Episodes

  • 69: It's Functioning, But Not Fully Functional

    69: It's Functioning, But Not Fully Functional
    Apr 1 2026
    AV SuperFriends: On Topic
    It's functioning, but not fully functional

    Recorded March 13, 2026

    This episode of On Topic tackles “Spring cleaning” by focusing less on tidy closets and more on the grime higher ed AV teams create for themselves. The panel trades stories about delayed refreshes, inherited programming messes, legacy systems that refuse to die, rushed project deadlines, and the temporary fixes that somehow become permanent. Before you get clean, revel in the filth…

    It’s a funny, brutally honest look at technical debt, bad design choices, and the institutional rot that keeps old problems hanging around far longer than they should. If your campus has mystery cables, aging systems, and one room everyone’s afraid to touch, this episode will feel painfully familiar. Let’s get filthy!

    Alternate show titles:
    • Budgets are optional
    • Those are sticky weird situations
    • Normally I’m shady and gross
    • I wasn’t a pro, so I used two plusses
    • Good luck, I’m sorry
    • Museum of AV decisions
    • It did what it did
    • Be here when the tree falls on the house
    • I feel like the whole university is guilty of this
    • Just everybody calm down!
    • It’s gonna be… not bad
    • If y’all didn’t take an entire month off for Christmas…

    We stream live every Friday at about 315p Eastern/1215p Pacific and you can listen to everything we record over at AVSuperFriends.com

    ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀
    ► Website: https://www.avsuperfriends.com
    ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/avsuperfriends
    ► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avsuperfriends
    ► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@avsuperfriends
    ► Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/avsuperfriends.bsky.social
    ► Email: mailbag@avsuperfriends.com
    ► RSS: https://avsuperfriends.libsyn.com/rss

    Donate to AVSF: https://www.avsuperfriends.com/support
    Show more Show less
    42 mins
  • 68: The Ten Suggestions

    68: The Ten Suggestions
    Mar 1 2026
    AV SuperFriends: On Topic
    The Ten Suggestions

    Recorded February 13, 2026

    It’s March (yes, March– deal with it), the AV SuperFriends gather to lay down the law… higher ed AV law, that is. This month’s On Topic tackles the Top Ten Commandments of AV: the rules you should follow, the ones you sometimes break, and the ones you pretend you’ve always believed in.
    From protecting audio at all costs and designing for serviceability, to avoiding 4K hype, over-automation, USB abuse, and unlabeled cables, the panel debates what actually matters when building and supporting campus systems. It’s a fast-moving mix of standards, safety factors, lifecycle thinking, and a healthy dose of “why are we still doing this?”

    Opinionated, practical, and just irreverent enough, consider this your stone tablet for smarter AV design… subject to revision next month, that is.

    Alternate show titles:
    • Sometimes you find yourself walking around thinking a lot
    • Today’s commandments are…
    • Do you want to disservice half the room?
    • How do you get away with that?
    • Is that in your scope to check?
    • The university as a whole…
    • Yes, if you’re touching the wall
    We stream live every Friday at about 315p Eastern/1215p Pacific and you can listen to everything we record over at AVSuperFriends.com

    ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀
    ► Website: https://www.avsuperfriends.com
    ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/avsuperfriends
    ► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avsuperfriends
    ► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@avsuperfriends
    ► Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/avsuperfriends.bsky.social
    ► Email: mailbag@avsuperfriends.com
    ► RSS: https://avsuperfriends.libsyn.com/rss

    Donate to AVSF: https://www.avsuperfriends.com/support
    Show more Show less
    36 mins
  • 67: If It Happened Last Year, You Can Ignore It

    67: If It Happened Last Year, You Can Ignore It
    Feb 1 2026
    AV SuperFriends: On Topic - If it happened last year, you can ignore it

    Recorded January 16, 2026

    In this episode of On Topic, the panel leans hard into the “Groundhog Day” reality of higher ed AV, where every semester feels like a rerun of the last one. From the same classrooms and support tickets to the same mysterious $7 HDMI cable failures, the panel reflects on why our work so often feels stuck on repeat, even as we insist “this time it’ll be different.”

    With their usual mix of sarcasm, experience, and self-awareness, they review the projects, services, and processes that keep coming back year after year… sometimes for good reasons, sometimes because no one ever really fixes the root problem. It’s a funny, honest look at institutional memory, consultant déjà vu, and the strange comfort of knowing that no matter what changes, some AV challenges are forever.Alternate show titles:
    • What failed last time?
    • I’m a shopping cart
    • Not every year… every DAY
    • I’m afraid to ask the question
    • Room with too many TVs
    • In cloud or on prem again
    • Cloud-based whatchamadoolie
    • I’ll track your life
    • Does everybody get access?
    • Hybrid bastardized version
    • What does that mean for YOUR internet of things?
    • In my secret cloud
    • Check in to get the services
    • I’ll flag it, but I won’t unflag it
    We stream live every Friday at about 315p Eastern/1215p Pacific and you can listen to everything we record over at AVSuperFriends.com

    ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀
    ► Website: https://www.avsuperfriends.com
    ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/avsuperfriends
    ► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avsuperfriends
    ► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@avsuperfriends
    ► Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/avsuperfriends.bsky.social
    ► Email: mailbag@avsuperfriends.com
    ► RSS: https://avsuperfriends.libsyn.com/rss

    Donate to AVSF: https://www.avsuperfriends.com/support
    Show more Show less
    37 mins
  • 66: KFC Classroom

    66: KFC Classroom
    Jan 1 2026
    Recorded December 12, 2025

    It’s the AV SuperFriends New Year’s special, which means one part retrospective, one part speculation, and several parts nonsense. The panel looks back at their predictions for 2025 to see who deserves credit, who gets partial credit, and who should maybe stop predicting things altogether. From conference room technology to AV-over-IP realities, the team grades themselves with the kind of honesty only friends (and live chat hecklers) can provide.

    Then, eyes turn cautiously toward 2026. Expect bold takes on where AV is actually headed, which “next big things” might finally show up, and which trends are still just vaporware. Dante AV, displays, digital twins, medium conference room solutions, and the ever-present gap between marketing promises and real-world deployments all get their moment under the microscope.As always, it’s opinionated, occasionally insightful, and completely Larry-free. If you like your year-end AV and IT technology analysis served with sarcasm, self-awareness, and honesty, this one’s for you.

    Alternate show titles:
    • 50 percent with an asterisk
    • A-S-T-R-X
    • Hot Dog Crap
    • I’ve got a few or a couple or some number here
    • PoE Toilet
    • Which Kinda Works
    • This might be a run-on sentence
    • We’ve never been closer
    • Room Classic
    • KFC is world wide

    We stream live every Friday at about 315p Eastern/1215p Pacific and you can listen to everything we record over at AVSuperFriends.com.

    ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀
    ► Website: https://www.avsuperfriends.com
    ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/avsuperfriends
    ► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avsuperfriends
    ► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@avsuperfriends
    ► Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/avsuperfriends.bsky.social
    ► Email: mailbag@avsuperfriends.com
    ► RSS: https://avsuperfriends.libsyn.com/rss

    Donate to AVSF: https://www.avsuperfriends.com/support
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 5 mins
  • 65: I’m Not Doing This Under My Desk

    65: I’m Not Doing This Under My Desk
    Dec 1 2025
    Recorded November 14, 2025: The AV SuperFriends kick off their first holiday special of the season with a spirited look at the gear, gadgets, and AV workflows that should make life easier, but only if you also bought the missing accessories, licenses, adapters, or seventeen extra widgets the manufacturer forgot to mention. In classic Christmas fashion, the crew shares their “Batteries Not Included” frustrations: software that secretly requires expensive hardware, switchers that almost solve every problem but miss the basics, power supplies that mysteriously vanish from product boxes, and cloud-connected ecosystems with more prerequisites than a graduate-level course.Along the way, the panel detours into holiday lights, dubious Best Buy happenings, the return of RDL-style power-supply roulette, and the annual reminder that USB extension is still cursed. They also preview an upcoming deep-dive on enterprise cloud AV, tease the December call-in show, and, of course, deliver an unhealthy dose of seasonal immaturity.If you’ve ever unboxed a “perfect” AV solution only to discover it needs three more boxes, a license key, an aggregator VM, and a Christmas miracle to function, this episode is for you.Alternate show titles:
    • I want that in my stocking
    • Holiday Mode
    • The setting on your doohicky
    • Don’t put it in holiday mode
    • Who dropped the dogs off
    • Allen Head Doll House
    • It does everything you want but nothing you need
    • Least offensive to “you gotta be kidding me”
    • You can’t get this to that
    • You can buy HDBaseT out, you just can’t get it in
    • Similar to Larry, but different
    • You always have to buy the power supplies separate
    • They mostly last
    • That’s not the answer; stop it!
    • Some adult supervision required
    Show more Show less
    41 mins
  • 64: I Bet They're Super Tech-Savvy

    64: I Bet They're Super Tech-Savvy
    Nov 1 2025
    AV SuperFriends: On Topic
    "I Bet They're Super Tech-Savvy"

    Recorded October 24, 2025

    In this Thanksgiving special, the crew gathers at the bustling Circus Circus in Las Vegas (by way of theater of the mind). Chris, Jamie, Marc, Larry, Justin, and special guest Frank Alaimo, dive into the chaos of AV integration during the holiday season, while serving up piping hot takes and mashed-up opinions.

    As they navigate the complexities of holiday technology requests, the conversation hilariously veers into the world of DIY AV setups, unexpected tech purchases, and the challenges of integrating consumer-grade equipment into professional environments. From the infamous ‘hockey puck’ microphones to the wild world of Raspberry Pi lighting setups, nothing is off the table.
    So loosen your belts, grab a plate, and settle in for a feast of sound, humor, and a few too many turkey puns!

    Connect with Frank: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-alaimo-cts-i-01872466/

    AI-generated alternate show titles:
    • Turkey Talk and Tech Troubles
    • A Thanksgiving Roundtable of AV Shenanigans
    • Gravy and Gadgets
    • A Thanksgiving AV Extravaganza
    • A Turkey-Themed AV Roundtable

    Far superior human created alternate show titles:
    • When you see people on stilts, you know it’s a fancy joint
    • This is actually fulfilling one of my life goals
    • Mistakes were made
    • The Whoa-Pro!
    • It works right out of the box
    • A hockey puck USB mic
    • It has little legs on it, maybe not
    • The turducken of meeting rooms
    • They start banging it out and you’re like “Oh!”
    • What do you think is going on in this classroom, dude?
    • This is news to me!
    • An army of fruit rolling around
    We stream live every Friday at about 315p Eastern/1215p Pacific and you can listen to everything we record over at AVSuperFriends.com

    ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀
    ► Website: https://www.avsuperfriends.com
    ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/avsuperfriends
    ► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avsuperfriends
    ► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@avsuperfriends
    ► Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/avsuperfriends.bsky.social
    ► Email: mailbag@avsuperfriends.com
    ► RSS: https://avsuperfriends.libsyn.com/rss
    Donate to AVSF: https://www.avsuperfriends.com/support
    Show more Show less
    38 mins
  • 63: I Hope AQAV Isn’t Listening to This…

    63: I Hope AQAV Isn’t Listening to This…
    Oct 1 2025
    AV SuperFriends: On Topic - I hope AQAV isn’t listening to this…

    Recorded September 19, 2025

    It’s October, and the AV SuperFriends are leaning into the spooky season with a conversation that’s equal parts eerie and insightful. They tackle some of the haunted house problems in higher ed AV: ghost signals that won’t quit, obsolete equipment that seems impossible to kill off, and the slow creep of outdated standards lurking in classrooms everywhere.

    Joining the discussion are special guests Gary Cummins Indiana University and Neal Feuerhelm from the University of Illinois, who weigh in on how their campuses are handling the monsters of modernization. From faculty demands for shiny new gear to the challenges of keeping hundreds of teaching spaces alive and stable, the group debates what’s worth upgrading, what’s better left buried, and how to keep technology aligned with real teaching and learning goals.

    And since it wouldn’t be fall without a little football, the episode features a spirited Weekly Rivalry matchup between Illinois and Indiana. Much like on the gridiron, each university makes its case for AV dominance, touting classroom innovations, campus traditions, and the resilience of their teams. The friendly trash talk goes into overtime with lightning-round questions and leaves listeners with one key takeaway: in higher ed AV, rivalries may be playful, but the commitment to delivering reliable, effective teaching technology is very real.

    Connect with our guests:
    • Gary Cummins - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-cummins-5690026b/
    • Neal Feuerhelm - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nfeuerhelm/

    AI-generated Alternate Episode Titles:
    • Spooky Trends & a Big Ten Showdown
    • Ether Killer and the Haunted Classroom
    • When Old Gear Refuses to Die
    • Spooky Season, Creepy Standards, and a Big Ten Showdown
    • Ghosts in the Machine: Higher Ed’s Halloween Special
    • Haunted Touch Panels and Other AV Nightmares
    • Rivalries, Revenants, and Room Schedulers

    Far Superior Human-Generated Alternate Show Titles:
    • You want all those ports back?
    • They went from putting everything on there to nothing
    • There’s not enough of it to justify putting in a special thing
    • Are you too busy to finish a thought?
    • Your standards are at random heights
    • The consumerification of all our AV products
    • That meant it was dead, not asleep
    • Either one, I don’t want to do anymore…
    • Live grounding bus bar
    • I don’t know how many pools you have on campus
    • We got a name for that
    • It involved a lot of lube
    • Turn it to 11
    • You can’t really touch the HTML
    • It’s the viewer’s problem
    We stream live every Friday at about 300p Eastern/1200p Pacific and you can listen to everything we record over at AVSuperFriends.com

    ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀
    ► Website: https://www.avsuperfriends.com
    ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/avsuperfriends
    ► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avsuperfriends
    ► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@avsuperfriends
    ► Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/avsuperfriends.bsky.social
    ► Email: mailbag@avsuperfriends.com
    ► RSS: https://avsuperfriends.libsyn.com/rss

    Donate to AVSF: https://www.avsuperfriends.com/support
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 7 mins
  • 62: Back-to-School Chatter

    62: Back-to-School Chatter
    Sep 1 2025
    AV Superfriends: On Topic
    Episode 62

    Back-toSchool Chatter

    Recorded August 15, 2025

    In this episode, Chris, Jamie, Larry, and Justin revel in the chaos and excitement of back-to-school preparations and reminisce about their experiences from ten years ago while tackling the challenges of the new academic year.

    The discussion kicks off with a lighthearted look at the absurdities of the back-to-school rush, including the frantic requests from faculty and the inevitable tech hiccups. The team shares their thoughts on how far AV technology has come in the past decade and reflects on the lessons learned along the way. From the struggles of outdated systems to the thrill of new installations, they cover it all.

    As they navigate through their own back-to-school stories, the panelists reveal their personal strategies for managing the busy season and keeping their sanity intact.

    AI-generated alternate show titles:
    • Back to School: AV Edition
    • Lessons Learned: A Decade of AV
    • The Back-to-School Survival Guide
    • AV Flashbacks: 10 Years of Chaos
    • Tech Trials and Triumphs
    • From Panic to Preparation
    • AV SuperFriends: Back to School Madness
    • Navigating the New School Year

    Far superior human created alternate show titles:
    • They hibernate and then re-hatch
    • Looks like an owl winking at you
    • Everybody loves whiteboards
    • That whiteboard is structural
    • These were working before they touched them
    • You know who didn’t say that?
    • He… didn’t get fired
    • It’s my first day!
    • I’ve been flat on purpose
    • Dumb questions like “Are you done yet?”
    We stream live every Friday at about 300p Eastern/1200p Pacific and you can listen to everything we record over at AVSuperFriends.com

    ▀▄▀▄▀ CONTACT LINKS ▀▄▀▄▀
    ► Website: https://www.avsuperfriends.com
    ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/avsuperfriends
    ► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/avsuperfriends
    ► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@avsuperfriends
    ► Email: mailbag@avsuperfriends.com
    ► RSS: https://avsuperfriends.libsyn.com/rss

    Individual Twitter links:
    ► Chris Dechter: @cdechter
    ► Jamie Rinehart: @avsfjamie
    ► Marc Cholewczynski: @avdiplomat
    ► Rachel Bradshaw: @tempurity
    ► Larry Darling: @lsdarling1
    ► Justin Rexing: @justinrexing

    Donate to AVSF: https://www.avsuperfriends.com/support
    Show more Show less
    38 mins