AVT Question: Please share insight into the current state of networked AV and control; what you see as barriers to entry; and what advice can you offer on how AV/IT managers can overcome limited resources or a lack of buy-in.
Thought Leader: Samuel A. Recine, AIMS Pro AV Working Group Chairperson; Vice President of Sales AV/IT Group, Americas and Asia Pacific at Matrox Video
Academically, everyone understands the benefits of moving to networked media over IP; there is an infinitely better distance story and many more devices can be supported concurrently. Additionally, the performance is now well-proven. The possibility of gaining synergies and leveraging new converged workflows by combining data, communications, and rich media on the network is very alluring.
AV and IT are going through the same system design considerations that broadcasters are going through with the migration from SDI to IP." — Samuel A. Recine, AIMS Pro AV Working Group Chairperson; Vice President of Sales AV/IT Group, Americas and Asia Pacific at Matrox Video
AV and IT teams also still need to get things done, however. Things must be secure, and we need end users to be able to access the technology in a way that’s either familiar to them or whereby learning something new is easy and has a noticeable, immediate benefit.
Individual rooms and projects are different problems, compared to system design, when it comes to managing a very large group of assets and organizational goals through time. AV and IT are going through the same system design considerations that broadcasters are going through with the migration from SDI to IP. The work done over the last 10 years that has been influenced by a nuanced balancing of end user needs with manufacturers' realities and the evolving capabilities of services providers is finally paying off with open standards such as SMPTE ST 2110 and IPMX. Some system-wide new architectures with scale and scope and a healthy ability to keep evolving into the future are now in use and providing huge gains in workflow efficiencies, new abilities, and asset management.
It is reasonable for stakeholders to balance between short-term needs and long-time system evolution. Stakeholders are getting better every day at understanding the moving parts and building their strategies. With remote work thrust into focus by the pandemic, the use of high-reach technologies are balanced versus goal-driven rich experience technologies. Whether the missions are high-impact live operations, organization-wide communications, teaching/learning, or entertainment—there are few cases of one-size-fits-all, and many cases where there are a high number of options for assembling solutions and reaching organizational goals. Both IT and AV skills are being flexed in new ways.
Like other organizations contributing useful ingredients to IP-based systems, Matrox provides hardware and software to help capture, store, process, transport, share, and secure audio-visual media over IP, and fuse IT/PC-based workflows with pro AV workflows.
Whether operating at the high-stream-density end of the Matrox portfolio or the high-performance end of it, Matrox espouses the values of Zero Trust in cybersecurity and open standards in media asset management. Among many others, this also includes Matrox’s products that are designed to support and evolve with SMPTE ST 2110 and IPMX.
AV Technology's Thought Leader Series on AVoX
Check out what other industry thought leaders have to say about the state of networked AV. A full list with links can be found at the bottom of the On AVoX, the Intro Article
