Case Study: London Business School Adds Wired HDMI to Its Active Learning Classroom

The School

London Business School (LBS) was established in 1964 and concentrates on postgraduate business education. More than 12,000 students and executives take part in its degree and Executive Education programmes each year, and over 45,000 alumni from 155 countries hold LBS degrees. For its active learning classroom the school chose the vSolution MATRIX system from WolfVision, which uses WolfVision Cynap and Cynap Core collaboration and wireless presentation devices to stream video and audio between screens over standard network infrastructure. The room has 16 dual-screen student workstations with two Cynap Core units at each, plus a main Cynap system for the lecturer and a further Cynap unit for recording.

The Challenge

The Cynap Core units let students share their screens wirelessly using the AirPlay, Miracast and Chromecast mirroring protocols. The school also wanted students to be able to plug in a laptop or other device with an HDMI cable whenever they preferred. That meant finding a way to bring wired HDMI sources into the collaboration and presentation system at every workstation.

Magewell Hardware Used

The answer was the Magewell USB Capture HDMI, an external capture device that takes an HDMI signal in and passes it to the host over USB. At LBS each device connects to the standard USB 3.0 port of a Cynap Core unit, and each of the school's 32 Cynap Core systems now has its own. The devices sit out of sight inside the student workstations, on top of the Cynap Core units, so the only thing a student sees is the HDMI cable. The model listed for this project is the USB Capture HDMI Gen 2. It has one HDMI 1.4a input that accepts up to 2048×1080 at 60 fps, installs without a driver and detects the input format automatically, which suits a room where a different laptop is plugged in every session. It is powered from the USB port, so no separate power supply is needed, and it does its scaling, de-interlacing and frame rate conversion inside the device. It works with Windows, Linux, macOS and Chrome OS hosts over USB 3.0 and is also compatible with USB 2.0.

In Daily Use

The active learning space serves hundreds of participants each week. Wayne Buttigieg, Head of Infrastructure and Media Services at LBS, said the devices work with the Cynap Core units “to enable students to use HDMI sources as an alternative to wireless sharing for interacting with our active learning collaboration platform.” Students can therefore choose between wireless sharing and a cable at every workstation.

Result

The teaching side is pleased too. “From the students and faculty I've worked with, the feedback has been nothing but positive,” said Michele Asbury, Associate Director of Learning Innovation and Design at London Business School. You can read the full account in our London Business School and WolfVision case study.