Classroom
Panasonic offers the education community a comprehensive portfolio of professional imaging and visual systems products and solutions for all types of learning environments. Solutions range from projectors and professional displays, to PTZ cameras and wireless microphones, to collaborative wireless presentation systems, remote-learning solutions and content delivery.
