In 2016, thanks to its Integrated Media Department, Mt. Hood Community College began updating classrooms across all three of its locations with new HD enabled projectors. With the help of Troxell Communications, Becky Gish, the Technology Lab and Multimedia Analyst and Eric Leighton, Academic Technology Services Analyst at Mt. Hood Community College, chose Hitachi’s CP-WX5505 Collegiate LCD projectors for the upgrade, and has seen significant improvements across the classroom.
Mt. Hood Community College (MHCC) has three campuses located throughout East Multnomah County, with the main campus located in Gresham, Oregon. Enrollment at MHCC is around 30,000 full-time and part-time students, with over 120 professional and technological programs offered. Since 2016, Gish has been working to standardize the college on Hitachi projectors by upgrading old projectors to the CP-WX5505 Collegiate LCD Projectors. Gish first looked to Hitachi for the upgrade after she was approached by the Integrated Media Department at MHCC to look at new HD enabled projectors.
“Our Integrated Media Department was the first to request HD enabled projectors, they even did some research to find projectors that had all of the features necessary,” says Gish. “Soon after, I attended a trade show to see what I could find for them, and made my way to the Hitachi booth. Not only were did the Hitachi representatives show me the CP-WX5505 model that included every feature we were looking for, they also told me about the OneVision program and were able to sign up Mt. Hood Community College right there on the spot.”
Hitachi’s OneVision Program provides higher education facilities access to specialized pricing, enhanced service, direct access to Hitachi experts, extended five-year warranty on projectors, extended one-year warranty on lamps and buying rewards that include buy 10 projectors and get one free projector, or buy three projectors and get one free lamp.
The five Hitachi HD enabled projectors that Gish purchased for the Integrated Media Department became the test for upgrading the rest of the school.
“If any department was really going to look into the precise color and image features on a projector, it would be our Integrated Media Department,” said Gish. “We knew we could trust their input on the CP-WX5505 projectors, and once we heard their feedback we started to purchase more to upgrade the rest of the three campuses.”
Now, Mt. Hood Community College is still working to upgrade all old projectors to the CP-WX5505, which has also allowed the school to begin the upgrade from analog to digital. Over the past year and a half, teachers have started to notice the change in projectors throughout the three different campus locations.
“We’re getting calls from instructors that their projectors seem dim, and we’re finding that these calls come from professors who have been teaching with the new HD enabled projectors, and then switched to a room that we haven’t upgraded yet,” said Gish. “Our professors are certainly seeing a difference with the new, brighter HD displays.”
