Crestron AirMedia: Redefining Presentations

Crestron announced this week that its new presentation device, AirMedia, is now shipping. This device allows presenters to add it to their mobile devices, access files from Powerpoint, Word, EMaze, Prezi, MovieMaker, iMovie and many other presentation and movie sources, and hook it up to an AV device and take data from that device. It is also able to produce HD resolution images and hook up to AV systems displaying that resolution.

Gone are the days of giant projectors relying on transparency paper and dry-erase marker on a screen, and this will even render the normal experience of viewing a presentation on an average overhead projector (like one often sees in a university lecture hall) equally as obsolete . With this new development in the Crestron AirMedia, the ease of hooking up your cell phone, iPod Touch or tablet to the AirMedia and delivering a crisp presentation for the classroom or office is unparalleled. Its efficiency of connectivity allows 32 users to connect to any given presentation at a time, and its new function called Quadview allows four users’ content to be displayed, edited and cycled through simultaneously and independently of each other.

Crestron debuted the AirMedia program at the InfoComm conference on June 13, 2013, where it was explained that it allowed users who had the program(in the form of an app) added to their iOS or Android (News - Alert) Smartphone, tablet or laptop to walk into a room where a presentation is going on, connect to the AV device or laptop(s) on which the presentations are on, and get a personal presentation on your device, which is a boon if the view from your seat is obscured or less than desirable.

This kind of technology can change the game for academia and business meetings, as employee and student comprehension on presentations will be better because they can cycle through the presentation at their own pace and read slides until they understand it fully, and if necessary can look at it on their own time. If this app is used, it makes the need to distribute print copies of slides for notes and the need to post slides on a website for later viewing superfluous.