It’s easy to get stuck in a time warp—Dartmouth College escaped with the recent addition of a 255” diagonal dvLED display and 9 laser projectors from DP.

Rated as one of the top business schools in the nation, Tuck Business School at Dartmouth College touts a personalized, immersive, hands-on learning experience. Technology plays an integral part in the education experience, with projection systems pervasive across campus lecture halls and classrooms. In some spaces, the projectors have been in use since the 1970s with upgrades along the way.
One place on campus that recently underwent an update is one of the school’s largest auditoriums. While the rear projection system there had performed admirably in the past, “it was lacking the brightness and clarity to accurately display the fine details of instructional materials used today,” says the Tuck Business School Associate Director of Information Technology Matt Delaney. “Data on spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations were nearly impossible to see in the back row, especially when the lights were on. It was time for a change. It was time to consider integrating an LED videowall.”

Delaney and his team saw this day coming and had already researched videowall solutions for the 321-seat auditorium. “Digital Projection was our top choice all along, not only for the quality of their imaging solutions but the fact that they were the only vendor that provided complete installation and maintenance service,” Delaney explains. “All this came with a guarantee, which other manufacturers didn’t provide.”

After reviewing videowall options with their local Digital Projection sales rep, Delaney and his team opted to replace the auditorium’s outdated projector with a 255” diagonal Radiance VX Series display. Its 1.2mm pixel pitch, 4320×2430 resolution, and exceptional uniformity, contrast, color accuracy and high lumen(Not sure if “high lumen,” usually used with projectors or “high brightness”should be used output would render bright, pin-sharp images, ending students’ struggles to see course material. “The brightness of this videowall is unbeatable,” Delaney enthuses. “We were able to dial back the luminance to 40 percent to extend the life of the technology and still achieve a great image.”

It’s not just the faculty and students of scheduled classes who enjoy a better learning environment via the addition of the Radiance VX Series display. Recently, it was used as a visual backdrop for panel discussions during Dartmouth Reunions. “We have many more ideas to expand the use of the display even further,” Delaney says. “We’ve been adding cameras to rooms across campus, and will do so in this auditorium so it can be used for multi-window, Zoom-based remote learning applications.”

The ease of working with Digital Projection and the performance of the Radiance videowall was so impressive, Dartmouth’s IT Department now plans to swap older laser projectors for DP’s E-Vision 9000 models in three large classrooms. “Our DP rep, Jeff Schneider, made the transition so straightforward,” Delaney remarks. “To help us decide on a specific laser projector, he brought several models on site to demo.” Ultimately, the E-Vision 9000 was chosen. Its ultra-quiet chassis was a huge selling feature, as three projectors would be mounted directly above students’ heads in each classroom. Also helpful to the IT team was the ability to synch the trio for uniformity and alignment of the three individual projected images.

Given the rave reviews of DP’s level of service and diverse range of exceptional imaging solutions, Dartmouth will likely lean on the company for future video upgrades elsewhere on campus, according to Delaney. For now, though, the students and faculty of the Tuck School are reaping the rewards of advanced video-based instruction via a massive videowall and laser projectors from DP.