Life as an IT Integrator – AVoIP | Integrator Insights
“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
John F. Kennedy
I know last month I said we would have part 2 of a discussion on standards, but the Higher Ed AV Media theme for November is AV over IP and, well, I have some strong opinions on that topic. We’ll pick standards back up next month!
Let me start this column with this: AV is IT. Yes, I went there, and I’m not one bit sorry about it. I went there in May, too. Frankly, I love the idea that AV is IT, and AV over IT is the main reason why. No matter how you want to slice it, AV over IT is ultimately the path our entire industry is headed down. Let me repeat a couple of bold predictions: first, the current crop of dedicated video connectors, HDMI and derivatives and DisplayPort and derivatives (and BNC for those broadcast folks), will be the last dedicated video connectors ever developed; second, within the next 5 years you will find entry-level consumer televisions with zero HDMI ports – there will only be a power connection and USB connection. Yes, I purposefully wrote “AV over IT”, up above. The future of AV connectivity will all be IT based. This month in Higher Ed AV Media we are discussing AV over IP, and that is one of the main future paths as we go – AV content as packet payload over an IP network. The other future path is USB4 and Thunderbolt 4.0 – both standards use USB-C (Thunderbolt 4.0 and USB4 while maintaining a few distinctions, will functionally become synonymous), and the future development of USB-C based technologies will become the other IT path that will become dominant for AV transfer. So, we have IP networks, and we have an IT peripheral connection port – both come from the IT world, that is where we are headed, and that is why I say once again that AV is IT.
Let’s narrow down on the AV over IP path. The benefits of AV over IP should be obvious to most higher-ed technology managers, but let’s quickly cover one obvious benefit and one less obvious benefit:
- Flexibility & expandability – one of the obvious beauties of AV over IP is the ability to quickly reconfigure systems as needed. Need to add a second monitor? Easy, let me grab this receiver and network cable. You want to move the document camera over to this table for panel discussions? No problem. You really want to add an Xbox, Professor? About time! Give me an hour to add the input and put a new button on the touchpanel. You are not limited to the size of a switcher, the number of outputs on that DA, or the locations of your dedicated HDBaseT cable runs. Wherever you can find a network port (and soon wherever you can get a Wi-Fi 6 signal), you can easily add, remove, or move any source or any destination.
- Standardization – another huge benefit that many people don’t consider is the ability to dramatically reduce the number of different components needed. In the most basic form, you form a fully functional AV distribution system with just transmitter boxes, receiver boxes, and network switches. That’s it. (And just wait until the transmitter is built into the source and the receiver is built into the display or other destination.) No 2-, 4-, 6-, or 8-port switchers, no small matrix switchers, no large matrix switchers, no DAs, etc. Designing gets easier, you can buy more components in bulk, and the number of different components in your shelf stock is reduced.
We have worked with a contractor to complete two full AV-over-IP systems now, and we have the parts on order to do our first solution in-house. Here is my most surprising lesson learned thus far: your network team might be more amenable to the idea than you would expect. I scheduled a meeting with our network architecture and engineering team leads, the contractor, the selected vendor, and us to discuss the concept for a building-wide AV over IP solution. I went in fully prepared for battle. I was ready to accept the need for an entire separate network structure. Their response was surprising – they essentially said, “Yeah, Ok, we don’t see any issues here. We carry all kinds of other multicast traffic now. Our network is more than robust enough to handle this.” A few weeks later I scheduled another meeting, talking again about how many inputs and outputs were looking at and how much bandwidth each connection took. I was CONVINCED they surely weren’t understanding what we were talking about. Same response. “Look, Mike, if you are that worried, we’ll give you a VLAN for this to make you feel better about it.” They worked with the vendor, clearly understood the details, and configured the system accordingly. The system has been up for around 18 months now, on the same core switch stacks as every other port in the building, and other than a time when the electricians accidentally cut power to an IDF, the system has been at least as robust as any other AV solution on campus. They clearly knew the capabilities of the network, and they were extremely open to it. I am truly impressed (and blessed) by our network team. Now, I understand your institution may react completely differently (YMMV), but I would encourage you not to dismiss the idea of an AV over IP solution for fear of your network team. If your network team would like to talk to some peers here at ISU about their experiences thus far with AV over IP, let me know.
Will we likely move to a full AV over IP infrastructure at Iowa State? Not in the near term as we feel the cost-benefit ratio for smaller classrooms is just not quite there yet. However, I am confident we will identify more and more systems where it just makes sense, and I’m excited to see where this change will take us.