AV Technology - February-March

T H E
A V
R E S O U R C E
F O R
T E C H N O L O G Y
M A N A G E R S
A N D
U S E R S
VOL.9 NO.2
AVNETWORK.COM
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016
THE IT MANAGERS GUIDE TO NETWORKED AV
MEET YOUR IT MANAGER:

CARLISLE B. WILLARD,
DUKE UNIVERSITY
BYTE-SIZED LESSON
IN IP-ENABLED AV
ROUTERS & ROUTING
IOT 101
+
6 WAYS TO
MONETIZE
INTERACTIVE
DIGITAL
SIGNAGE
ISTOCK/THINKSTOCK
Is the Internet of Things changing the

higher education technology landscape?
New AV Products for

Savvy Tech Managers
FREE SOFTWARE DESIGNED

SIGNED FOR DATAPATH X4
MULTI-DISPLAY CONTROLLER
VISIT OUR WEBSITE FOR AN INSPIRING VISUAL

EXPERIENCE WWW.DATATPATH.CO.UK
Tel: +1 484 679 1553 www.datapath.co.uk
Technology that works

the way you work
Unproductive meetings and wasted resources cost organizations a fortune: in the U.S.
alone, an estimated $37 billion* every year. Problems with room scheduling, AV, setup,
and environmental systems are major contributors. Crestron has the solution.
Powered by Crestron Fusion and the remarkable new PinPoint app, Crestron endto-end enterprise solutions clear a path for people to work smarter, faster, and more
efficiently. They can quickly access vital information, schedule meetings, and initiate
secure communications and collaboration anytime, from anywhere.
Technology should never get in the way of success it should help drive it.
Learn more at crestron.com/PinPoint
All brand names, product names, and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Certain trademarks, registered trademarks, and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming
the marks and names or their products. Crestron disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. Crestron is not responsible for errors in typography or photography. 2016 Crestron Electronics, Inc.
The Contents
perspective
CONNECTING THE DOTS
Big Ideas
BYTE-SIZED LESSON IN IP
IP routers and routing
DIGITAL SIGNAGE INDUSTRY

TRENDS IN 2016
24
Features
14
6 WAYS TO MONETIZE
INTERACTIVE DIGITAL SIGNAGE
THE CAMPUS: WHERE AV

MEETS IOT
Read why IoT is changing the educational technology equation.
22
their annual client meetings to their office

building, they knew they needed to upgrade
14
their AV.
The Guide
A1THE IT MANAGERS GUIDE TO

NETWORKED AV
14 ESSENTIALS OF THE
CONNECTED CLASSROOM
F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 6 | av ne twor k . com
SMARTER MEETINGS
When a financial firm decided to move
The Goods
56
NEW & NOTABLE AV PRODUCTS
18
AV Technology (ISSN 1941-5273) is published monthly except combined February/March and July/August
by NewBay Media LLC, 28 East 28 Street, New York, NY 10016. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY
10199 and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to AV Technology, PO Box 8692,
Lowell, MA 01853-8692
10 Q&A WITH CARLISLE B. WILLARD,
28
BLE & IOT LEAD DIGITAL

SIGNAGE TRENDS IN 2016
Giving your higher ed tech end users the

edge.
MEET YOUR MANAGER
AV in Action
No longer confined to a rectangle box,

tech managers are using digital signage
in remarkable new ways.
24
improvements this year.
PH.D., DUKE UNIVERSITY
Meeting room signage & interactivity

offer a facility much more than wow
factor.
18
Expect iterative & breakthrough
how its done
58
BACK-TO-SCHOOL TECH SHOPPING
Microex Wireless
Enterprise-scale Microphone Solutions for Managed AV Environments
Versatile Microex Wireless systems bring vivid, lifelike audio to meetings, panel discussions,
teleconferences and other applications in managed AV environments from signature boardrooms
and concentrated multi-room environments to networked corporate campuses.
Flexible mic options Gooseneck, boundary, bodypack and handheld microphones
Modern, low-prole designs Fit comfortably into diverse AV environments
Dante digital audio networking Low latency, multichannel audio over Ethernet networks
Advanced rechargeability Smart lithium-ion batteries enable remote monitoring
Browser-based control software Comprehensive system setup and real time control
Automated frequency coordination Ensures clean frequencies for every wireless channel
Encrypted wireless AES-256 protection for secure over the air wireless audio
Visit us online at www.shure.com to find out more.
Perspective
Connecting
The Dots
For GenXers like me, a stroll down memory lane brings
the term computer classroom to mind. How far weve
come. Long gone are the days of relegating technology to
the library basement; technology is now woven into the
very fabric of our higher education learning spaces. In our feature 14 Essentials of the
Connected Classroom (page 24), Kirsten Nelson, NewBay Medias Editor at Large, explores
why and how traditional lecture-based rooms are being supplanted by student-centered
collaborative hubs. In Carolyn Heinzes long-form feature, The Campus: Where AV Meets
IoT (page 18), she investigates how universities are using bleeding-edge advancements such
as the Internet of Things to analyze metrics, connect with audio and video components,
and create efficiencies.
Just off the heels of an energetic Integrated Systems Europe conference in Amsterdam,
it was clear just how influential users and tech managers are becoming in the pro AV
ecosystem. Thats why we devoted our Meet Your Manager section (page 10) in this edition
to Carlisle B. Willard, Ph.D. Dr. Willard is the IT Manager of Trinity Technology Services
ClassroomSupport at Duke University, a division that supports nearly 300 media-equipped
classrooms, conference spaces, and auditoriums. Virtually everywhere at Duke has access
to WiFi connections and any classroom at Duke has AV/multimedia capabilities. I was
impressed with Carlisles perspective on building an in-house AV integration team. Even if
you are working in verticals other than higher ed, I know his insights will resonate.
Another highlight in this issue is our IT Managers Guide to Networked AV (page A1).
As our contributing editor Cindy Davis explains, during the past three years, a plethora
of networked AV devices have come to market designed to be on the network. As Davis
opined, The umbrella of networked AV is in its infancy, but it is quickly earning its place,
by design and necessity. Our guidethe first of its kind in the industryis not intended
to sermonize to the IT choir about how to configure a network to include AV. Instead, this
hallmark digest is intended to offer IT directors useful perspectives and best practices for
the relatively new category of networked AV.
As always, our editorial initiatives are only as successful as the tech managers who
contribute. Please let your voices be heard. Share your thoughts on networked AV, campus
IoT, and everything in between. Find us on Twitter @AVTechnologyMag.
February/March 2016
vol. 9 no. 2
EDITORIAL
Margot Douaihy Editorial Director
MDouaihy@nbmedia.com
Cindy Davis Contributing Editor

Lyle Bunn, James Careless, Phil Hippensteel, Carolyn
Heinze, Brian Nadel, Kirsten Nelson, Garen Sahagian
Contributors
Phil Hippensteel, Jan Ozer, Paul Parrie, Kevin McLaughlin
Joe Schuch, Ronnie Anne Spang, Steve Vonder Haar
AV Technology Advisory Board
SALES & MARKETING
Sue Horwitz Publisher
323-933-9485, sue@audientmarketing.com
Janis Crowley Advertising Sales

jcrowley@nbmedia.com
Phil Holtberg Advertising Sales
pholtberg@nbmedia.com
Gene Kinsella Advertising Sales
g.kinsella@comcast.net
Tara Preston Advertising Sales
tpreston@nbmedia.com
Debbie Rosenthal Advertising Sales
drosenthal@nbmedia.com
ART & PRODUCTION

Nicole Cobban Senior Art Director
Walter Makarucha, Jr. Associate Art Director
Farrah Aponte Production Director
FAponte@nbmedia.com
CIRCULATION
Meg Estevez Group Director, Audience Development
Michele Fonville Associate Circulation Manager
Telephone: 888-266-5828
(U.S.A. only, 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. est)
978-667-0352 (outside the U.S.) Fax: 978-671-0460
E-mail: newbay@computerfulfillment.com
Web: MyAVTechmag.com
Subscriptions: AV Technology
P.O. Box 8692, Lowell, MA 01853
NEWBAY MEDIA CORPORATE

Steve Palm President & CEO
Paul Mastronardi Chief Financial Officer
Bill Amstutz VP of Production & Manufacturing
Robert Ames VP of Digital Strategy & Operations
Denise Robbins VP of Audience Development
Anthony Savona VP of Content & Marketing
Ray Vollmer VP of Human Resources
Rick Ng Controller
Anthony Verbanac IT Director
NEWBAY AV/CONSUMER ELECTRONICS GROUP
Adam Goldstein Executive VP/Group Publisher
Ed Hecht VP of Sales
Rob Granger Online Production Manager
Ragan Whiteside Web Director
Published by NewBay Media L.L.C.
28 East 28th Street, 12th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Tel: 212-378-0400
FOLLOW ME ONLINE
mdouaihy@nbmedia.com
avnetwork
avnetwork.com
twitter.com/AVTechnologyMag
avnetwork.tumblr.com
/pub/av-technology-magazine/27/753/2a4
LIST RENTAL: 914-925-2449,

danny.grubert@lakegroupmedia.com
REPRINTS: 877-652-5295, newbay@wrightsmedia.com
PRINTED IN THE USA.

2 Color - Pantone 1797 / Black
1 Color - 100 Black / 40 Black
1 Color - 100 Black
BYTE-SIZED
LESSONS IN IP
IP ROUTERS AND ROUTING

By Phil Hippensteel
ing and receiving computers. The IP

address is composed of two parts, one
which indicates the network of the device
and another that singles out the particular
computer on that network. In a future lesson, well delve into how those two parts
are defined. For now, we only need to
know that the router relays a packet based
on the part of the address that shows the
destination network.
Lets consider what steps a router
takes when it receives a packet on an
incoming interface. First, it strips away
the Layer 2 header containing the mac
addresses. These addresses are no longer
needed. Their only function was to get
the packet across the previous physical
link. Then, using an error check value
in the IP header, the router checks the
integrity of the header to be sure it
hasnt been corrupted during its transit.
Next, it decreases a value in the header
THINKSTOCK
n the last Byte-Sized

Lesson of AV Technology,
we looked at Layer 2
switches. Now, well consider the function of a router and what
happens when Layer 3the Network
Layerrelays packets. If your collaboration system is on a VLAN and needs to be
accessible from the rest of the enterprise,
youll need a router. If youre using a camera, encoder, or other AV device that picks
its own address by browsing the local
Ethernet segment, youll need a router to
limit where it broadcasts its queries. And,
the easiest way to create new subnetworks
without getting tied up in complicated
subnet masks is to separate your subnets
with routers.
Each TCP/IP packet contains a header
(field) that includes the source and destination IP addresses. These are almost
always assigned by software in the send-
BigIdeas
called the hop count by exactly one to indicate that the
packet passed through the router. The hop count is a
value, set by the sending station, which determines the
maximum number of routers a packet can pass through
before the packet is judged to be lost. Next the router
determines the destination address to which the packet
is headed and seeks that network address in a list called
its routing table. Each entry in that table will have listed
a corresponding outgoing interface to use to send the
packet towards its destination. Finally, the router places
a new Layer 2 header on the packet and sends it using
the proper outgoing interface.
So, a key element in this process is the routing table
that contains the known destination networks and outgoing interfaces. How is it created? Routers periodically
update each other on which routes they are connected
to and which they can reach. The particular method by
which they do this is called the routing protocol.
There is a significant difference between Layer 2
switches described in the last lesson and the routers
explained here. A Layer 2 switch simply reads hardware
addresses and forwards the data frame out of the proper
interface. However, a router reads the packet, does an
integrity check, changes the hop count and re-calculates a
new error check code. Maybe that is why routers are often
more expensive than switches.
Phil Hippenstel, PhD, is a regular columnist with
AV Technology. Read all of his Byte-Sized Lessons on
www.avnetwork.com.
If youre using a camera,

encoder, or other AV
device that picks its own
address by browsing
the local Ethernet
segment, youll need a
router to limit where it
broadcasts its queries.
And, the easiest way to
create new subnetworks
without getting tied up in
complicated subnet masks
is to separate your subnets
with routers.
DIGITAL SIGNAGE
INDUSTRY TRENDS
IN 2016
EXPECT ITERATIVE & BREAKTHROUGH

IMPROVEMENTS THIS YEAR.
By Lyle Bunn
roductivity of place is
arguably todays highest
business priority, supported by the productivity
of people and processes.
As has been the imperative of all techenabled approaches, digital signage must
contribute a high return on investment
as businesses seek ever-increasing brand
equity and corporate valuation.
2016 will see both incremental and
breakthrough improvements in this productivity from the use of dynamic digital
place-based media. This will come in
four primary areas including: integration
into operations, increased visualization,
interface with mobile, and technology
advances.
Integration into operations will
include interface with other business
applications such as point-of-sale, inven-
tory, loyalty programs, staff training, infotainment, and security as digital signage
installations increasingly do not stand
alone as messaging or operating silos
within the organization.
This integration means that digital
signage serves as a platform for messaging, interaction and engagement using
a broader range of screen types such
as video walls, projections, smaller displays (on shelves and service counters for
example), tablets, and mobile devices.
As owned media in the Paid-OwnedEarned media model, digital signage
allows the brand to communicate in a
compelling way to its existing patrons
with attribution of results and return
on investment (ROI). Cause and effect
are the simple, core value proposition of
place-based digital signage.
Integration into the location will
see digital signage increasingly used as
architectural media and techorating
will be used to add ambiance and vitality by architects, designers and facilities
operators. Trial use in store and branch
of the future initiatives, which commonly
provide an immersive digital experience,
will lead to broader deployment to other
business locations.
Visualization of data is a natural
outcome of increased integration as
digital signage content moves beyond
the display of pre-prepared messages to
dynamic messaging based on external
factors, context and audience targeting.
Visual is our language. Millennials, digi-
BigIdeas
tal natives, and progressive adults expect modern, innovative communications that speak to their needs and
puts the message into the context of their life.
Art and creative expression will also increase in 2016
as digital display improves the experience at a location.
While the presentation of social media comments have
amplified the brand, pictures, selfies and artistic creations
will increasingly enliven the visit experience and fuel
earned media initiatives. Patrons, fans, staff, and students
will be invited to use touch, gestural or mobile interfaces
to contribute to what is displayed.
The interface of mobile devices with flat-panels
has been gaining traction and included many possible
The line between

consumer and commercial
grade hardware, such as
flat-panels and media
players, has been blurring.
Lower cost usually relates
to lower performance,
which can be adequate
for the simplest of
applications.
approaches such as near field communications, QR code,
beacon, SMS, sonic ping, and fling among others. The
transition from the audience of many that underpins
digital signage value will move forward with refinements
and new methods of interface that serve the audience of
one through mobile interface.
As consumers see their mobile device as another limb
that enables their quality of life, inter-connectedness and
profile, digital signage is the trigger for mobile browsing
and commerce. New patents related to detection and
online mobile interaction through Wi-Fi, Li-Fi or cellular
data plans will add to digital media ROI starting in early
2016.
Data may be big, but context is king. Insights that
inform messaging strategy and tactics are an essential
element of the communications improvement cycle. As
(continued on page 58)
F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 6 | av ne two r k .co m
FIRST-PERSON PERSPECTIVES
FROM LEADING TECH DIRECTORS
Meet Your Manager
CARLISLE B.
WILLARD
Q&A WITH CARLISLE B. WILLARD, PH.D., IT MANAGER,

TRINITY TECHNOLOGY SERVICES CLASSROOM SUPPORT,
DUKE UNIVERSITY, DURHAM, NC
rinity Technology Services (TTS) is an office within the

Trinity School of Arts & Sciences at Duke University. The
unit is tasked with IT support for all A&S offices, departments, and programs, providing wall-to-desktop support and working with the Office of Information Technology to support infrastructure needs within the college. This includes computer
desktop support for all Trinity faculty, website support, computer purchasing, and IT support for various research laboratories. AV Technology
recently interviewed Carlisle B. Willard, Ph.D., about Dukes broader
vision for AV/IT convergence and collaborative learning.
AV Technology: What is the current state of audiovisual integration
and wireless access at Duke University?
Carlisle B. Willard: Duke began its commitment to multimedia and
data availability in the classrooms in 1994 and by the first part of the
current century has developed between 277 and 300 media-equipped
classrooms, conference spaces, and auditoriums. Virtually everywhere
at Duke has access to WiFi connections. Any classroom at Duke has
multimedia capabilities.
Initially, this change was greeted with a degree of skepticism and
unease, but over the last 15 or so years, multimedia in the classroom has
become the standard. Faculty played an initial role in establishing a set
of basic standards for the classroom, and those standards have evolved
as technologies changed. Faculty rapidly adapted to the use of multimedia and now regard it as one of their essential instructional tools.
What AV/IT problems have you solved recently?
Carlisle B. Willard: At the moment, we are in the middle of a long
project to convert all of our classrooms into HDMI-capable systems. Generally speaking, the cost for a basic multimedia classroom
installed by contractors ran to about $13,000 each. I quickly realized
that the only way to accomplish the upgrade of the classrooms, given
current budget realities, was to develop an in-house integration staff.
Fortunately, the companies developing digital equipment were also
making them easier to program and integrate, and the company we
use for control systems provides programming training that has led
to our being able to take over the bulk of our own integration needs.
10
Carlisle B. Willard, Ph.D., Duke University
Over the last four or five years, the in-house integration has
been very successful, graduating from very simple control systems to fairly sophisticated setups, while saving Arts & Sciences
tens of thousands of budget dollars.
Part of our support process has been to develop a set of
remote management tools and system standards designed to
simplify both support and training needs. We use the Crestron
Fusion system to help gather maintenance data, provide remote
controls allowing us to offer assistance online, and provide
advance notification of system needs, such as lamp and filter
replacements. We are working with other Duke schools and
departments to develop a common set of control system and
multimedia installation standards that will help us support
systems more effectively and efficiently.
What types of new tech or products do you want to learn more
about?
Carlisle B. Willard: One of the more interesting development
has been the growing introduction of streaming systems and
the BYOD needs for classrooms. Originally we had designed
multimedia setups to permit the addition of new technologies
(such as when DVD players began to overtake VHS systems), but in the last several
years, equipment needs have been moving
away from onsite playback systems to various forms of streaming playback and from
presentation to collaborative systems.
There are a number of systems that offer
the chance for participants in a class to connect anything they have which has WiFi or
Bluetooth capability. Each has their advantages and disadvantages, and it is apparent
that the standards for these systems is still
in the process of settling down. The primary
options we have explored to date include
consumer-end systems like the Apple TV and
systems like Crestron AirMedia or the more
recent Solstice Pod systems.
The realization of the ability to connect
wirelessly is a very fond goal for anyone
who has had to deal with changing cabling
demands and the current tangle of adaptors
which tend to be product-specific, making
providing them a nightmare in a university
situation where we have little control over
what someone decides to bring into a classroom.
What AV/IT do you hope to buy in the near
future?
Carlisle B. Willard: We are currently starting a
project to renovate our experimental teaching
suite, a set of classrooms referred to as The
Link that were designed several years ago
as high-end technology classrooms. We are
transitioning the rooms from analog to digital spaces and are planning to make wireless
BYOD systems a standard part of the design.
The other issue, of course, is to decide
which of the various emerging technologies
should be showcased and experimented with.
We are planning to distribute the Mersive corporations Solstice Pod in several of the rooms
as an initial step in this experiment, but we
are always on the watch for other systems.
Our focus and primary interest in these
systems is flexibility and adaptability. For
example, although we have been working
at the digital refit of our classrooms for five
years now, budgetary constraints have left us
just under 50% of the way through, but the
demand for digital systems is more insistent
each year. What we need is a quick way to
enable an analog room to support at a minimal level HDMI source materials, buying us
12
time while we upgrade all the rooms. The

Solstice Pod may be a partial solution, but we
are always looking for other options as well.
If applicable, how to you procure/purchase
your AV for in-house installs? Distributor,
manufacturer direct, in bulk, other?
Carlisle B. Willard: Relatively few manufacturers will provide direct purchase, but since we
are doing our in-house integrations, we are
functioning much like an integration firm. At
present we use a host of sources for purchasing, including integration firms willing to act
as our box suppliers, and various online
sources such as distributers or online direct
purchase. Since we are an educational institution, we can access education discounts, and
Duke is an A+ Partner with Crestron, which
allows even better pricing.
controls are less of a problem and the plethora of pre-made materials are a rich resource.
Higher education teachers have less free
time for detailed training because of research
demands and prefer to use their own materials, and have little use for the bundled materials because they are less relevant. Higher
education instructors need simple, dependable systems with easy access to materials
and find the complexity of the Smart systems
off-putting. These systems are designed with a
very clear focus on K-12 and have spent little
design study on how best to fulfill higher
education needs.
Another peculiarity is the difference
between consumer-grade products and
commercial-grade. Consumer-grade systems tend to be designed to have greater flexibility in terms of sources that can be accessed,
Each school or department has its own way

of doing things and as new systems come
online, unless the school takes a central focus
from the start, each office that starts using
things initially comes up with systems that
suit their own specific needs, without regard
for whether anyone else would be interested.
In addition, Duke as an entity has various
institutional agreements with several other
companies involved in multimedia, networking systems, and conferencing systems, which
allows us both to standardize our purchases
and access better pricing that we would likely
get from integrators.
Where are tech manufacturers getting it wrong
or missing opportunities?
Carlisle B. Willard: In many cases specific
technology will have been developed with
a specific, sometimes highly focused market
in mind. Smart Corporation makes their
SmartBoard largely with a K-12 focus on its
features and functions.
Ironically, this focus works against them
in higher education for a very odd reason.
K-12 teachers have to maintain teaching certificates that require annual training and are
an audience which has both the time and
inclination for training because it is part of
their job. Consequently, the very complex
but they are designed for an assumed lighter

use. Commercial-grade tends to wear somewhat better, but since it is designed with the
assumption that it will be incorporated into
switching systems, it tends to have fewer
source options, which makes it more expensive to integrate.
When we are designing systems, it is
sometimes useful to have media systems like
flat-panels or projectors which have multiple
input options, enabling fairly simple rooms
to use lower-end control systems, thereby
increasing their flexibility of use. Just because
a flat panel is going to be placed in an integrated structure does not mean that having
multiple HDMI or USB ports would not be
desirable.
What is the biggest obstacle to collaboration?
What are your collaboration strategies?
Carlisle B. Willard: The biggest challenge to
integrating technology with instruction, let
alone technology with collaboration is sim-
Relatively few manufacturers will provide direct purchase, but since

we are doing our in-house integrations, we are functioning much like
an integration firm. At present we use a host of sources for purchasing,
including integration firms willing to act as our box suppliers.
plicity. Highly complex collaboration systems
can do many things, most of them well, but
teachers (and students) have to be willing to
invest a not-inconsiderable amount of time to
training before they can access the majority of
the advantages of those systems.
For AV to be able to respond
effectively to an information
technology need, we must have
a clear picture of how the faculty
work and what they need. Thus
we have to work with faculty in
a consultative role to help them
define what they are working
toward so that we can build an
effective response into the technology.
As a rule, the more training
that is required before a system
can be used directly, the less likely faculty are to commit to using
it. The fewer options of usage
there are, the less flexible the
equipment is. The best approach
seems to be to look for systems
that are simple to use but are
designed so as to support more
complex options.
Collaboration within the
institution of various offices is
proceeding, but any institution
will face a similar issue: who sets
the standards, for whose benefit? Each school or department
has its own way of doing things
and as new systems come online,
unless the school takes a central
focus from the start, each office
that starts using things initially
comes up with systems that suit
their own specific needs, without
regard for whether anyone else
would be interested.
However efficient this is in
the short term, the siloes of process that this approach creates
will eventually become a stumbling block. Ultimately, common interest will overcome each
entitys desire to have things my way, but the

process is a long one.
To ensure collaboration between disparate
schools within the university, the first step is
to come to an acceptance that there are, in
fact, common needs. When that is realized, it

becomes easier to establish a common set of
standards and then build from those standards.
Common standards can drive costs down, or at
least help control them.
13
6 Ways
To Monetize
Interactive
Digital Signage
Meeting room signage and BLE beacons offer
a facility much more than wow factor.
by Kirsten Nelson
There are lots of new ways to talk about monetizing digital signage. Not too long
ago, in the primordial phases of digital signage, many focused on impossibleto-measure delivery of impressions, but as it turns out, the ROI on dynamic
displays is quite nuanced. Marketing has evolved to encompass a number of
engagement tactics, and they dont all have instant results. Sometimes youre
building a brand, and the uptick in sales will take time. Or in the case of higher
education or the enterprise, sometimes the goal is to create a positive impression
or boost productivity over the long term. But for those who need to see instant
results, digital signage also offers proximity marketing and on-screen ordertaking to boost sales.
1.) AIM TO MESMERIZE, NOT
MONETIZE
It turns out that digital signage content doesnt have
to be all about Half Off and For a Limited Time
Only, and it doesnt even have to promote umbrellas when it starts raining outside. Ideally, in the
current marketing climate of customer engagement
and creating brand intimacy, its more important
to use cool video technology to create a remarkable
impressionyou know, like video was meant to do.
Think robots, think interactivity, think multi-touch,
because no one wants to walk up to an inviting
screen and find that it doesnt do anything when you
touch it.
Darren David from Stimulant said it best in
AdAge: Aim to mesmerize, not monetize. Builder
14
of smart spaces to enhance branding, David also

emphasized creating authentic engagement with
a brand. That means its time to think beyond the
same old 16:9 rectangle and aim for wall-wrapping,
mind-bending projection mapping or tiled video
wall configurations. If youve seen the Christie Digital
booth at InfoComm, you know what Im talking
about.
2.) MOVE MORE THAN PEOPLE
THROUGH CORRIDORS
Corridors are opportunities for excitement. Think
about stadiums, airports, parking garages and maybe
even that old dinosaur of an experience, the shopping
mall. Theres a lot of walking (or hoverboarding) that
happens in those spaces, and a few have even added
15
turer recently partnered with Zebra Technologies on

a proximity marketing test run, embedding RFID tags
into wine bottle labels and connected them to digital
signs, prompting relevant customer reviews and food
pairings to appear on screens when customers pass by
with a tagged bottle of wine.
5
some nice light and music shows to accompany the
journey.
Maybe its time you transformed an empty wall
into something worth looking at. Thats what the
good people at UNLV did with the Rebel Rec
Student Recreation and Wellness Center. The school
bought itself some serious engagement with a new
Planar Clarity Matrix LCD video wall system. Thats
certainly a captive audience thats leaving with a positive impression.
3.) USE ROOM SCHEDULING SOFTWARE
TO ACTUALLY MAKE MONEY
Wait, do you have a room full of people in a meeting scheduled to end at a certain time? Do you have
something to sell in a coffee shop, copy center, local
restaurant or maybe a yoga studio and meditation
center for blowing off steam? Well, MGM Resorts has
an idea for you. Meeting room signage, paired with
BLE beacon technology, to use the power of digital
persuasion. Tap into that revenue stream and maybe
make conferences more fun in the meantime.
4.) WERE ALL STARING AT SCREENS
ALL DAY, ANYWAY
Do you work at a company, university, museum or
anywhere that purports to have a contemporary
image? Maybe its time to use digital signage for more
than lunch menus and RSS news feeds. And maybe
the content should move beyond video walls and
flat panel displays to the direct line of sight of people
working within a space.
16
Its time to usher in the new level of the connected desktop. Study up on X2O Medias new
enterprise-evolving X2O.Join technology and turn
those desktop displays into an enterprise-wide visual
communication network. It might even be possible
to pull people away from social media feeds and get
them to look at dashboards showing key business
metrics, if theyre delivered in real time in a dynamic
way. The technology also allows for sharing employee
surveys, video from events like town hall meetings,
and important live announcements such as emergency notifications.
5.) PROXIMITY MARKETING IS FOR
CLOSERS
Everyone got excited when Apple legitimized the
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) location beacon idea
with the release of its iBeacon proximity messaging
system last year. Suddenly, dreams of proximity
marketing were coming true, and it was possible to
beam enticing menu options or specials directly to
consumers mobile devices as they passed through a
geographical bubble around a business or inside of a
store. But, naturally, that led to the follow-up question
of how to use BLE beacons, which also exist in the
Android landscape.
Fortunately, digital signage manufacturers were
already on the case, and now its possible to add
some hardware to activate some software in the cloud,
et voila, we have proximity marketing. Samsung is
on it, even bringing the ever-so-appealing Internet
of Things into the equation. The screen manufac-
6.) SKIP THE LINE

Seen in action by this intrepid reporter most recently
in a fast-food joint in the south of France, it turns out
that when you put an interactive digital sign into a
restaurant, people order from it, even when there are
human order takers present. (Even in the south of
France!) Frequently, in watching this process happen
over and over again, it appears as though they order
more than they usually would, lingering over their
selections without the embarrassment of having to
say their order out loud.
Were all getting used to ordering food via screens,
and as more restaurants add them, its easy to prove
ROI simply by pointing to sales metrics from before
and after installation. Interactive ordering drives
incremental volume, noted Gene Ornstead, director
of product marketing for digital signage at ViewSonic.
Some of the drivers for this trend is the customers
speed of ordering without waiting in ordering lines.
Another is digital signage advertising can stimulate
ordering through attractive imagery, video and promotional messaging.
Kirsten Nelson is SCNs Editor at Large.
YEAR
WARRANTY
CONNECTED
Network Microphones with Direct Dante Protocol
AUDIO AND CONTROL DATA FROM A SINGLE SOURCE.

Operating over a simple Ethernet connection, Audio-Technicas ATND971 Network Boundary Microphone and ATND8677
Microphone Desk Stand keep you connected and in control like never before. Experience the industrys first wired microphone
solution to transmit audio and control data together over the Dante network protocol. The plug-and-play audio works with any
Dante-enabled device, while the integrated control function is compatible with software from a growing list of providers,
including Bose, Biamp and Symetrix. Audio-Technica Network Microphones: get connected, take control. audio-technica.com
Dante is a trademark of Audinate Pty Ltd.
The Campus:
Where AV Meets IoT
Read why IoT is changing the educational technology equation.
By Carolyn Heinze
Last July, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA,
announced that Google had granted it an initial round
of $500,000 in funding to develop a robust platform to
support Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. GIoTTO, the
platform, will include sensors and middleware for app
development, as well as security and privacy management. The university hopes to launch the first version of
GIoTTO sometime this spring.
18
Essentially, what Google wanted us to do was build an open infrastructure

for the Internet of Things, explained Anind Dey, project lead and director of
CMUs Human-Computer Interaction Institute. Lots of companiesincluding
Googlehave great technologies that can contribute to an Internet of Things
ecology, but having one company that owned everything just didnt seem to
make sense. After all, proprietary systems are limiting: If you have to buy into
all of one companys products, its not going to work because people want to
be able to pick and choose and combine products together to have the system
they want.
Dey relays that in conjunction the deployment of GIoTTO, CMU is making
a considerable effort to engage potential usersnamely students, staff, and facultywith the goal of enhancing how each group does its work. The students,
I think, are most interested in

learning more about it so that
they can leverage it in their
course work, [and] in their
research, Dey said. The staff,
I think, are probably more
interested in how it can help
them on a daily basis, and I
think the faculty are interested
Anind Dey, project
lead and director
primarily in how it can help
of CMUs Humanthem on a daily basis, but
Computer Interaction
also how it could impact their
Institute
research.
At the classroom level, Dey believes that GIoTTO
offers the potential for improved audiovisual experiences. [There is] the use of sensing technology to
detect changes in the environment, [where]you may
want to change the audiovisual settings in a classroom, to detecting where people are in a classroom
to change audiovisual settings, to even detecting:
why is my projector not actually projecting on the
screen? he illustrated. This last use case can speed up
troubleshooting, therefore decreasing help desk calls,
he added. Building on that, obviously we have tons
of seminar rooms and other rooms that are meant
for specific audiovisual needs, and you can imagine
that putting additional sensing technology in those
spaces would enable us to be more creative in understanding how those spaces get used, and how we can
improve those spaces at the same time.
That said, control systems
manufacturers have been
developing technologies that
achieve this well before the
term Internet of Things was
coined. We put an Ethernet
port on a control system
and had it monitored by our
software at the University of
Daniel Jackson,
Wisconsin in 1997, so its
manager of research
been almost 20 years now
and development at
that weve been doing the
Crestron Electronics
Inc
Internet of Things, said
Daniel Jackson, manager of
research and development at Crestron Electronics
Inc. in Rockleigh, N.J. The concept has simply
evolved thanks to technological advancements combined with user demand for more sophisticated features, and he points to Crestrons Fusion Enterprise
Management Platform as an example.
As were putting in different devices, were monitoring them, were managing them, were letting you
know whats going on with them, and were providing you remote access to them so that from a support
and management perspective, these schools can be a

lot more efficient and make the people who use the
rooms feel a lot better because the stuff is always up
and working, Jackson said. And, back at the help
desk, technicians can troubleshoot and solve problems without having to travel either across campus, or
to a satellite location.
Jackson also points out that solutions like Crestron
Fusion help tech managers gain an accurate depiction
of space utilization, both in terms of how often a specific room is occupied, and how much the equipment
in it is actually in use. Thats important for people,
because how do you really know if you made good
spending decisions if you dont know how much stuff
is being used? he said. When
you can track that, you can
really get a better understanding of whether or not youre
making the right decisions.
The way we see it, the
Internet of Things is really
multiple devices that either
have sensors or some type of
Michael Peveler, vice
communication with them
president of global
that are coming back to a ceneducation sales at
tral hub, and that are being
AMX by Harman
Connecting to the
IoE? For Shure
Audio manufacturer Shure Inc. recently joined
the Cisco Solution Partner Program, stepping up
its efforts to address the Internet of Everything.
As a result, Shure Microflex Wireless enterpriseclass microphones will integrate within the Cisco
infrastructure. Customers gain the benefit of
Shure wireless technology with the Cisco codec,
said Brian Hayes, senior design engineer at IVCi,
an AV systems firm. Customers gain the benefit
of Shure wireless technology with the Cisco
codec. Both products are rock solid and have
proven themselves in applications ranging from
small conference rooms to mobile carts, divisible
spaces, and multipurpose room types.
managed or monitored via a cloud-based application, said Michael Peveler, vice president of global
education sales at AMX by Harman in Richardson,
Texas. AMX has offered these capabilities for years,
19
with the main difference being that its Resource

Management Suite now runs in the cloud rather than
on a server. Today, we really see more of our customers continuing to do the same thing theyve always
done with the exception that the number of devices
and the types of devices continue to change as we go
forward.
And herein lies the issue: when youre managing 200 rooms, realistically, how much information
about them can you process? Its a massive amount
of energy, and in most cases, [tech managers] are
struggling to have the resources just to manage what
they have, much less the ever-changing environment
as professors go, oh, I could do this if I just had this
connected, Peveler said. Everything can be measured, so then the question is, what do you measure,
how do you measure it, and how do you manage
those constant changes?
From an AV perspective, one of the challenges Dey
foresees his team facing is getting AV-centric devices to
play well with everything else thats on the network.
I think its the huge set of protocols that each of the
different players in this space usesthats probably
one of the biggest things that we have to address, he
said. This is especially challenging because many AV
infrastructures are closed systems, so we either have
to find partners that are willing to open those systems to interact with our infrastructure, or hopefully
somebodys found a way to put a wrapper around
those systems so that we can use them. Latency is
another concern: If it takes an extra half a second for
my lights to turn on, thats OK. But if it takes an extra
half a second for my audio to catch up to the video,
then that may be more of a problem. Trying to make
sure that things are as reactive as possible is something
were still looking at.
One would hope that the IoT will serve to ease
a number of burdens tech managers contend with,
however at first, this may not be the case. The
amount of diversity in terms of devices that they look
at is just going to explode, Dey said. Not only will
tech managers be tasked with managing traditional
BYOD devices (phones, tablets, and laptops), but
other consumer appliances users want to incorporate
into campus life. To bring an Amazon Echo onto the
Carnegie Mello campus actually took a fair amount of
doing. You just want to put everything on the secure
wireless network and thats not the way Echo works.
So just dealing with small and simple things like that
is going to be challenging due to the heterogeneity of
the devices. And speaking of security, Dey acknowledges that there is still a ways to go. While end users
are concerned with maintaining their privacy, tech
managers are charged with locking down environ-
20
An IoE Game-Changer in 2016?

BY CINDY DAVIS
The trend towards open standards and easier access to technologies seems to be gaining ground. Could
IBMs Watson Internet of Things (IoT) be poised to be one of the biggest disruptors and/or enablers for the
AV industry? The convergence of AV and IT might start sounding like childs play.
According to a December 2015 release, IBM announced the opening of its global headquarters for Watson IoT, and launching a series of new offerings, capabilities and ecosystem partners designed to extend
the power of cognitive computing to the billions of connected devices, sensors and systems that comprise
the IoT. Through the IBM Watson IoT Cloud, the companys global platform for IoT, these offerings will be
made available to business and developers.
IBM also will deliver Watson APIs and services on the Watson IoT Cloud Platform to accelerate the development of cognitive IoT solutions and services, helping clients and partners make sense of the growing
volume and variety of data in a physical world that is rapidly becoming digitized.
Siemens Building Technologies announced that it is teaming with IBM to bring advanced analytics capabilities together with IBMs IoT solutions to advance their Navigator platform for energy management and
sustainability.
Four families of Watson API services are available as part of a new IBM Watson IoT Analytics offering:
The Natural Language Processing (NLP) API Family enables users to interact with systems and
devices using simple, human language.
The Machine Learning Watson API Family automates data processing and continuously monitors
new data and user interactions to rank data and results based on learned priorities.
The Video and Image Analytics API Family enables monitoring of unstructured data from video feeds
and image snapshots to identify scenes and patterns.
The Text Analytics API Family enables mining of unstructured textual data including transcripts
from customer call centers, maintenance technician logs, blog comments, and tweets to find correlations and patterns in these vast amounts of data.
Simple interaction with systems and devices, automation, video and text analyticsthat sounds like a
recipe for some great innovations coming from the AV/IT industry.
Cindy Davis is a contributing editor of AV Technology. Follow here on Twitter: @custommediaco
ments where, once again, the number of devices is

increasing exponentially. Not only that, but they
must keep things locked down while at the same
time enabling systems to function in an efficient,
meaningful way.
Dey says that when it comes to the IoT, there is a
lot to be excited about, but he tempers his enthusiasm
with some healthy skepticism. People are calling
it the next trillion-dollar industry, and so I think its
really exciting. I do worry that theres a huge danger of
it falling off the curve in terms of too much promise
and not enough delivery, he said. One area that he
believes shows great promise is the development of
smart buildings and smart cities, because these applications will use a similar infrastructure to the one that
is being developed at CMU. But I also think that
theres got to be delivery on something thats more
than just an app and a device soon, or people are

going to say, wait. What are we spending all of these
billions and trillions of dollars on?
Carolyn Heinze is a regular contributor to AV
Technology magazine.
info
AMX
www.amx.com
CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
INSTITUTE
www.hcii.cmu.edu
CRESTRON ELECTRONICS INC.
www.crestron.com
IBMS WATSON INTERNET OF
THINGS
www.ibm.com/internet-of-things/
SHURE INC.
www.shure.com
rose electronics a/v. smile power.

XtensysTM Video Only
Up to 16 x 64 in 2U chassis.
Up to 8 x 32 in 1U chassis.
Auto equalization and skew compensation.
Distance up to 1000 feet.
Switchable from serial port or OSD.
Miniature transmitters and receivers.
QuadraVistaTM HDMI
Multiviewer - HDMI
Quad screen or Picture-in-Picture mode.
Connect a USB 2.0 port to any or all computers.
Layout control from OSD or network.
Supports audio.
QuadraVistaTM 2
Multiviewer - DVI/VGA
Quad screen or Picture-in-Picture mode.
Connect a USB 2.0 port to any or all computers.
Each port VGA or single link DVI.
Supports touch-screen.
UltraVistaTM Plus
Video Wall Controller
Splits 1 DVI input into 4 outputs.
Input resolution up to 2560 x 1600 (dual-link DVI).
Programmable cropping, scaling, rotation, and gap.
Expandable up to 32 monitors.
UltraMatrixTM AV
Video Matrix Switch - VGA DVI Audio
VGA 8 x 8 or 16 x 16 - resolution to 1600 x 1200.
DVI 4 x 4, 8 x 8, or 16 x 16 - resolution to 1920 x 1200.
Select from front panel or serial port.
Software switching utility included.
Video SplitterTM
1 Video to Multiple Monitors - VGA DVI CAT5
VGA resolution up to 1600 x 1200.
DVI resolution up to 1920 x 1200.
CAT5 up to 1000 feet.
Audio and serial on some models.
Solutions for Data Centers, Digital Signage, Command and Control, Broadcast,
Security, Entertainment, Mission Critical, Financial, Transportation, Military
WWW.ROSE.COM sales@rose.com (800) 333-9343

Rose USA (281) 933-7673 Rose Europe +49 (0) 2454 969442 Rose Asia +65 6324 2322 Rose Australia +61 (0) 421 247083
Rose Electronics 10707 Stancliff Road Houston, Texas 77099
BLE & IoT Lead Digital

Signage Trends in 2016
No longer confined to a rectangle box, tech managers are using
digital signage in remarkable new ways.
By Bob Killmeier
There are two new technology trends that will help grow
the digital signage industry even as they evolve. First is
the use of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) in beacons and
the second is the advent of bi-directional audio employing avatars in digital signage, each technology fostered
by IoT. The Internet of Things (IoT) is having a direct
effect on digital signage. IoT, in the broadest terms, is
the connectivity of everyday devices via cloud-based
commands that provide feedback via the Internet. The
devices, such as smartphones and smartwatches, will
enable connectivity between that specific consumer
and a digital signage device. This connectivity will allow
messages to be targeted to that specific consumers interests in exciting new ways.
BEACONS
Combining social media feeds with specific consumer viewing, BLE-enabled software provides a beacon function available for all iPhone and Android
Smartphone models that permits the user to control
connectivity to company messages and order products. The beacon will identify who you are, and databases will be searched to present relevant content to
you consistent with the type of store you are visiting.
It is initially delivered to consumers by embedding it
into a firms application. Optional settings permit the
creation of links, which can provide product information as well as order forms.
In contrast with Near Field Communication
(NFC), which requires the consumers device to be
very near an embedded coil or point of sale device,
Beacons with Inaudible Audio Signal: Patented inau-
22
dible-sound mobile notification technologies and

BLE standard (full support for iBeacon and Android
BLE) to wirelessly interact with end users through
mobile appsregardless of whether Bluetooth is
turned ON or OFFeven in the absence of GPS,
Wi-Fi, or 3G. This enables end user targeting without
draining phone batteries by way of sending inaudible
modulated codes through existing infrastructure distribution points, i.e., standard audio speakers and
playback systems, such as digital signage, video walls,
kiosks, public address systems, TV, and radio. BLE can
reach fans both in-venue as well as watching the game
or event at home.
On the API side, Google is launching two new
APIs for developers who want to use beacons for
their apps. The Nearby API for Android and iOS now
makes it easier for apps to find and communicate
withdevices and beacons that are nearby. That may

be an art exhibit or a bus stop. (Google and TriMet
have already worked with the transport authorities
in Portland, OR, to implement low-energy wireless
beacons in 87 light-rail stations.)
Back-end data and analytics are also collected in
real time. For example, when used in a sports venue,
a solution that aggregates and integrates disparate
data systems to create a complete view and comprehensive understanding of fan behavior and from
which detailed analytics can be leveraged to not only
evaluate historical fan behavior but to create strategies
that influence fan behavior going forward. Seamlessly
integrate, normalize, and cleanse data from separate
ticketing systems, POS (Point of Sale) systems, CRM
(Customer Relationship Management) systems, BI
(Business Intelligence) tools, email marketing plat-
forms, and social media sites.

AVATAR BI-DIRECTIONAL AUDIO
No longer confined to a rectangle box, digital signage
video and bi-directional audio communicated by
an avatar will become ubiquitous in venues such
as airports, train station, and bus stations delivering directional information in multiple languages.
Greeters in bank lobbies will be supplemented with

an avatar. Instructions on how to use ATM features
and functions will be presented to consumers. Avatars
are available in several styles, either as a fixed location
with avatar in a static position, or as a pop-up assistant that is a great option for an exhibition, event, or
even a temporary location. This avatar is totally free to
move around, attract people and give direction. Avatar
Combining social media feeds with specific

consumer viewing, BLE-enabled software provides
a beacon function available for all iPhone and
Android Smartphone models that permits the user
to control connectivity to company messages and
order products. The beacon will identify who you are
and databases will be searched to present relevant
content to you consistent with the type of store you
are visiting. It is initially delivered to consumers
by embedding it into a firms application. Optional
settings permit the creation of links, which can
provide product information as well as order forms.
technology with bi-directional audio can also turn

any wall or surface into an intelligent ambassador.
In addition to presenting information, avatar
systems also collect real time analytics including
mood measurement, face detection and customer
activities. These attributes can assist venue operators
in determining traffic flow, customer questions and
corresponding answers.
Bob Killmeier is founder & president of Computer
Controlled Designs, LLC, parlaying his 16 years (prior
to retirement from Wells Fargo in May, 2013) as an
Enterprise Project Manager and Web Application
developer at Wachovia Bank (a Wells Fargo company). Previous to that he was also a former Chairman
of PeopleSoft Financial Services Industry User Group
(FSI-SIG), and for several years, served as head of
IT at Piece Goods Shop a 400-store coast-to-coast
retail chain. Author Bob Killmeier is also a member
of the Digital Signage Expo Advisory Board and will
be attending DSE 2016 March 15-18 at the Las Vegas
Convention Center. For more information on any of
the educational programs offered at DSE 2016 or to
learn more about digital signage, go to www.dse2016.
com.
BE A
MAXIMIZER
OF PROFITS
BECOME AN FDW DEALER

Top brands.
High standards.
No minimums.
Quick delivery.
Distributors of Pro Audio Video Lighting A/V
fdwcorp.com
Easy online dealer application!
800-828-0509
Call our industry experts today

23
14 Essentials of the
Connected Classroom
Giving your higher ed end users the edge.
by Kirsten Nelson
There is much change afoot in classroom technology and online learning. Its where the two connect and overlap that
will provide the most opportunity for a refresh in 2016.
VIA Campus offers collaboration with up to six user screens on one main display,
or up to 12 screens on two displays. From any laptop or mobile device, students
and teachers can view the main display, edit documents together in real time, share
any size file, or turn the main display into a digital whiteboard.
PLEASE, NO SURFING PUNS WITH WAVE 2 WI-FI

Youve heard of Wi-Fi. But have you heard of better, faster, connectivity
boosting 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi? Some universities are already replacing their
entire network infrastructure with the faster stuff, hoping to outpace their upgrade
cycle with at least one solid component to carry an institution through many a
technology to come. Others are rolling out Wave 2 in key locations to keep connectivity buzzing in classrooms, student gathering places and major event spaces.
Word on the street is, no one will really get the full benefit of Wave 2 until smartphone, tablet, and laptop manufacturers catch up.
Kramers VIA Campus
NOT JUST ELECTRONIC POLLING, ELECTRONIC

DISTANCE POLLING
The statistic most often cited to support classroom polling is that the average
humans attention span begins to fade after 20 minutes. Few could pass a quiz on
where this metric originated, but it is generally accepted that a focus refresh every
20 minutes can improve knowledge retention. Thus, the electronic poll has arisen
as an engaging method of mental rebooting and simultaneous assessment of what
subjects need more explanation.
About a decade into the wide use of hardware and software polling in classrooms has shown that students really do like it. Several free classroom polling
platforms exist, and educators say that services such as Kahoot, which connect
mobile devices for a real-time group survey, are ideal for the BYOD, mixed device
classroom. But the next level on this is to connect to other classrooms via Google
Hangout, Periscope, Skype or virtual conference, and play with students anywhere
in the world.
Where do you go from there? Polling plus distance, plus collaboration. In
addition to enabling wireless E-polling and connection with remote students via
embedded thirdparty video conferencing and office apps, hardware like Kramers
24
SHARE THE PEDAGOGICAL SPOTLIGHT

The flipped classroom twists one more degree of rotation with teachers taking a cue from abundant online learning options and the success of MOOCs. In
addition to in-classroom learning, instructors are providing curatorial guidance
to online courses, conferences, and myriad other online materials. To keep the
exchange even, and to support the flipped classroom approach of online lecture
viewing and in-classroom collaboration, lecture capture has taken on new precedence. Technologies from Lumens, Sony, Sonic Foundry and more can handle
both sides of the equation, streaming or recording live lectures. Recordings can
be distributed automatically online for distance education, assistance for absent
students, or supplementary course material.
BYOD-CASTING IS A THING
Touchscreen teaching has existing in the wild for quite some time now, and
educator feedback runs wide and deep. Essentially what the people want is an all-inone collaboration tool for video conferencing, whiteboarding, web browsing and
saving/sharing information or ideas. The 2.0 version of these tools will go where
all education is goingbeyond the classroom and campus to collaborate freely
with other educational entities. For InFocus, going to the next level in this market
meant gathering customer feedback and implementing more than 200 product
improvements to its Mondopad. The

new Mondopad 2.0 gives universities and colleges access to standard
Windows apps that have been in use
for years and allows customers to use
virtually any videoconferencing service or third-party solution including
Skype for Business. This all adds up
The InFocus Mondopad 2.0
to what InFocus called BYOD casting, which is a term that may catch on more
broadly, as Mondopad 2.0 works with other mobile devices, enabling display casting and control capabilities from PCs and Macs or iOS or Android smartphones.
OMNIPRESENT TELEPRESENCE
The telepresence classroom has evolved into a fairly consistent layout of
small groups of concentric-circled desks linked into a full orbit of a classroom
via bi-directional video technology. Lines of sight were the first consideration in
this set up, but what also came along as a pleasing byproduct of the structure is
increased engagement among students who sit facing each other on and off screen.
Additionally, the audio reinforcement and microphone setup necessary for far-end
communications has serendipitously enabled every student to easily be heard.
The next step in optimizing this room-to-room global chat is to give students full
push-to-talk capabilities alongside document sharing on a device like the Taiden
Paperless Multimedia Conference System from Media Vision. Elevate students
engagement while simultaneously preparing them for the real world of meetings
and conferences.
SPECIAL GUESTS IN THE CLASSROOM EVERY DAY

Specialist training is critical for fields of study both old and new, but the
number of specialized educators is declining as a result of resource challenges and
an ever-increasing intensity of focus within curricula. It takes a lot to be an expert
in some fields, and subsequently there arent a lot of experts in some fields. To help
achieve critical mass between the number of interested students scattered around
the country and those who can educate them, new specialist distance learning
companies are evolving. Companies such as iLaw, which connects law schools with
the nuanced professors required to provide degrees in fields of specialty, are considering distance learning technology to be fait accompli at universities. Make sure
your setup is current, with connectivity that is as specialized at the course material
that will be piped through it.
BIGGER BANDWIDTH BY THE BOOKS

Homework was redefined when professors started sharing lectures online.
And proof of positives outcomes recently came from MIT, where the percentage of
students obtaining a final score
of 90 percent or above in an
introductory class in mechanical engineering, jumped from
10 percent in the fall semester
of 2012, to 56 percent three
years later, with the same professor covering the same material
but with the addition of MITx
Utelogys system
online content. Similar results
Virtual Video Matrix

VidCasterIP PC Control Interface Shown
VidCasterIP is made by
25
have been seen at all levels of higher education, and universities are beefing up
their backends to enable better out-of-classroom experiences. Leveraging the existing IT infrastructure, technology provider Utelogy has gained traction with its integration of voice, video, lecture capture, distance learning and other academic and IT
technologies. Utelogy Enterprise software sits on a virtual server in a colleges data
center to control, monitor and remotely support smart classrooms, boardrooms
and conference facilities across campuses.
NEW AND IMPROVED: THE HUMAN VOICE

With so much focus on new communications technologies on campus,
it might be easy to forget what started it all in Socratic times. The human voice
is not just important in a traditional pedagogical setup, its also key to distance
communications and the multitude of digital tools that enhance learning today.
Dont give professors the equivalent of a choppy and jarring satellite phone feed
for their lectures. Make sure they have a good wireless setup for live and recorded
presentations.
HANDLE WITH CARE

The ever-present classroom video display, while not requiring as much
cleaning as chalkboards, does require at least a little attention now and then. Many
schools are going lampless in the projector department, and hanging many a shortthrow option right above the ubiquitous white board. Meanwhile, flat-panel video
displays get thinner and higher-res by the moment, requiring constant replacement. So how you hang it up, whether its the hang and forget infinite life of laser
projectors or the constantly in motion old stand-by mobile video cart that can
roll in the newest 4K concoction, make sure its built for that specific school use.
Security, ADA compliance, plenum rating and a multitude of form factors continue
to improve for todays aptly rebranded interactive mounts.
10
THE VITAMIX OF BLENDED LEARNING

You can bring the online learning to the classroom, but you cant make
the students think. It turns out that until recent upgrades in technology, the addition of online course material in an interdepartmental move made by Imperial
College London was ineffective. Engineering students were offered business courses online five years ago, but they didnt take the bait until true collaboration was
introduced. It seems that students demand collaborative tools that allow them to
amplify collective efforts. Particularly when they are together in a classroom taking
online courses, students are more engaged when they have collaborative learning
technologies, like FSRs HuddleVU, to enhance the way they absorb, retain, interact
with and relate to information and to each other. Designed specifically with educational environments in mind,
FSRs HuddleVU collaboration
products can be configured for
a variety of educational spaces,
are intuitive to use, and built
to last in high-use, student
centered areas and that dont
require software downloads or
FSRs HuddleVu in action
wireless access.
11
THE BIG PICTURE IN GAME DESIGN

According to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), today there
are 496 post secondary game design programs found in colleges and universities
across the U.S. This field of study is serious business, both in terms of boost-
26
ing enrollment and helping to

ensure that students graduate
into a viable career track. With
this demand comes a need for
upgrades to individual desktop displays in the classroom.
Make students want to show up
for class with displays like LGs
new 21:9 34UC87M-B Curved
UltraWide Monitor. This workstation dazzler goes big with its 3440x1440 QHD screen, providing 2.4 times the
work space than a standard 16:9 Full HD model. A four-screen split feature allows
users to divide the screen into four sections at eight different screen ratios, so users
can prioritize windows by size and location instead of having to manually resize
and position each window individually.
12
CHANGE MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES IS THE

ACADEMIC PHRASE FOR UC
As a business entity, institutions for higher learning must manage distributed teams
across campuses and multiple locations. Why not give them the gift of Unified
Communications? Some schools might have to designate the budget as funding
for change management activities, to meet academic lingo standards, but really
what the RFP is requesting is an end to the frustration created by disconnected
communications technologies.
13
SMARTER VIDEO MANAGEMENT

Students expect to find their video classwork as easily as searching
YouTube. Ramp Video Management lets students search for videos based on their
contents or jump to an exact keyword
in the middle of a lecture for a pertinent
piece of information. Videos stream to
the students desktop, tablet and smartphone. With a systems-based API, Ramp
Video Management can integrate with
any learning management system, and
the video content is secure, controlled,
and measurable.
14
PERSONALIZED
LISTENING
The ListenWiFi Personal Listening System lets colleges offer a personal listening/
viewing experience by streaming audio content from any TV or audio source directly to their students smartphones and tablets using a Wi-Fi network. The University
of California Riverside chose the ListenWiFi System for use in its student recreation
center to broadcast audio from multiple TV channels or other audio sources using
digital WiFi transmission. Using the free ListenWiFi App available from the Apple
App Store or Google Play, students can bring their own WiFi-enabled device
and headphones or ear buds
and easily switch audio channels with the flick of a thumb.
ISP connectivity also provides
Internet access for customers
connected to the ListenWiFi
network.
s
cilitie
rt fa
the-a
cted
conne
ofd.
tates
eashe
e unl
ng
i
m
o
ering
m
c
t
e
t
a
e
r
t
has b
e sha
r
s
y
a
r
t
s
e
w
s
e
indu
up ne
ologi
liv
s
ment
ning
techn
n
e
e
i
i
e
p
a
t
o
g
g
r
,
d
e
e
on
to
olo
d ent
ttingducti
ered
dia an
nd cu
techn
d pro
deliv
e
a
ast an
ation
ences
The m
roadc
innov
xperi
b
e
c
i
e
d
v
m
e
i
ime.
grat
Dyna
s of l
that
real t
g inte
darie
,
n
n
s
i
t
u
m
a
o
r
e
venue
o
r
f
e
c
t
l
i
r
a
the b
t
l
o
sf
and
ersa
ple p
bilitie
local
to a v
multi
ss
possi
h the
ross
lity in
i
t
c
i
c
a
a
w
f
s
usine
t
c
nce
your
new b
onne
g
t
c
n
c
i
audie
o
a
v
t
l
r
att
far
ts.
y evo
ng
r and
clien
me b
missi
s nea
sting
ur ga
i
n
n
o
x
a
e
f
y
e
e
t
ing
r
p
b
U
you
even
think
have
gs for
nable
ional
they
n
t
e
i
t
n
r
n
n
e
ful
e
e
a
f
v
r
c
con
owe
ainm
ce of
from
and p
nhan
ntert
e
e
y
e
g
d
r
f
o
n
l
s
live e
to a k
reak
chno
ties a
have
e to b
rtuni
ter te
u
c
r
o
a
a
l
y
p
m
g
oppo
n, s
only
y thin
s the
desig
e onl
ow i
o new
nd th
h
t
a
S
d
,
t
n
B
i
i
NA
lim
our m
s the
pen y
e sky
h
T
and o
?
.
o
s
g
p
ill I
ershi
far w
ING.
w
partn
o
H
h
:
T
s
i
Y
f
l
R
e
E
yours
ES EV
HANG
C
THIS
ay
d
o
t
r
te
18
regiibsits Pass Code PA
Exh
Free
Open or download your QR scanner app.
Scan the code unleash the experience.
SMARTER MEETINGS
WHEN A FINANCIAL FIRM DECIDED
TO MOVE THEIR ANNUAL CLIENT
MEETINGS TO THEIR OFFICE
BUILDING, THEY KNEW THEY
NEEDED TO UPGRADE THEIR AV.
By AV Technology Staff
his company requires a cutting edge AV system that matches

the quality of their services Thats Mark McPherson, vice
president of the Advanced AV integration firm, explaining
why the company was recently tapped by a financial organization to design and install a massive AV system upgrade. The complex
project saw enhancements to the financial firms executive boardroom,
auditorium, conference room, classroom and four meeting rooms. We
delivered a stunning, yet easy-to-use presentation system that each employee can truly rely on, McPherson said.
For the users and stakeholders on the client side, consistency across
28
AV in Action
all of the buildings systems was key. Thats why the Advanced
integration team installed SMART interactive displays and the
Crestron AirMedia Presentation Gateway into the executive
boardroom, conference room, and four meeting rooms.
While we aim to impress our clients, we also want to ensure
that the new technology is relatively simple for our employees to
master, said a company representative. We want to be able to
walk into our conference room, turn the SMART board on, and
confidently deliver stunning presentations to our clients. Their
funds are important to them, and this shows that theyre important to us as well.
With AirMedia, any employee can wirelessly present on a
display from their personal laptop or mobile device; its as easy
as connecting to a Wi-Fi network. We knew this was the ideal
presentation software to employ in every room of the building,
McPherson added. The input works in such a way that any presentation content is optimized. No matter what resolution the
presenter originally inputsfrom, say a mobile device or a laptopthe content is instantly scaled to the native resolution of the
projector. They no longer need to worry about the presentation
looking pixelated. Plus, its as easy-to-use as ever.
Equipment Used
Crestron AirMedia Presentation
Draper Access screens (165 and 222
NEC 65 LED display for large-scale
Gateway
models)
presentations
SMART interactive displays
Sony 7000 Lumen Laser Light Source

Projector
info
Additionally, Advanced outfitted the buildings auditoriuma space primarily used to

showcase their services to prospective clientswith a Sony 7000 Lumen Laser
Light Source Projector, two 165- and
222-inch Draper Access screens, and
ADVANCED
a NEC 65-inch LED display for largewww.advanced-inc.
scale presentations. The firms team is
com
enthusiastic to begin utilizing their new
presentation system. We truly want to
see this technology utilized all the time, a
company rep stated. We made a big investment and were thrilled to implement it.
anti-theft alarms
SONIC SHOCK
www.sonicshock.com
sonic shock anti theft alarms
29
THE IT MANAGERS GUIDE TO
NETWORKED AV
ISTOCK/THINKSTOCK
Featuring:
sponsored by
4NETWORKED AUDIO AND VIDEO PERSPECTIVES DEFINED

4STREAMING AV ON THE NETWORK
4IMPARTING SECURITY BEST PRACTICES TO YOUR AV TEAM
4DEFINING YOUR TERMS, SETTING EXPECTATIONS
from the editors of
Editors Note
[Margot Douaihy, Editorial Director, AV Technology]
Arent you tired of the industry hype and PR puffery around convergence? The union of AV and IT departments, and their respective technologies,
is old news. What remains mysterious and worth analyzing are the misunderstood terminologies on both sides. The definition of network in the
world of IT is definitive, but it can be a matter of interpretation in the world of AV. Our IT Managers Guide to Networked AV, created by our contributing editor Cindy Davis, with insight from notable leaders in the field, is the very first of its kind in the B2B industry. It was designed to share the
subtleties and complexities of networked AV with IT experts. From security provisos to audio encryption woes to an AV/IT paradigm shift in action,
FOLLOW ME ONLINE
we hope you enjoy this important deep dive.
mdouaihy@nbmedia.com
avnetwork
Email
me at mdouaihy@nbmedia.com
THE NEW NORMAL

By Cindy Davis
In addition to planning complex enterprise network infrastructures, IT
managers and directors have configured and managed VoIP and VTC,
and low-bandwidth-consuming AV room control and automation solutions on the network for many years.
During the past two to three years, a plethora of networked AV
devices, appliances, and solutions have come to market designed to be
on the network. Demands are increasing as CIOs, executives, professors, employees, and students want to stream real-time content in
commerical verticals as easily as they can from their sofas at home. Add
to this an industry born of garage bands, audio and video designers and
engineers that have been catapulted into ones and zeros by way of the
analog sunset. Whats the result? IT departments faced with real and
metaphorical crosstalk.
For more than a decade, AV manufacturers have been hiring the best
IT engineers to team with AV engineers to develop and deploy networkable, enterprise-grade audio and video technologies and components.
avnetwork.com
avnetwork.tumblr.com
Forward-thinking AV consultancy and integration firms have hired IT

expertise to ensure in-depth offerings. In addition, audio and video standards and protocols are coming from long-established as well as newly
formed organizations. By all admissions, the umbrella of networked
AV is in its infancy, but is quickly earning its place on the networkby
design and necessity.
NOT A HOW-TO GUIDE
This guide is not intended to preach to the IT choir about how to
configure a network to add AV functionality. This series of articles is
intended to provide IT managers with some perspectives into the relative newcomer, networked AV. The voices in the following articles will
be from the IT folks responsible for helping to develop networked AV
products, developing standards and protocols, specifying AV/IT systems,
and peers. Well introduce them to you.
We welcome you to share your perspective. Find AV Technology online
at AVNetwork.com, Facebook, and Twitter.
Cindy Davis is a contributing editor for AV Technology magazine.
Table of Contents
Editors Notes ......................................................................................................................................................................... A2
FEATURES
THE NEW NORMAL ................................................................................................................................................................. A2
NETWORKED AUDIO AND VIDEO PERSPECTIVES DEFINED .................................................................................................... A3
STREAMING AV ON THE NETWORK ......................................................................................................................................... A7
FOR THE LOVE OF STANDARDS & PROTOCOLS ..................................................................................................................... A14
THE IT ROI ............................................................................................................................................................................. A15
IN THEIR OWN WORDSNETWORKED AV PRODUCTS AND SOLUTIONS............................................................................... A16
IMPARTING SECURITY BEST PRACTICES TO YOUR AV TEAM ................................................................................................ A19
T H E I T MANAGERS GUID E TO NETWORKED AV | F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 6 | av ne two r k .co m
A2
NETWORKED AV
WAVEBREAK MEDIA/THINKSTOCK
NETWORKED AUDIO AND VIDEO

PERSPECTIVES DEFINED
By Cindy Davis
A few years ago the terms over Ethernet, A over
IP, AV over IP, and networked AV entered the
AV world and has some IT-wary AV managers talking
a new language that is unfamiliar to their IT manager counterparts. These terms are as black-and-white,
on, or off as can be to IT folks, but differing perspectives are shaping the AV/IT vernacular.
For the benefit of IT managers and directors needing to interpret an AV managers language, we asked a
number of highly regarded IT experts within the AV
industry to provide their perspectives.
WHAT IS NETWORKED AV?
With no stake in any one technology or manufacturer,
and a coming from a straight IT background, technology consulting firm The Sextant Groups systems
designer, lead IT Telecom and Security, David Glenn
RCDD, CTS-D, LEED AP BD+C, described, The
easiest way to say it is that, networked AV is packets
of data that need to be moved across the network. Yes
its video, and yes its audio; this is a new type of mate-
A3
rial or content going across the network, but it still

boils down to; its still packets of data that need to be
moved across the network that they can manage, they
can configure, and they can route via theirhopefully
up-to-datenetwork infrastructure.
Before joining Crestron as the technology manager of Control Solutions, Toine C. Leerentveld
earned his engineering degree in Information Science,
and among others was the manager of Systems
Engineering, Global Media Services at Credit Suisse
First Boston. When asked to define networked AV
Leerentveld responded, Its the ability to control,
manage, and monitor AV equipment over an IP network. This includes SNMP, Crestron Fusion, SSH, and
other network control and management protocols.
This enables an enterprise IT manager to have insight
into their globally deployed systems and devices,
allowing the IT manager to deploy new code, manage
firmware, and see basic overall health of the devices.
With a deep history as a product manager at leading audio manufacturing companies, and a degree
in music engineering technology, Biamps product

manager of Audio Products, Justin OConnor relayed,
Networked AV: An AV system where both audio
and video signals are converted to data packets and
transported across an Ethernet network. An additional
protocol such as AVB/TSN is used to ensure that the
packets get to the right place, in the right order, and
quickly.
SVSi by Harman Professionals President, Andy
Whitehead (Ph.D., atomic/molecular/optical physics) clarified the category this way: Networked AV is
audio, video, and control signals that are converted
to independent IP packet streams. Once converted,
they propagate as data packets on either an enterprise
network or a physically separate network.
Networked AV includes terminologies from
video and audio disciplines. AVA Networks, media
networking consultant, technical working group
chair of the Media Networking Alliance, development task group leader for AES67, and inventor of
CobraNet, Kevin Gross said, Rather than using the
F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 6 | av ne twor k . com | THE IT MA NAGERS GUI D E TO NE TWO RKED AV
KRAMER
Control Solutions
Design Simplicity.
(DV\WR&RQJXUH(DV\WR8SGDWH(DV\WR8VH
$GYDQFHGURRPFRQWUROKDVQHYHUEHHQWKLVVLPSOHRUFRVWHHFWLYHQWURGXFLQJ .7RXFK,
Kramers revolutionary BYOD control platform. .7RXFK OHWV LQWHJUDWRUV HDVLO\ GHVLJQ
VXSSRUWDQGXSGDWHKLJKO\VFDODEOHFRQWUROV\VWHPVLQWKH&ORXGXVLQJDQ\WRXFKGHYLFH
)URPDQ\L26RU$QGURLGLQWHUIDFHHQGXVHUVFDQFRQWURODQ\WKLQJRYHU(WKHUQHWHJ
OLJKWVVFUHHQVVRXQG+9$&WKHUPRVWDWVDQGDQ\$9V\VWHP
$97HFKQRORJ\
%HVWRI6KRZ
6RXQG 9LGHR&RQWUDFWRU
%HVWRI6KRZ
*RYHUQPHQW9LGHR
%HVWRI6KRZ
For more information, please visit us at: www.KramerAV.com/K-Touch3

)RU\RXUORFDO.UDPHURFH7ROO)UHHI info@kramerus.com I www.kramerus.com
k.UDPHU(OHFWURQLFV/WG$OO5LJKWVUHVHUYHG5HSURGXFWLRQLQZKROHRULQSDUWZLWKRXWZULWWHQSHUPLVVLRQLVSURKLELWHG
NETWORKED AV
term networked audio, I tend to use media networking when I talk about it, because that includes nonIP solutions.
WHAT IS AV OVER IP?
One of the challenges that everybody faces, is not
speaking the same language, said OConnnor.
While AV over IP is technically correct, its also not,
because an IT person might hear IP and think about
things being routable and things actually touching
Internet traffic. In Pro AV the use of IP as a term is
really to differentiate which part of the protocol is on
Layer 2 and which part is on Layer 3. In reality, there is
no protocol for low latency, deterministic media that
ROI Spotlight
is terminated in an AV switcher, the various signals

revert to their original formats and are switched/
routed in those formats via conventional AV switching
and is routed to standard interfaces or re-converted to
HDBaseT for subsequent legs.
HDBaseT is a point-to-point connection over
CAT5E/CAT6, with uncompressed audio and video,
explained Crestrons Leerentveld. AV over IP is distributed, and typically uses compressed audio video.
AV over IP can also be content and audio and video,
where HDBaseT is limited to audio and video. From
an implementation point of view, HDBaseT requires
no added infrastructure, and no configuration.
Networked AV media is packetized and follows
The pressure is always on for colleges and

universities to be positioned as cutting-edge. In
addition to the campus infrastructure, IT departments are playing an increased role in supporting
pedagogies that use integrated technologies.
Scott McGarrigle, CTO of Utelogy Corporation,
said institutions are starting to see how IT is
relevant when it comes to meeting ROI goals.
Using technology to show how you increase
enrollment and enhance retention rates is the
next exciting step in ROI, noted McGarrigle.
AV Over IP is also known as streaming video,

AV-over-IP is a video signal with or without
synchronized audio that is converted to a single
IP packet stream. Once converted, it propagates as
data packets on either an enterprise network or a
physically separate network.
Todays higher ed wants to use the technology
is routable. Its still relegated to local area networking

as opposed to Internet traffic, and there are distinct
differences there. From his perspective, When we
say, IP in the AV industry we simply mean that the
physical devices have Layer 3 IP addresses, noted
OConnor.
AV Over IP is also known as streaming video,
AV-over-IP is a video signal with or without synchronized audio that is converted to a single IP packet
stream, said Whitehead. Once converted, it propagates as data packets on either an enterprise network
or a physically separate network.
spotlight of showing an ROI. But having the
WHAT IS HDBASET?
An area of confusion among AV managers is the difference between AV over IP, and HDBaseT.
HDBaseT is a proprietary interface developed by
Valens Semiconductor who exclusively manufactures
the chipsets used in HDBaseT products. More than
130 manufacturers have implemented products that
use the Valens chipset for HDBaseT extension.
Although IEEE has ratified an HDBaseT standard
(IEEE 1911), the standard only covers interoperability
between manufacturers who implement the Valens
chipset. IEEE 1911 compliance is not required and
interoperability between HDBaseT products must be
evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Harman Professionals, manager of Enterprise
Solutions, Paul Zielie added, The total available
bandwidth for HDBaseT is 10Gbps and the physical
interface is very similar to 10GBaseT. If HDBaseT
A5
to increase student learning outcomes, make

college more relatable to young students who
expect certain levels of technology capabilities,
and have it all easy to use by faculty.
Its doubtful that anyone in the IT department of any organization is excited about the
Ethernet switching and often IP routing rules for

distribution to the endpoint(s) and is only converted
back to the original signal once it reaches its destination.
ALL CLEAR?
Probably notat least yet. It wasnt that long ago
that email traffic and allowing access to the Internet
were some of the biggest challengesfaced by IT
managers. Networked AV products and solutions
are in its infancy, as is the vernacular used by
differentAV manufacturers based on its offerings.
Everyone agrees that all parties will continue to
benefit from an ongoingdialog, listening to specific
needs, and exploring new options available.
The most confusion happens when we talk about
conferencing, said University of Nebraska Medical
Centers senior instructional designer of Information
Technology Services, Melissa Diers, M.Ed, DMC-D.
Software-basedcodec is where everything is over the
Internet using your resident computer as a processor,
where hard codecs areusing a dedicated device. We do
have some connections for Telemedicine to outlying
hospitals where we directly connect, network-wise,
from one to the other; and theres a total misconception of what it is, whats on the backend, and how
were doing it.
Diers said when she has explained networked AV,
I typically tell them that theres two different mechanisms ofdelivery, or two different paths or highways
that you can send data down; but its dependent upon
ability to measure and analyze data that can be

produced by networked IT and AV systems sure
plays to into the strengths of information technology professionals. Its a natural fit.
what you want, and how you want it to get there.

Quality of service, but also security and sensitivity of
information, is dependentupon which type or which
road you go down.
This convergence has internal IT teams turning
to consultants that have a depth of expertise in both
IT and AV.Additionally, while most AV manufacturers do not sell direct to end users, invitations to the
network planning table are becoming more common to better understand products and solutions
available.
Tucson Airport Authoritys IT&T supervisor, Glenn
Hamblin, is in the research phase to find new products and services for the airports paging system,
which is due for a refresh. I dont know what the
ideal system is yet, whichis why I would like to hire
a consultant that isnt party to any particular firm,
said Hamblin. I would like to find aconsultant that
understands the fundamental aspects of IT and bandwidth, the fundamentals of audio, and theexecution
parts of it. You have to find someone that is passionate about audio and got into IT, or someone who
is passionate about IT and got into audio. It would
be the ultimate if you could find someone that was
passionate aboutboth.
NETWORKED AV
Best Practices for IT Managers Tasked With Networked AV
Q&A WITH ERIK INDRESOVDE, BLACK BOX DIRECTOR OF AV PRODUCTS

AVT: What are the most common misconceptions
the IT folks have about networked AV?
Erik Indresovde: Its still a misconception that IP
based means low quality. Over the last few years,
increased bandwidth and improved compression
algorithms have made it possible to transmit visually
lossless, or even completely lossless video-over-IP
with no noticeable latency. In many cases, people
also look at AV and IT as two completely separate
fields, but the reality is that, similar to what weve
seen with voice-over-IP in the past, over time pretty
much everything will move to IP.
AVT: What is the biggest barrier for allowing AV on
the network?
Erik Indresovde: Bandwidth management can be
a challenge; particularly when we are talking about
pixel perfect lossless video. For proper implementation, as a minimum the network needs to support
IGMP. However, IP based doesnt mean it has to
run over the corporate LAN in parallel with the other
traffic. If a customer is planning a large AV installation over IP we typically recommend to run it on a
separate network, or at least a separate VLAN segment to make sure the AV traffic doesnt affect any
of the other data traffic on the network.
AVT: What are the most important things the IT
folks need to be on the lookout for with regard to

networked AV?
Erik Indresovde: As previously mentioned, bandwidth management is critical. Security is important as well; make sure access to all devices are
password protected. If the AV traffic is sensitive
and being transmitted over WAN, make sure the
solution also supports encryption. Also ensure the
system fully supports IGMP to be able to filter the
multicast traffic and avoid congestions and overloading the network. Additionally, its important
to choose a partner with experience in networking
and AVnot just an AV specialist or a networking
specialist.
AVT: What advancements have been made with
regard to networked AV products, systems and/or
software that might make these worth another look
by the IT department?
Erik Indresovde: Support for remote management
and control. AV devices can now, in many cases,
be managed and controlled just like other networked devices through a Web browser or an API.
Improvement in quality and reduced latency means
these systems are now able to fully replace proprietary non-networked AV solutions.
Visit www.blackbox.com for more info.
Barcos NetworkFriendly Collaboration

Solutions
The What: Barcos new
CS-100 and CSE-200 (E
signaling for the enterprise) have join the ClickShare portfolio, offering
the freedom to better tailor the ClickShare unit to the
meeting roomsand the participantsneeds. With this
wireless presentation and collaboration system, users
can share whats on their laptop or mobile device on the
presentation screen. No cables, no set-up, no waiting
to join in. ClickShares offers the use of ButtonsUSBpowered devices users plug into their PC or Mac.
The What Else: Connectivity options including
AirPlay support or central management. This unit can
be integrated into the company network, enabling remote management. (The API makes integration into the
company network a lot easier.) Two users can share on
screen at the same time either via ClickShare Buttons,
the ClickShare App, or a combination of the two. Visit
www.barco.com.
T H E I T MANAGE RS GU ID E TO NETWORKE D AV | F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 6 | av ne two r k .co m
A6
NETWORKED AV
STREAMING
MEDIA
ON THE
NETWORK
By Cindy Davis
The concept of transitioning from a closed-room
AV system to networked AV is simple. The perfect
example is an overflow room, said The Sextant
Groups systems designer, lead IT Telecom and
Security, David Glenn RCDD, CTS-D, LEED AP
BD+C. This is typically handled by running
cables down the hall to the overflow room, or by
putting a lot of infrastructure in place temporarily to support the AV. By going to a networked
AV solution, your networked AV can be extendedcan be pushed outas far as your network
reaches, and there are no distance limitations. As
long as each room has a network connection, and
an AV endpoint, I can push that content anywhere
on my campusanywhere across the network.
You can take advantage of the infrastructure you
already have in your walls, theres no need to run
temporary cables, and theres no need to open
up walls and put in new cables. If the network is
in one building, within two buildings, or across
a multi-building campus it can easily be accomplished. A networked AV system provides flexibility and scalability.
Enabling media to be streamed throughout
an enterprise is the one of the biggest demands
facing the network today. IT directors and IT staff
are masters at moving packets of data across their
network. Networked AV is just a different type of
content, said Glenn.
WAIT. WHAT ARE YOU BEING SOLD?
Whether its a well-meaning AV integrator or
internal AV staff suggesting a new piece of networked media hardware, software, or protocol,
often times it is assumed that the IT manager is
already familiar with the product.
QSC Systems director of Product Management,
Installed Systems, TJ Adams, said IT directors and
managers that have been down this road before
are starting to ask the right questions. Questions
along the lines of, Tell me about your real-
A7
time media networking requirements. So in other

words, I think I know what your product might
need; it seems like your product is likely going
to be more sensitive to timed and ordered packet
delivery on my network, may not be compatible with my current switch and router hardware
infrastructure, and it may be more sensitive to
bandwidth and other traffic constraints on the
network; right? Other hidden issues can arise
especially around auto-provisioning schemes conflicting with their existing configurations; QoS
and IGMP configurations that some AV protocols
require. Developed through the IETF, Internet
Group Management Protocol (IGMP) is the com-
munications protocol used by IPv4 systems to

report their IP multicast group memberships to
neighboring multicast routers.
Adams said the integrator or consultant should
be able to say; Yes, youre right, our proposed
product is not just a VoIP phone system that
you are used to managing, however, it can still
be managed similarly and can reside along side
your other applications like VoIP, as long as the
protocol does not require proprietary switches
to be installed to support the proposed product. Being able to back up that statement is key
stressed Adams, Each product is different, but
each product doesor shouldhave very good
Video Distribution Just Got Easier

Display AV over IP to an unlimited number
of screens with MediaCento IPX.
4K Support
Scalable
Matrix Switching & Control
Video Wall Support
877-708-5093 | blackbox.com/MediaCentoIPX
NETWORKED AV
documentation about what the requirements
especially real-time media requirementsare on
the network. To this point Adams advises AV
folks to think more critically, Its more of having
a teaching mindset along with making sure you
have the working knowledge yourself of what your
proposed products requirements are, intermediate to advanced TCP/IP networking skills, and an
assumption ahead of time that your IT user may
not fully understand the needs around a real time
media application like audio or video streaming.
The immediate question from IT managers
and directors is, Okay, what are the requirements
for this new service? said AVA Networks, media
networking consultant, technical working group
chair of the Media Networking Alliance, lead
developer of AES67, and inventor of CobraNet,
Kevin Gross. Next is, What does this new service
need to access? Bandwidth and security are at the
top of the list, and areas IT managers know well.
The common best practice is to create a VLAN
for networked AV. Crestrons Leerentveld agrees
and added, As more and more data gets on the
network, the network just gets busier, and latency
sometimes gets introduced. A VLAN can help
alleviate these issues as well as ensure mission
critical conflicts dont occur. If all of a sudden you
start streaming high definition video, the amount
of traffic on your backbone gets larger, and maybe
that button press to mute for a microphone in
the conference room is going to take a little longer
because priority wasnt given to button presses
on the touchpanel; instead priority was given to
phone calls and video calls, which, rightfully so
because the phone calls are really important. But
I need that button press to make the microphone
turn off right away. The case for a VLAN is quickly
made with the simple example, I know youre
willing to wait a couple seconds for a web page
to load; how long are you willing to wait if you
pushed privacy or mute or before the microphone actually gets turned off? Most people go,
Right, that makes sense, said Leerentveld.
The networked streaming media conversation
is still relatively new for IT and AV technology managers. The Sextant Groups, Glenn noted,
This requires knowledgeable, highly competent,
trained network engineers on staff, because there
are some protocols that they need to understand
with IP multicasting.
Bandwidth management can be a challenge;
particularly when we are talking about pixel
perfect lossless video, said Black Boxs director
of AV Products, Erik Indresovde. Proper imple-
A9
CURRENT ACCEPTED STANDARDS FOR ALLOWABLE LATENCY BY TASK

LIMITING STANDARD
MAX LATENCY
REFERENCE
Perceptible Threshold
13ms
Detecting Meaning in Rapid Pictures

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 2014
Distributed Video with

Live Audio (Lip Sync)
<22.5ms
ITU BT.1359 (Maximum specification for audio

to lead video)
Audio Reinforcement
(Echo threshold for
intelligibility)
Acceptable <18ms
Marginal 18-30ms
ITU-T G.131, Talker echo and its control The

Influence of a Single Echo on the Audibility of
Speech, Helmut Haas
Live Audio
Distribution (Lip Sync)
<30ms
ITU BT.1359 (Maximum specification for video

to lead audio)
Machine interaction
(Keyboard, mouse,
joystick, etc.)
<45ms
Quantifying the Effects of Latency on Sensory

Feedback in Distributed Virtual Environments
Caroline Jay & Roger Hubbold
Video Games
(Counterstrike)
Excellent <50ms
Diminished>100ms
QoS Requirements of Multimedia Applications

Brett Berliner, Brian Clark and Albert Hartono
Human interaction
(Audio / Video Conference)
Acceptable <150ms
Marginal 150-400ms
ITU G.114, One-way transmission time

(May require echo Cancellation per
ITU-T G.131)
Real Time, No interaction
2s-5+s
N/A
On Demand
No Limit
N/A
Above: In the Current Accepted Standards for Latency by Task table, it is interesting to note that many of these numbers
are much lower than they were ten years ago as new information and measurement techniques have been discovered.
ALLOWABLE LATENCY STANDARDS APPLIED TO USE CASE AND CHARACTERISTICS

USE CASE
CHARACTERISTICS
LIMITING
STANDARD
MAXIMUM
LATENCY
Conference Room
Small Classroom
No sound reinforcement, manipulation

of user content while observing display
(Keyboard, Mouse)
Machine
interaction
<45ms
Large Classroom
Reinforcement of presenter voice,

manipulation of user content while
observing display
Audio
Reinforcement
<18-30ms
Auditorium, IMAG
(Image Magnification)
Video of presenter or performer magnified

for view-ability, non-delayed audio
Distributed
Video (Lip Sync)
<22.5ms
Auditorium,
Live Sound
reinforcement
Sound is digitized for transmission to

loudspeakers
Audio
Reinforcement
Live Audio
Distribution
<18-30ms
Room Overflow
(with Q&A)
Presenter in primary room interacts with

remote participants
Human
interaction
<45ms
Room Overflow
(watch only)
Remote participants only watch

presentation. Questions, if any are sent by
email or chat,
Real Time, No
interaction
2s-5+s
Above: This table has taken the allowed latencies from the Current Accepted Standards for Latency by Task table and
applied them to the applicable standard.
mentation, as a minimum the network needs

to support IGMP. Additionally, its important to
choose a partner with experience in networking
and AVnot just an AV specialist or a networking
specialist.
STREAMING MEDIA CONSIDERATIONS
With more than 30 years of experience designing
and integrating IT, telecommunications and audiovisual (AV) solutions, HARMAN Professionals,
manager of Enterprise Solutions, Paul Zielie

noted, The first step in characterizing the streaming application is determining if the application is
real time (live), or on demand.
Live streaming technologies are appropriate
for time sensitive applications such as live lectures
or television transport, or ones where interaction
with the audience is required. Any production,
such as switching between content sources or subtitles will have to be done within the integrated
ClickShare
Plug into simplicity.
Tap into
amazing
Share your big ideas, and watch them grow

Creativity is one of the core assets of an organization. With ClickShare, you
make sure big ideas receive the attention they deserve, by simply sharing
whats on your laptop or mobile device, on a presentation screen. With a single
click, you transform a meeting into a complete sharing experience, bringing
ideas, people and content together. No cables, no set-up, no waiting to join in.
Meetings keep their ow, and you keep your cool!
www.barco.com/clickshare
NETWORKED AV
video capture system.
On demand video allows for more sophisticated production and editing. It is appropriate
when the content is not time sensitive or should
be available over time.
A hybrid approach where a live event is
streamed and also captured for on demand availability is very common.
AUDIENCE
It is important to know how the audience is
accessing the content relative to the source, said
Zielie. Possibilities include:
In the same room: The content is streamed
as an alternative to traditional AV distribution. Examples include; streaming the presentation computer to a shared display or
streaming content such as a video camera,
attached microscope, to a display at each
students workspace.
On the same campus: The content is available with very few network restrictions
because source and content are on the same
LAN.
In the same enterprise: The source and
audience may be at different locations, but
content is streamed across a network completely under the control of the enterprise.
On the Internet: At least part of the network is completely out of the control of the
organization. Available network bandwidth
may be unknown and devices such as firewalls may need to be traversed.
CONTENT ATTRIBUTES
The source(s) of the content will often help determine the type of encoders you may use. Typical
content sources include computers, cameras, and
video playback devices.
If multiple content sources will be used for
inputs at various times for a single video stream,
some sort of video switching must be accounted
for. If the switched sources have different resolutions then a video scaler, a component that converts video signals from one display resolution to
another, will be required since changing streaming
resolution within a session is impractical. Video
scalers can be external devices or can be built into
the encoder.
GENERAL ATTRIBUTES PRIORITIZED

ATTRIBUTE
FIRST
SECOND
LAST
Real Time (Audience Local)
Transport Stream
Multicast
SDP with RTP

Multicast
Progressive
Download Unicast
Multicast, UDP
Unicast, UDP
Unicast, TCP
On Demand
HTTP Live Stream
RTSP with RTP
Progressive
Download
High Quality to BYOD
H.264
JPEG 2000
Proprietary
Diverse Devices
H.264
JPEG 2000
Proprietary
High Quality Room Overflow
Proprietary
H.264
Set top boxes
Transport Stream
Bandwidth
H.264, other MPEG
JPEG 2000
Proprietary Codec
Latency
Proprietary Codec
JPEG 2000
H.264, other MPEG
Capture for production
JPEG 2000
H.264, other MPEG
GENERAL ATTRIBUTES PRIORITIZED

ATTRIBUTE
FIRST
SECOND
LAST
Transport Stream
Multicast
SDP with RTP

Multicast
Progressive
Download Unicast
Multicast, UDP
Unicast, UDP
Unicast, TCP
On Demand
HTTP Live Stream
RTSP with RTP
Progressive
Download
High Quality to BYOD
H.264
JPEG 2000
Proprietary
Diverse Devices
H.264
JPEG 2000
Proprietary
High Quality Room Overflow
Proprietary
H.264
Set top boxes
Transport Stream
Bandwidth
H.264, other MPEG
JPEG 2000
Proprietary Codec
Latency
Proprietary Codec
JPEG 2000
H.264, other MPEG
Capture for production
JPEG 2000
H.264, other MPEG
If multiple content sources will be streamed

simultaneously for use within a single application
player software, which allows for that use case, a
hardware player, often called a streaming multiviewer, will be required.
There are many ways to get the content into
a video stream. One factor in determining which
method to use, are the possible ways to interface
the content to the device that will compress and
stream the content. The most common way that
organizations have streamed AV content is the
use of a streaming encoder, a standalone device
that uses the AV outputs of the content source as
inputs. It then captures, compresses and streams
the content. Software based video encoders are
IT directors and IT staff are masters at moving

packets of data across their network. Networked AV
is just a different type of content.
A11 F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H
often designed to use a native video interface

within a computer such as a USB web camera.
Increasingly there are USB cameras with higher
functionality such as pan tilt zoom capabilities.
Increasingly, there are cameras that have a
streaming interface incorporated into the camera. These are primarily designed for the security market and may lack the features required
for a content-based streaming application, unless
paired with production or management software,
designed for this sort of capture.
It is important to reconcile the video source
rates and resolutions to the streaming rates and
resolutions that meet the audience requirements
to optimize bandwidth. Zielie noted, If the
audience is going to be viewing the content on a
phone with 480p resolution, then streaming the
source content at 1080p is a waste. If the audience
is receiving PowerPoint slides that only change
every couple of minutes then streaming at 60fps
2 0 1 6 | av ne twor k . com | THE IT MA NAGERS GUI D E TO NE TWO RKED AV
NETWORKED AV
TYPICAL DISTRIBUTION LATENCIES
*Dependent on streaming server configuration
SESSION
TECHNOLOGY
REAL
TIME
ON
DEMAND
SCALABILITY
COMMENTS
RTSP with RTP
Fair
Excellent
RT: poor
OD: good
Primarily unicast, multicast loses most features

Requires multiple media and control streams
Possibility for catchup joining live stream after the start and downloading previous information*
Does not work with most set top boxes
Typically requires streaming server
SDP with RTP
Good
Fair
RT: poor
OD: good
Unicast and multicast support

SDP must be created and served for each session
Requires multiple media and control streams (ports)
May have stream synchronization issues in multicast
SAP with RTP
Good
Poor
RT: poor
OD: good
Multicast support, Unicast is rare

SDP must be created and published in SAP
Requires multiple media and control streams (ports)
May have stream synchronization issues in multicast
Transport
Stream
Excellent
Good
RT: good
OD: fair
Unicast and multicast support

No SDP required, session information is embedded
Single stream (port) for all media and control
Media multiplexed to maintain synchronization
On demand required special sever functions for individual stream control
Real time Transport Stream can be a direct source for HTTP Live stream content
HTTP Live
Stream
Fair
Excellent
RT: fair
OD: Excellent
Only Possible for unicast, no multicast support.

No SDP required, session information is embedded
Served from commodity web server
Possibility for catchup joining live stream after the start and downloading previous information*
Progressive
Download
N/A
Fair
RT: poor
Requires the full file be available before serving

Does not require a streaming server, just a file server.
A12
NETWORKED AV
TYPICAL DISTRIBUTION LATENCIES
DISTRIBUTION
TECHNOLOGY
BW
HDMI Cable
N/A
<1ms
HDBaseT
N/A
<2ms
Packetize and forward TDMS as it comes in
HDBaseT or
HDMI with
Scaling
N/A
60fps
<18ms 30fps
<35ms 25fps
<42ms
Typically one frame of latency

Line scalers may have lower latency, but may have more artifacts
Proprietary
Streaming
4+
As little compression
as possible
<15 Plus transport
Typically 6 to 20 lines of latency at encode and decode
MJPEG
Intra-frame limits
compression
60fps
35-60ms 30fps
70-100ms 25fps
80120ms Plus transport
Standard mandates one frame at encode and decode
JPEG 2000
Intra-frame limits
compression
Wavelet is efficient
60fps
35-60ms 30fps
70-100ms 25fps
80120ms Plus transport
Standard mandates one frame at encode and decode
MPEG codecs
H.264, H.265
Inter-frame
compression is
most efficient. Later
standards are more
efficient
100ms-600ms or more
COMMENTS
MINIMUM
LATENCY
COMMENTS
At least one frame of latency at encode and decode

Additional fixed latency is added based on Group of Pictures (GOP) size
Each B-frame adds 1 frame of encode latency
Any number of B-frames adds one frame decode latency
is a waste. On the other hand, if the streaming

resolution or frame rate is too small to properly
convey the information, the needs of the audience
are not met.
tions where the network supports it, typically on

a campus network. Multicast on the Internet is
not practical because the Internet is generally not
multicast-enabled.
QUALITY OF SERVICE
When adding a Cisco VoIP phone system onto
your Cisco network; Cisco has done some nice
pre-configuration of your equipment, so that
when you plug a Cisco phone into a Cisco switch,
they have a conversation and say, Hey, Im a
phone. I need better quality of service for my
phone calls, noted Gross. However, current AV
networked systems do not have a pre-configuration tool, so mapping a Quality of Service (QoS)
plan based on a needs assessment is critical.
Accessing various use cases and characteristics will
help determine the accepted latency by task such
as, This is huddle room video conference, and the
quality of service isnt really as important as it is
for this multicast auditorium keynote, said Gross.
The tables below provide a starting point for
mapping Quality of Service.
MIX AND MATCH TRADEOFFS

Quality as an attribute is somewhat subjective, since each lossy compression algorithm has
different artifacts that affect the quality, said
HARMANs Zielie. Subjective quality is also very
dependent on resolution, frame rate, latency and
the bandwidth allowed for the stream.
NETWORK TRANSIT
The two primary ways that video is transmitted
across an IP network: unicast and multicast.
Unicast is used in applications like video on
demand where each user is viewing the content on
their own time frame. Due to increased network
consumption, it is not preferable for applications
where multiple viewers are receiving the same
content simultaneously.
Multicast is preferable in real time applica-
It is important to
reconcile the video
source rates and
resolutions to the
streaming rates and
resolutions that meet the
audience requirements to
optimize bandwidth.
Each attribute you define will have a different importance based on the application. The
tables below to offer generalized information on
how various technologies compare within chosen
attributes. Some of the attributes such as management, security and some degree of scalability will
be more dependent.
Bandwidth requirements vary greatly with the
desired attributes of the content so rather than giving numbers, the various codecs are rated in order
from most to least efficient (1-4). The various
content encoded at the target bandwidths must be
examined to ensure suitability for an application.
The latency numbers shown are best-case, endto-end numbers with non-streaming technologies
shown as a comparison.
PARTING WORDS
QSC Systems director of Product Management,
Installed Systems, TJ Adams, offers some advice,
If I was talking to an IT manager / director today
and they were asking me, TJ, Ive been having
issues installing AV products on my network and
applications not playing nice together. What can I
do to manage this better? I would admonish that
person to go get the manufacturer training directly. Go to QSC, go to Biamp, go to a Crestron or
AMX school, and get educated on the application
and its real time networking requirements even
though you have support from your integrator
and consultant. Agreeing with the VoIP analogy
made by Gross, These systems are in many ways
no different than VoIP call manager proxy servers,
and I had to go through that learning curve too,
by the way. I was there during that period, when
everything went from digital and analog PBXs to
IP-PBXs. We went through similar fits-and-starts,
where IT folks had issues, and eventually there
became certifications and more advanced education for VoIP network configuration, both on a
manufacturer level and from more general IT trade
groups such as CompTIA, concluded Adams.
NETWORKED AV
FOR THE LOVE OF

STANDARDS & PROTOCOLS
By Cindy Davis
Standards and protocols are music to any IT professional. There are number of recent standard and protocol advancements that enhance the performance, interoperability, and convergence of networked audio, video, and media. Based on these, a number of technologies have been developed, and an exponential number of manufacturers have adopted one or more.
AES67
The way the AES67 project got started described AVA
Networks media networking consultant, Kevin Gross,
Hey, theres now half-a-dozen new technologies or
network announcements, and theyre all using pretty
much the same protocolIP and similar synchronization, so we said, Well it seems like theres an
agreement on how to do things; lets write a standard
and specify the details of that agreement so these
technologies can talk to each other.
One thing thats helped a lot is VoIP said Gross.
Thats basically an AV system, and people are pretty
comfortable with that now. But some of the AV protocols are more similar to VoIP than others, and some
companies handle VoIP better than others. Gross
comes at this topic with deep roots and a relatively
neutral position. In the early 90s, Gross invented
CobraNet, the first commercially viable implementation of audio over Ethernet. He has worked in
multiple standards bodies including IEEE where he
participated in the development of Audio Video
Bridging (AVB). He led the Audio Engineering Society
group at that produced the AES67 standard, and
recently became the technical working group chair of
the Media Networking Alliance.
With AES67, we wanted to put out a standard
on how to do audio networking in an interoperable
wayin a way that everybody can agree is a reasonable way to do it, similar to what people are already
doing and uses protocols that both the audio and the
IT people would be familiar with, said Gross. So
what it ended up being is like a VoIP on steroids.
The Audio Engineering Society published the
AES67 standard in September 2013. The standard
provides interoperability recommendations for professional quality audio networking in the areas of
synchronization; media clock identification, network
transport, encoding, streaming and session description. AES67 is a not a network itself but rather an
interoperability mode that allows products using
different network technologies to be able to work
together, said QSC Audio Products, vice president
of Systems Strategy, Rich Zwiebel. It operates over

standard layer 3 IP, Ethernet networks. The good
news for an IT professional is that it is based upon
the same IT standards that you use every day. These
include standards such as RTP, IEEE 1588-2008 PTP,
and DiffServ QoS.
AVB/TSN
Audio Video Bridging (AVB) was developed

by IEEE 802.1 Audio Video Bridging Task Group.
Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) is the
evolution of AVB, building upon the AVB specifications to expand the range, functionality and applications of the standardit is future-proof and scalable,
said AVnu Alliance Pro AV Segment Chair, Patrick
Prothe. The TSN capability in Ethernet is proving
valuable across an increasing breadth of markets
including Pro AV, automotive, consumer and industrial and TSNs broad market expansion with wide
deployment will only benefit all members and marketsboth from a cost perspective as well as assuring
long-term support for the capabilities in standard
components.
The IEEE AVB/TSN standards define how a network (primarily Ethernet networks) should be made
timing-aware. AVB/TSN are not communications protocols, butlike other capabilities such as VLAN and
Power over Ethernetthey are core network capabilities that can be used by any (open or proprietary)
communications system that needs them.
Biamps OConnor cites cost as a benefit to TSN/
AVB. Your cables are physically cheaper because
Cat5 cables cost a lot less than audio cables per foot,
and you can get 420 channels in the case of AVB on
a single cable, as opposed to one or two channels of
analog on a single cable. By utilizing IEEE standards
and by utilizing actual network switches to distribute
one-to-many, many-to-many, and many-to-one-type
topographies, they just become so much simpler than
they ever could have been before.
The IEEE 1588 Standard for a Precision
Clock Synchronization Protocol for Networked
Measurement and Control Systems is a Layer 2

standard used by AVB, AES67, Dante, Q-Sys, and
RAVENNA which all communicate via packet networks.
FADE TO FAST
Currently, ITU-T H.264 | ISO/IEC 14496-10
Advanced Video Coding (AVC) is the dominant video coding technology, and accounts for
nearly half of all communication network traffic
worldwide, and more than 80 percent of Internet
video. The ITU-T H.265 | ISO/IEC 23008-2
High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is
still emerging is still emerging in the live communications market as it is currently prohibitively expensive
to do real time H.265 compression.
But things are going to become more interesting.
The video development is happening now, said
Gross. While there has already been some standardization in teleconferencing systems, Gross sees a different future. Were getting protocols where instead
of having to have dedicated hardware for doing a
teleconference you just do it in your web browser. So
VoIP is going to allow your phone system to become
a videophone system, and thats supposed to be the
future.
The new stuff thats happening in video is using
IP networks for broadcasters, he said. They do highbandwidth, high-quality video, and theyre replacing
their facilities and changing them out for all this
exotic video equipment to an IP network.
Gross suggested that this trend trickles down to
high-end enterprise, and other commercial venues
such as stadiums, concert halls and houses of worship. Tying live video into live sound, and all being
networked together; that all has to be high-quality.
Will the same standards and protocols also trickle
down? It would be nice if everybody used the same
protocols and Im trying The work I do in standards
stuff, trying to cross-pollinate that, but sometimes
people dont communicate what theyre doing with
people in different industries.
A14
NETWORKED AV
THE IT ROI
HOLISTIC MULTI-TECHNOLOGY
APPROACH
With more than 30 years of experience designing and
integrating IT, telecommunications and audiovisual
(AV) solutions, Harman Professionals, manager of
Enterprise Solutions, Paul Zielie noted, Specifying
AV systems happens differently in every company
depending to on how the purchasing is done; it
could be the consultant, the tech manager, or an AV
integrator.
With audio and video moving onto the network,
IT directors and managers are becoming responsible
for AV as well. Zielie warned IT managers to take
special note during the specifying process, No matter
where it is coming from, if it doesnt take a holistic
multi-technology approach, then it is doomed to be
an afterthought, he said. If it is a speeds-and-feeds,
in-and-outs spec that you see, its doomed to be
an afterthought in lighting, acoustics, network, and
anything that is not fundamentally AV switching and
reproduction.
IT managers are already familiar with room-level,
AV control and automation systems, and AV equipment from AMX, Biamp, Black Box, Crestron, Extron,
QSC Systems, and others that are specified by AV consultants and integrators. Until recently, these systems
and devices had lived in the AV domain. Looking
beyond the room-level, The Sextant Groups systems
designer, Glenn noted, One of the benefits of having
a fully networked AV system is the fact that you can
also manage all the components, know the uptime,
do scheduling, work these things into room scheduling, and get feedback on diagnostics on equipment.
Theres three top things that an IT manager
wants, and that is security, manageability, and scalability, said Crestrons, Leerentveld. If you think
about scalability alone and you ask an AV person,
Whats a big system? theyll say, Oh, 20 rooms. If
you ask an IT manager, theyre saying, hundreds, if
not thousands of those. When you have hundreds, or
thousands of rooms, you need to have the manageability tools to push out that firmware, push out that
program, or make the changes so that I can just click
a button, walk away, and get a report at the end that
says, Hey, everything was done.
POINTS FOR GOOD HEALTH
Whether its email going down, a critical videoconference that does not properly link, or an employee
whom cant connect to the network via a mobile
device, all of these issues are perceived as the fault
of IT. Traditional AV folks need to understand that
at the end of the day, it is the IT departments responsibility for the health, security, and transport of company data. The stakes have changed, and complexity
has increased exponentially.
Your network is your home so you protect it. Not
knowing whats on the network, as an IT guy, would
drive me absolutely crazy, stressed Leerentveld. IT
managers want to know if all of these systems are on
the network; how do I make sure theyre all up and
running? How do I make sure theyre all healthy?
Can I integrate it into my SNMP management tool?
How can I be proactive rather than reactive? How
do I know that theres a problem in a room before
the CEO walks in and pushes a button that doesnt
work?
BREAKING THE BREAK/FIX MODEL
System downtime is inevitable whether managed by
AV or IT departments. But traditionally youre going
to have less downtime through the IT folks, said
Glenn. With a converged network, having the ability
for systems to be monitored, the data being constantly pulled will help the team become more proactive.
PLAUSIBLE NON-CASE STUDIES
The most compelling argument for management
systems, is that you can start to pull business metrics
out of scheduling and management systems that
prove ROI, said Harmans Paul Zielie. I like to use
the, user story, method from product development
to establish value by creating plausible scenarios to
illustrate and analyze features
PLAUSIBLE CASE STUDY #1
Think of the number of meetings youve been in that
the first five minutes of the meeting where everyone is
digging through their phone trying to figure out what
the call-in number to the bridge.
THINKSTOCK
One of the most dramatic paradigm shifts concerning

IT directors and managers is that IT departments are
moving from an overhead model, to a service and
revenue-generating model. While adding networked
AV, control and monitoring systems might initially
seem to be a burden, these systems can be the ticket
to helping support a departmental ROI, not to mention help ensure the overall health of the company
network.
So now you move to a world where, when I scheduled a meeting in Outlook, I have also scheduled my
room, Ive also put in there what the dial-in number
is, now a small piece of IP code that captures what
that dial-in audio bridge or videoconferencing number is, and when I go into a meeting room, whether it
is the one I scheduled, or its just a schedule meeting.
Say I am just going in, and Ive got a whole bunch
of conference rooms and I am not assigned one until
I get there. If I can swipe my badge, it recognizes it is
me, looks at the schedule, and put puts a button on
the touchpanel that says, start your conference call,
and it already has the number programmed into it.
How many hours would in a typical corporation
would that save each year?
The answer to your ROI is to use big data techniques on the analysis of how meetings are happening, and you can quantitatively prove efficiencies.
Now you could potentially say, I can show quantitatively that with this prompt button for calling in
the bridge, that the room is connected to the audio
conference five minutes closer to the scheduled start
time of the meeting, than without that technology.
PLAUSIBLE CASE STUDY #2
If I have a building with a standard AV conference
room that cost $120,000, Zielie explained. Its got a
videoconferencing, audio conferencing, and seats for
20, dual-screen displays, and lighting control, and that
conference room is booked 110 percent of the time.
Serious pain-point because people arent able to have
their meeting. If I dont have a management system
with metrics, my best business decision is to put in
another $120,000 conference room. But if I have a
comprehensive management and metric system, and
I can say 70 percent of the meetings have less than
five people, they dont use videoconferencing, and
all theyre using is a single PC display and audio conferencingthe solution to the problem is a $15,000
room. Because of the metric system, Ive been able to
make a business decision that has saved the company
$85,000 because of that metric system. Making better business decisionsisnt that the goal?
NETWORKED AV
NETWORKED AV IN THEIR OWN

WORDS
We feel it is helpful to hear about the philosophy of how a company approaches the products and solutions it offers. With this in mind we asked representatives from
AV companies to share their perspective on networked AV as it relates to the brand and its products. These are contributed insights.
AMX BY HARMAN
AMX.COM
In working with many AV and IT administrators

who are in the process of integrating and deploying
control, automation and AV distribution gear onto
their networks, the learning curve can be daunting,
frustrating, and difficult to navigate, no matter who
the manufacturer is and what products are being
deployed. To address these specific concerns when
deploying AMX products, weve developed the official AMX AV/IT Administrators Guide. It offers a technical overview of equipment
and protocols encountered when implementing AMX solutions on enterprise
networks and discusses how these products will behave and impact the network.
Specifically included to assist in the deployment process are systems descriptions,
traffic characterizations, ports and protocols, and security information.
Paul Zielie, manager, Enterprise Solutions at Harman Professional
around encoders, decoders, network switches, and data/streaming protocols, there

is one critical point that is often overlooked by Networked AV integrators: todays
IT managers face network systems of ever-higher complexity that require constant
monitoring, supervision, and device configuration management. To operate in
this environment, IT managers use software-based Network Management System
(NMS) tools to monitor data and voice network performance, health, and configuration. For IT managers, having NMS tools is crucial for successful Networked
AV integration.
Atlonas management system (AMS) offers a software-centralized solution
that enables IT managers to monitor, supervise and remotely configure Atlona AV
devices installed in the network.
With advanced device health monitoring, firmware and
configuration management capabilities as well as the ability
to backup systems for disaster recovery scenarios, Atlona has
handed IT managers, at no cost, a powerful tool offering the
same capabilities for AV that they get (and require) from data
and telephony NMS tools.
David Shamir, Director of Product Management at Atlona
APTOVISION
APTOVISION.COM
AUDIOSCIENCE
It is a well-known fact that IP-based technologies have taken over AV distribution

in the consumer space (e.g. Skype, iTunes, YouTube). It should come as no surprise
then that the $7Bn/year Signal Management & Processing segment of the Pro-AV
market, which currently relies on custom AV switches, is poised to be replaced by
Networked AV. Replacing traditional custom AV switches with IP switches from
vendors such as Cisco and Netgear drastically reduces equipment costs while offering significantly higher levels of performance, scalability and reliability. AptoVision
has been a pioneer in enabling this paradigm shift with its BlueRiver NT+ chipset,
the first Networked AV solution capable of distributing uncompressed audio-video
signals with zero-frame latency over IP switches. Resistance to the Networked AV
paradigm has typically been due to its compromise on quality
(high compression) and high latency. The BlueRiver NT+ helps
eliminate this resistance and completes the range of available
Networked AV products in the industry such that every AV
installation can now utilize Networked AV products without any
compromise. The disruptive power of Ethernet has finally come
to professional AV networks and it is definitely here to stay.
Kamran Ahmed, CEO and co-founder, AptoVision
ATLONA
ATLONA.COM
Networked AV (AV over IP) solutions are available today and gradually becoming
the go-to technology for IT/AV managers and system integrators.
While AV system integrators often tend to focus the AV over IP discussion
AUDIOSCIENCE.COM
The AudioScience Hono AVB line of network audio interfaces have been
designed to facilitate a complete
AVB ecosystem. The Hono family currently consists of the
following products: Hono
AVB Custom: 1U rackmount
modular AVB interface with up to 32x32
channels of AVB and analog, AES/EBU, microphone preamp and GPIO interfaces; Hono AVB Mini: PoE AVB interface with up to 4x4 channels of analog/microphone or AES/EBU I/O and GPIO; Hono AVB VSC: Windows
Virtual Sound Card with up to 64x64 channels of AVB, DirectSound and ASIO
software interfaces.
Having a set of standards is one thing. Making sure everybody implements
them correctly is another. Thats where the AVnu Alliance comes in. The AVnu
Alliance is an industry consortium dedicated to the advancement of professional
quality A/V by promoting the adoption of the IEEE 802.1 Audio Video Bridging
(AVB), and the related IEEE 1722 and IEEE 1722.1 standards. The organization
has created compliance test procedures and processes that ensure AVB interoperability of networked A/V devices. AudioScience is a member of AVnu Alliance and
will be certifying all its AVB products through them to ensure the highest degree of
conformance to the IEEE AVB standards. The Hono AVB Custom and Minis have
already been certified with other Hono products to follow.
Stephen Turner, vice president of AudioScience
A16
NETWORKED AV
BIAMP
BIAMP.COM
Biamp has a proud legacy of fully customizable and configurable medium-scale
platforms. With the Tesira line of digital signal processors, that legacy expanded
to include large, extra large, and super-scale systems. Thanks to Audio Video
Bridging (AVB), an IEEE open standard, Tesiras networking capabilities are
among the most scalable, flexible, and affordable on the market. The Tesira product family includes Tesira SERVER, which can be deployed as a redundant pair;
as well as SERVER-IO, and several expanders. The fixed I/O TesiraFORT DSP
features direct USB connectivity to external soft codecs. Each product offers different networking capabilities, allowing Tesira to suit a wide variety of installation
environments.
Designed to maximize system resources while making system administration easier, networked media systems comprise any audio and/or video solutions
that communicate over a single Ethernet network, sharing processing power and
resources. NMS have many benefits: simplified system design, installation, and
operation; the ability to share processing resources over the network; flexibility to
move endpoints as the system grows; easier expansion into new areas and buildings; and a reduced need for cable and equipment. AV solutions have evolved to
more IT-centric infrastructures, and theres an increased need to provide educational resources that illustrate how to leverage the full benefits of an NMS. Biamps goal
is to increase the awareness of networked media systems as not just the method for
connecting the parts of an AV solution, but also as a tool to be leveraged.
Justin OConnor, product manager of Audio Products at Biamp Systems
CRESTRON
CRESTRON.COM
Crestrons lineup of products are all designed from
the ground up to meet the
demands and requirements of
the global enterprise, and integrate fully with the existing IT
management and deployment
infrastructure. Crestrons .AV
Framework and Pinpoint revolutionize the way people do business and interact
with their conference and huddle rooms.
Toine C. Leerentveld, technology manager, Control Solutions at Crestron
FOCUSRITE
FOCUSRITE.COM
Focusrite has been committed to Networked AV since 2010, when we introduced
our RedNet line of audio-over-IP interfaces to the professional audio community.
We are very committed to audio-over-IP and Dante, as the audio industry is rapidly
adopting this exciting technology.
RedNet is Focusrites flagship range of modular Ethernet-networked audio
interfaces that harnesses the power of Audinates tried and tested Dante digital
audio networking system. We bring studio quality sound to any modern network
audio application.
RedNet interfaces convert various analog and digital audio formats to and from a Dante audioover-IP network. RedNet units
can be combined to form scalable, near-zero latency audio distribution and recording systems,
which allow users to send, receive
and record extremely high-quality
audio over their existing network
infrastructure, while utilizing standard Cat6 Ethernet cables and managed switches.
RedNet provides users with the ability to have high-channel-count, low-latency
solutions that are easy to install and simple to use.
We support AES 67 and the standardization practices it recommends and
the subsequent interoperability it offers. Focusrite | RedNet will be committed to
Network AV long into the future.
Ted White, senior technical sales at Focusrite | RedNet
FSR
FSRINC.COM
FSR has a strong, long term commitment to the Networked AV Environment. Our
products provide a host of solutions for IT and AV managers.
We have been providing infrastructure solutions to the AV and IT industries for
35 years. Our floor boxes are an attractive way of extending connections points
out into the room. FSR table boxes furnish connectivity to the table top. Our wall
boxes and ceiling boxes create alternative storage locations for networked devices.
Electronics such as network switches can be located in our ceiling boxes in rooms
that dont allow space for racks.
In networked AV environments, control is critical. The FSR FLEX system provides touch screen control to IP serial and IR devices. The FLEX product line allows
even the simplest system to have network control. The entire system is very easy to
set up and configure making it a very affordable solution.
As our signal management product line expands networkability will continue to be a key feature. Our line of presentation
switchers, scalers and matrix switchers all feature IP connectivity.
Moving into the future the Networked AV environment will
be core to our future product development.
Chaz Porter, director of Global Sales at FSR
KRAMER
KRAMERUS.COM
Kramer is fully committed to the IT converged world of AV. The market is evolving faster and faster everyday and now we are quickly nearly a tipping point in this
convergence.
The converged AV marketplace has three segments to it; wireless presentation
and collaboration solutions for boardrooms, conference rooms and classrooms,
economical yet comprehensive cloud-based control and AV over IP signal management and distribution.
At Kramer we are working to position ourselves as leaders in the AV over IP
NETWORKED AV
distribution movement. In an IT converged world AV distribution uses the
signal highways that already exist in
nearly every business and educational facility; the IP computer network.
We provide encoders (on ramps) and
decoders (off ramps) to transform proprietary AV signals for transport over
these IP network highways.
Many IP based AV systems are already specified and sold everyday. As network
bandwidths continue to increase and compression technics continue to evolve, this
will get easier and easier and eventually the IP highway will be the AV standard.
At Kramer, we are already leading the overall AV/IT convergence movement
both our award winning K-Touch cloud-based control solutions and our awardwinning VIA Collage, Campus and Connect PRO Wireless Presentation and
Collaboration solutions.
Clint Hoffman, vice president of Marketing at Kramer
LIGHTWARE
LIGHTWAREUSA.COM
For corporations, universities,
hospitals, government facilities
and Fortune 500 businesses
alike, Lightware USA delivers
high-touch audio video (AV)
networked solutions. Our projects range in size from huddle
rooms, command and control
stations, sports arenasand
everything in between.
Lightwares key product
lines (MX Series, 25G Hybrid and HDBaseT solutions) are centered on keeping pace with todays AV technology and digital AV signal management. As our
products and overall solutions have expanded, our core principles still remain the
essence of our business: provide focused solutions for AV signal management, full
AV signal distribution, complete and secure data information and centralized AV
control.
Weve come a long way from our small beginnings years ago. Back then, we
focused on solutions for live events and effective and efficient real time signal
management solutions. As technology has progressively advanced, our dedication to helping all businesses with centralized AV signal management remains an
essential part of what we do.
Greg Byrnes, director of Engineering at Lightware
QSC
QSC.COM
At QSC, we believe that the media networks between all vendor systems should
be interoperable and non-proprietary. We also believe that leveraging existing TCP/
IP network protocols for real time media transport over an Ethernet network is
the best path forward for our industry, rather than attempting to create new A/VCentric protocols which may or may not be adopted by the wider IT community.
As a founding member of the AES-X192 task group, and of the Media
Networking Alliance, QSC continues to support AES67 because we believe it is a

path forward towards this idealthat there should always be a way for Audio-over
IP to inter-operate between these competing solutions that is unencumbered by
the artificial barriers of commercial interest.
TJ Adams, Install DSP Product Manager at QSC
REVOLABS
REVOLABS.COM
Networked AV is an important step in simplifying audio installations in corporate
environments, as the move from analog to VoIP was for telephone installations.
Being able to use standard networks instead of specialized audio cabling allows
easier installations, more freedom in set-up and architecture of solutions. The same advantages of
remote manageability and monitoring,
and flexibility in set-up of networks can
now be achieved for audio networks.
When installing a networked
AV solution, it is important to use
an open standard, allowing different vendor products to work seamlessly together.
Revolabs is committed to the open AVB/TSN standard, allowing our Executive Elite family of wireless microphone systems to be
easily integrated with other vendors audio equipment, providing the desired audio
and communication solution. As a member of the AVnu Alliance we promote the
standard, and plan to integrate it in our future products as well.
Holger Stoltze, senior product manager at Revolabs
UTELOGY CORPORATION
UTELOGY.COM
Theres a saying that what can be measured can be improved. With AV rapidly
moving to an IT model, devices are connected to the network and are now on-line
with the ability to be measured. This opens new opportunities for AV value-added
services: the same types of ROI based services that, frankly, have been available in
the IT space for years.
Networked AV is the strategy surrounding the Utelogy platform. The advantages
start with the ability to add/swap AV components within a software-defined AV
architecture, allowing organizations exponentially more flexibility in responding
to needs, and at lower TCO.
The same way IT devices (phones and printers, etc.) are deployed and managed, AV systems can now be expanded without necessitating complete rip and
replace. Because these devices are on the network, the ability to monitor their
health and status is the basis for providing proactive support servicesa great need
and opportunity. Additionally, analytics data provides a wealth of information that
can be used, among many things,
to determine which devices are or
arent being used, and which devices
are generating the most help ticket
issues. The real beauty is that all of
this is measurable and reportable to
support an ROI model.
Scott McGarrigle, CTO at
Utelogy Corporation
A18
NETWORKED AV
IMPARTING SECURITY
BEST PRACTICES TO
YOUR AV TEAM
NETWORK SECURITY HAS ALWAYS BEEN
PRIORITY-ONE FOR IT MANAGERS AND
DIRECTORS. WITH AV TEAMS BUILDING
NETWORKED SYSTEMS, ARE YOU SURE
THEY ARE AWARE OF THE OPERATIONAL
POLICIES AND RULES?
By Cindy Davis
Harman Professionals, manager Enterprise
Solutions, Paul Zielie warned, Security requirements for AV projects are often discovered at
installation or even worse, on commissioning or
later when the organization runs a security audit.
The cost and schedule impacts of discovering
new critical requirements late in a project can be
significant. The illustration below shows a typical
AV project timeline with various points at which
security requirement discovery occurs.
Security requirements are determined after the
business use case and needs analysis since that
will determine the features included in the project
which need to be secured.
Ideally, security requirements should be developed in the initial planning and design phase of
an AV project. This will ensure that any significant
impacts to the proposed design are accounted
for and budgets for the project are properly set.
The security requirements should be included in
any bid documents and added to the Statement
of Work (SOW). In a consultant-led project this
is achievable. In other acquisition models this
may not be feasible for several reasons including
that the organization does not want to expose
its security to a large group of potential integrators, preferring to work with only the contracted
integrator.
If the security requirements cannot be determined prior to the integration contract award,
language should be put in the tender that requires
the offerors to specify standard security con-
figurations and that specific security

requirements will be determined after
award with equitable adjustments for
changes, said Zielie. This will allow
a baseline comparison of security costs and still
allow the project to meet the specific needs of the
organization.
In all cases, security requirements should be
agreed upon and added to the statement of work,
project plan, and acceptance criteria prior to the
final design sign off with the responsibilities and
deliverables of each party, including the network
configurations furnished by the network provider,
typically a customer responsibility.
The Sextant Groups Glenn added, Internally
the policy-level decisions, the security policylevel decisions, those management decisions
that takes time to work through internally and
especially at a large corporation or university, so
you want to engage those folks as early as possible
so they can work on that internally. We can guide
them through that process, but ultimately those
are decisions and policies they have to do develop
in-house.
AV SECURITY BEST PRACTICES
There are simple configuration steps that are often
overlooked by the team doing the integration
which leave the systems wide open.
1. Change the default passwords
There is no excuse for leaving the system
open to anyone with access to Google
2. Separate Administrator and User accounts

and privileges
If possible each user should have their
own account and password with just the
privileges they need to do their job.
3. Enable auditing logs
If there is a breach, these will help find
out how it happened so that changes
can be made to prevent it in the future
4. Disable unnecessary services
Services such as telnet, ssh, http, https,
and ftp can have vulnerabilities which
are unknown at the time they are programmed in the system. If you dont
require a service and shut it down, you
are not vulnerable to future exploits on
that service.
5. Enable encryption
If you can use ssh instead of telnet and
https instead of http you will decrease
the likelihood of someone discovering
information via intercepting network
traffic.
Modern IT security is implemented with a
Defense in Depth approach. Defense in Depth
is a concept in which multiple layers of security
controls are placed throughout an information
technology (IT) system. Its intent is to provide
NETWORKED AV
NS
ER
AT
IO
AU
DIT
OP
EM
ST
SY
PR
OC
UR
E
INS
TA
LL
CO
MM
ISS
ION
DE FINA
SIG L
N
DE
SIG SIG
NO N
FF
D
AW
AR
US
E
SY
AC STEM
CE
PT
AN
CE
HIGH RISK BUT TYPICAL
BU
PH ILD
AS
E
CO
PH NTR
AS AC
E
T
ACCEPTABLE
BID
AN NEE
AL DS
YS
IS
DE
SIG
N
DIS
CO
VE
RY
DE
PH SIGN
AS
E
IDEAL
The illustration above shows a typical AV project timeline with various points at which security requirement discovery occurs.
redundancy in the event a security control fails

or a vulnerability is exploited. For example, if
an intruder gets past the firewall, they still have
to know a user name and password in order to
log into a protected system. In practice, security
should be implemented everywhere it is practical.
Do you leave your safe unlocked because your
house has an alarm?
Often AV systems do not have the types of security controls required by a security policy. If this is
the case, the defense in depth approach can often
be applied in order to put other security controls
in place to meet the original intent. The process
for this is called mitigation. Mitigation involves
putting in configurations, external controls, or
policies that lower risk factors to point that the
risk is acceptable.
For example, if telnet is not allowed by policy
because it is insecure, but it is the only way to control the required device, there are three options:
1. Use a different device.
2. Dont control the device.
3. Mitigate the risk.
In this case the risk is that an intruder could
obtain passwords to the system that are sent insecurely. A possible mitigation would be to put the
device on an isolated network and restrict telnet
traffic to that network so that an intruder will not
have access to the traffic.
PUTTING THE AV SYSTEMS ON A
SEPARATE VLAN SUPPORTS DEFENSE
IN DEPTH
There are limited valid reasons for remote access
to the AV equipment that controls potentially

sensitive meetings. An Access Control List (ACL),
a list of traffic allowed between two networks
filtered by IP address and port number, can be
configured on the router between the AV VLAN
and the rest of the network to stop unauthorized traffic. For example, there is no reason that
Accounting needs to access a projector, and there
is no reason an AV device needs to access the payroll server, so that type of traffic can be stopped.
The separate VLAN technique is supported by
the fact that AV equipment communicates primarily among the AV devices with limited connectivity
to the data network. With an AV VLAN devices in
different parts of a building will communicate
directly without having to traverse other networks.
This can be a big advantage for applications like
streaming or digital signage.
Additionally, network admins like AV VLANs
because there is often significant broadcast traffic
between AV devices and these broadcasts will not
forward through a router. One of the uses of these
broadcasts is device discovery so within a VLAN
all the devices can discover each other. If they were
attached to various subnets around a building
more configuration may be required.
In the case of devices with network connections that utilize the Ethernet connection for
both control and media, such as a VTC Codec
or streaming encoder/decoder, the device should
reside on the VLAN that makes the most sense for
the media, but a route should be available to the
AV VLAN with an ACL to allow for control traffic.
In using an AV VLAN, it is important to explain
to the AV team, They can lock down a port just
like any other port on the networkthat its a

segmented VLAN so its not able to even communicate with the corporate LAN, said Glenn.
The only thing it can communicate with are
AV devices, not corporate content. In situations
needing the highest level of security such as government installations AV is usually on a physically
separate network.
LACK OF AUDIO ENCRYPTION TODAY
It is not news to most network savvy AV folks
that audio packets are not encrypted, but it is
something IT departments might not be aware of.
Every audio product thats in the commercial AV
space today, that employs networked audionone
of them are encrypted, said QSC Systems, director of installed systems, Product Management,
TJ Adams. CobraNet, AVB, RAVENNA, Q-LAN,
Danteyou cannot encrypt those today. So the
only choicewere all in the same boat as of the
end of 2015is to put them on separate networks
which are physically isolated from the data network, if security is a concern.
Even if the media streams are encrypted,
most AV products use the same security paradigm
that is used for HDCP where any valid receiver
can decrypt the stream, Zielie added. When
these streams are transmitted via multicast, any
host on the network that asks for the stream can
get it. Therefore, even if the stream is encrypted
or isolated on another network, the only protection you receive is from network eavesdropping.
Anyone who is allowed to book a conference
room could listen in to a meeting they are not
authorized to attend.
A20
NETWORKED AV
Andrew Simmons, Senior IT Technician, Raven Industries

Photo by Lauren Neff
THE AV/IT BALANCING ACT

TECH MANAGERS NEED MUCH MORE THAN JUST RJ45 PORTS.
By Carolyn Heinze
NETWORKED AV
Employ the term AV/IT convergence
and youre often met with exasperation.
Its already happened, people will
argue. Its old news. But while the marriage of the two has been a prime topic
of discussion for quite some time, some
believe that we havent gotten past the
honeymoon phase.
TJ Adams, director of product management for installed systems at QSC
LLC, an audio products manufacturer
headquartered in Costa Mesa, California,
spent the first half of his career in IT, part
of that time as an IT manager at an airport. He argues that the AV industry needs
to begin thinking of itself as a subset of
IT, much the way the telephony industry
now does. Telephony and Information
Systems were separate industries until
Cisco created a little niche with their
CallManager 1.0 [in the mid-Nineties],
a telephone-based on a computer server,
and now thats become the norm, he
said. As it stands, however, Adams argues
that the vast majority of AV products have
not made the full transition to IT. The
first wave was practically every manufacturer in the AV industry put an RJ45 port
frankly, thats what IT is resolved to at the moment

IT tends to resolve to, well put it on a separate
network, well physically isolate it. That way, no one
in the building or on the campus will even know
its there. And so thats one of the areas we have to
step up in. Weve got an RJ45 port on our boxes.
Now we need to put security in place thats world
class and on par with what their expectations are.
Another challenge AV presents to IT is that latency: while it doesnt really matter if email is delivered
in precise real time, with audio and video, this isnt
acceptable. [IT professionals]are used to asynchronous protocols like email or even, to some degree,
their telephony systems, which are more forgiving
of a network that is not operating on a real-time
basis, Adams said. When you think about a
network, its totally different than a point-to-point
system like we think of in AV. Network switches
are generally calibrated to send packets in blasts,
which are then reconstructed and buffered at the
receiving end. That system, that way of thinking,
doesnt work for anything in the AV space, whether
its video or audio. It has to get there on time, it
has to get there in orderthose packets have to be
ordered on the network.
Andrew Simmons, senior IT technician at Raven
Industries, a technology developer for agriculture
and industry headquartered in Sioux Falls, S.D.,
While AV/IT convergence is about managing

technology, its also about managing people. At
West Virginia University in Morgantown, W.V.,
Spencer Graham, professional technologist, manager of operations for the WVU Information
Stations, oversees the management of the universitys 150 digital signs from a central management
platform by Four Winds Interactive. Graham noted
that while different departments and colleges are
responsible for programming content, they must
follow the guidelines and procedures that were
developed by his team. Its a nightmare when
its not a centralized model because its herding
chipmunks at that pointeverybodys doing their
own thing, theres no continuity, and theres no
continuity in things right down to the branding,
he said. We make people do things by the book.
The brand is the brand. This allows us not to have
some of those problems.
These issues aside, Adams believes that the AV
industry is making genuine inroads in bridging
the gap. I think more manufacturers are learning
that they cant just pay lip service to being on the
IT platform, and that they have to truly re-architect,
in some cases, their platforms, to make them suitable, he said. The challenge here is fulfilling not
only the needs of the end users who are looking
to AV technology to streamline work, but also
I think more manufacturers are learning that they cant just pay lip service to
being on the IT platform, and that they have to truly re-architect, in some cases,
their platforms, to make them suitable. The challenge here is fulfilling not
only the needs of the end users who are looking to AV technology to streamline
work, but also those of the tech managers who are responsible for keeping these
systems operational.
on their stuff, and so now it became what
they think of as an IT product. But thats
only the first step.
Tech managers, Adams acknowledges,
need more than just RJ45 ports; they
want to know that the AV products theyre
considering play well on their networks.
Then, of course, theres the issue of security: once interoperability is taken care of, is the
network vulnerable because appropriate security
protocols arent embedded into these systems? [As
a tech manager,] I want to run my email as well as
my networked audio and video on the same segment or the same physical infrastructureI dont
want to run a separate network, he said. But
notes that one of the challenges he and his colleagues face is competing with what consumer
technology is capable of delivering to end users in
their personal lives. Its going so fast that now the
businesses are really having to catch up because
[their end users] are demanding the high quality
video that they are used to at home, he said. He
notes that last year, Raven increased its Internet
bandwidth at most of its remote locations, which
has helped address this demand. Before, our MPLS
connections were lacking, and so in the last year,
as technology speeds ahead the pricing is getting
extremely competitive, so we were able to leverage that and get higher Internet speeds, so thats
helped.
those of the tech managers who are responsible for

keeping these systems operational. The internal IT
provider isnt going to want to buy analog gear, or
point-to-point gear anymore. Theyre going to want
to buy something that fits their technology paradigm. There are more and more companies that are
embracing that, and I think if we stay on that trajectory, we will eventually become a subset of IT.
info
QSC LLC
www.qsc.com
RAVEN INDUSTRIES
www.ravenind.com
WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY
www.wvu.edu
A22
AV TECHNOLOGY 2016 ISE

BEST OF SHOW WINNERS
NewBay Medias industry-leading AV brand, AV Technology, is celebrating the new products their judges have
deemed Best of Show at the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE), which convened in Amsterdam in February. ISE is
thelargest pro-AV and systems integration trade event in Europe with more than 1,100 exhibitors and65,000
international attendees.
The Best of Show awards are designed to recognize new and outstanding products exhibited at ISE 2016.
Products are nominated by the manufacturers, and each brands editor assembled a team of experts to judge
the entries on site.
In a field dominated by innovative solutions, these winning products mark the best of the best in
the global pro-AV marketplace, stated Margot Douaihy, editorial director of AV Technology. We asked our expert
judges at ISE 2016 to evaluate each product based on the proposed value proposition/ROI, richness and relevance
of the feature set, perceived ease of installation, ease of management, and user friendliness. Ultimately, what separated these products from other solid solutions is that they have a special appeal for technology managers and directors in increasingly converged
AV/IT environments.
AV Technology 2016 ISE Best of Show Winners
AMX SVSi by Harman 4K Ultra HD solution (AMX NMX-ENC-N2151)
Hall Research EMX-AMP
Aurora Multimedia IPX-TCW3
IDK Corporation MSD-402 Simple-to-use Presentation Switcher
AptoVision BlueRiver NT
Listen Technologies ListenWiFi
Arthur Holm DynamicX2Share
Matrox Mura IPX 4K Capture and IP Encoder & Decoder Cards
AV Stumpfl Fullwhite Curve
SMARTKapp IQ
Cambridge Sound QT Conference Room edition
Prysm Enterprise
ConXeasy SB603 Sound Bar
Vaddio PCC Premier
Da-Lite Da-Plex Semi-Rigid
VDO360 Clearwater
Draper Optically Seamless TecVision
WePresent WiPG
DVI Gear DisplayNet
ESP/SurgeX
COMMENTS FROM THE AV TECHNOLOGY ISE 2016

BEST OF SHOW JUDGES:
AMX SVSI by Harman 4K Ultra HD solution (AMX NMXENC-N2151): This product was very impressive. 4K content was
streamed over 1GB with hardly any latencyawesome!
Aptovision BlueRiver NT:Sick of complex custom matrix switches?
This is a solid option for extending/switching AV signals over standard
IP switches. Built-in Gigabit Ethernet switch is the future.
Aurora Multimedia IPX-TCW3:Impressed that this can work with
any infrastructure and with an unlimited amount of transceivers.
Arthur Holm DynamicX2Share:Very sleek and innovative solution
to the issue of too much AV gear on the conference room table. The
monitor retraction and clean design is intuitive.
AV Stumpfl Fullwhite Curve:Finally a custom curved screen option
that is architecturally pleasing. Sleek framing stays hidden behind the
52
All winners and nominees will be honored in a forthcoming NewBay Media

ISE 2016 Best of Show ebook.
edgeless screen material.

Cambridge Sound QT Conference Room edition: Sound masking is only half the story with this system. Consider the QT Conference
Room edition an essential of todays rapidly evolving workforce, offering
sound intelligibility and privacy in an elegant system.
ConXeasy SB603 Sound Bar:This soundbar combines high quality
audio with the ease of connectivity. I love the built-in Bluetooth aptX
application for streaming audio.
Da-Lite Da-Plex Semi-Rigid:A nice product to address an age-old
problem of size and logistics related to a large, rigid projection screen.
Draper Optically Seamless TecVision: The mixture of seamless,
high grain screen fabric with its high contrast characteristic makes the
Draper Optically Seamless TecVision screen a unique and outstanding solution in prestigious AV installations. Optimum performance is
achieved with simple installation at any size to suit the intended loca-
tion and ambient lighting condition.

DVI Gear DisplayNet: No longer held captive by proprietary matrix
switchers; uncompressed 4K video over 10GbE Ethernet technology.
ESP SurgeX:Finallythe ability to monitor, analyze and address power
conditions and energy data for our integrated solutions. This completes the
story for proactive and remote managed services.
Hall Research EMX-AMP:I love this product. So many great features in a
small form factor. It is the perfect piece to complete any system integration.
IDK
Corporation
MSD-402
Simple-to-use
Presentation
Switcher: Instant, out-of-the-box success is the key for this presentation
switcher. Tech managers will appreciate the built-in scan converter.
Prysm Enterprise:Prysms unique solution to real world use of remote
and mobile collaboration makes this an outstanding system bringing disparate teams together no matter where they are located: whether that is in
the office, at a client site, on the road or at home. The ability to integrate all
forms of video, image, and textand share across personal and presentation
worktopsstreamline the business environment and delivers the ultimate in
efficiency and team effectiveness.
Listen Technologies ListenWiFi:The ListenWiFi system sets a standard
for assistive listening in the BYOD age. Couldnt be easier to manage and is
incredibly user-friendly. The WiFi option fills a need. A lot of various uses!
The sleek app is a bonus.
Matrox Mura IPX 4K Capture and IP Encoder & Decoder Cards:Need
to add half dozen IP streams onto the wall for a dynamic signage application?
Matrox lets you do it with multi-channel 4K or HD encoding and decoding
over standard IP. Low-bitrate, stunning quality. Fantastic that this works with
existing Matrox cards and graphics cards as it can be integrated into existing
systems.
SMARTkapp iQ: The intuitive smart screen that enable the sharing of
content via BYOD platforms is great for education. The QR code feature to
access the results is brilliant. And the unbound workspace is great for brainstormers for thinking outside of the box.
Vaddios PCC Premier: Vaddio claims that they are bringing camera
control into the 21st century, and they back it up with the powerful new PCC
Premier. The PCC Premier virtualizes camera control so tech managers can
control up to 88 cameras via an IP connection. The built-in decoder gives this
an edge over peer solutions.
VDO360 Clearwater: This all-in-one computer and PTZ solution has
many possible applications!
WePresent WiPG-1600: Traditional lecture-based classrooms are being
renovated or replaced with active-learning designs. Workplaces are also
reflecting the general shift toward collaboration. Even though it is robust
capable of a 64-user queuethe WiPG-1600 is an easy to use, easy to manage BYOD solution for wireless sharing. Its AES-128-bit encryption will give
technology managers piece of mind.
moreonline
See more at: http://www.avnetwork.com/news/0006/newbay-media-announces-ise-2016-best-of-show-winners/96816#sthash.6LoYUdGt.dpuf
4K HDMI Audio Extractor with 50 watt Ampliier

EMX-I-AMP
Extracts audio from HDMI input

Provides 3.5mm audio input that can be mixed with audio from HDMI
Volume can be controlled externally via simple rotary encoder, RS232, and IP
Built-in graphical web interface for control of audio mix and volume
Provides 2nd RS232 output to control other devices such as projectors
Directly connects to 8 ohm speakers, and features variable line-level output
A New Wave in Connectivity
SERVING YOU SINCE 1984
www.hallresearch.com
714-641-6607
AMX SVSI BY HARMAN

NMX-ENC-N2151
JPEG 2000 4K UHD VIDEO OVER IP ENCODER WITH KVM
The widespread deployment of 4K Ultra HD video is inevitable. Along
Standard features, like input and output scaling, bi-directional serial,
with that comes delivery challenges. To ensure that customers AV
IR, embedded 7.1 audio and KVM-over-IP extension, are included. The
infrastructure does not become obsolete, HARMAN has brought about
NMX-ENC-N2151-C and NMX-DEC-N2251-C form-factors are compat-
a solution to bring Ultra HD bandwidth to a manageable size. Our
ible with the NMX-ACC-N9206 card cage for high-density applications.
N2151/N2152 4K UHD Video over IP Encoders and Decoders allow you
The AMX SVSI encoders and decoders offer high-quality, high-effi-
to stream multiple 4K sources with resolutions up to 4096x2160 over a
ciency, JPEG 2000-based Visually Lossless compression and is the perfect
single gigabit connection.
solution for any low-latency application and video matrix smaller than
Ultra HD signals from the NMX-ENC-N2151 encoder provided simultaneously as a JPEG 2000-compressed 200600 Mbps stream through
32x32. Common applications include classrooms, conference rooms,

and performing arts spaces and sports bars.
the RJ-45 connector and an uncompressed stream through the small-
Its appeal for AV technology managers and IT directors in an increas-
form-pluggable (SFP+) connector compatible with fiber or copper. Any
ingly converged AV/IT environment won the title of Best of Show 16 at
source can be sent to any number of displays by routing through layer-3
Integrated Systems Europe.
switches. System scalability is limited only by uplink and stacking connector bandwidths but can accommodate up to 100 Ultra HD video
FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT HTTP://WWW.AMX.
sources at once.
COM/PRODUCTS/NMX-ENC-N2151.ASP
54
ADVERTORIAL
Distribute Your Media Anywhere, Anytime, Anyplace with Unlimited Expandability!

Desktop
House
of
Worship
Board
Rooms
Digital
Signage
Distance
Learning
Sports
Bars
Entmt
&
Events
EDU
IPTV
Enterprise
NOC
EOC
Corporate
Comm
Conf
Rooms
Huddle
Rooms
GOV
Military
Video-Over-IP Encoder /
Decoder System Solutions
N1000 Series
AV distribution and switching for economical, in-room solutions.
N2000 Series
The perfect solution for matrix switching and distribution of HD
and 4K Ultra HD, Cinema-grade video on the LAN.
N3000 Series
Stream and control HD multi-media on the LAN or WAN with SVSIs
H.264 encoders and decoders.
www.amx.com/svsi
CMD
&
Control
Casinos
NOW SEE THIS

Sites Worth Watching
digitalsignageexpo.net
infocommconnections.org
TheGoods
installation-international.com
Protean Products for Problem-Solving

Tech Managers
BOSE PANARAY SERIES IV
The What: Bose Professional has updated its Panaray 802
and 402 sound-reinforcement loudspeakers and is now branding them
under the name Panaray Series IV.
The What Else: All Bose
Professional Panaray installed soundreinforcement loudspeakers feature full-range
driver arrays, eliminating the need for tweeters and crossovers, to provide unsurpassed reliability and natural vocal clarity. Additionally, a Bose
Articulated Array designwhere drivers are set at precise angles to provide
wide, even coveragecan reduce the number of loudspeakers required for
many installations. The Panaray 402 Series IV features a wide 120-degree
vertical by 60-degree horizontal Articulated Array design, while the 73 Hz
low-frequency response covers the entire vocal range to provide an even further cost-effective installed sound-reinforcement solution. The Panaray 802
Series IV loudspeaker features a 120-degree-vertical-by-100-degree-horizontal
Articulated Array design, with a 52 Hz low-frequency response that can eliminate the need for subwoofers.
The Bottom Line: The Series IV models build upon the legacy of the
Panaray brand, retaining the features and performance that made their predecessors popular. Both Series IV models have been updated with new installation options to further facilitate simple and versatile mounting. Refinements
to both models better suit indoor and outdoor installed applications.
HALL RESEARCH UH2X-P1

The What: The Hall Research UH2X-P1 is an extender utilizing the new
HDBaseT 2.0 standard to extend uncompressed HDMI, USB 2.0, ethernet,
RS-232, IR, and PoEover a single Cat-5e/6 cable.
The What Else: The plug-n-play extender supports all PC and HDTV resolutions including 4K (UHD) and can extend video along with IR, RS-232,
USB, and IP using a single run of Cat-5e/6 cable up to 100 meters (330 feet).
The PoH/PoE compliant extender includes a power supply that plugs into the
transmitter end. The receiver gets its power through the Cat-6 cable per IEEE
802.3af standard as required by HDBaseT Alliance. The receiverincludes an
56
integrated two-port USB 2.0 hub,making it ideal for remote KVM applications. The USB extension is transparent
to the PC Host and requires no drivers
or software. In addition, the UH2X-P1 featuresaudio return from receiver to
the sender. The source for the independent audio return path is user selectable. It can be either from the ARC pin of the HDMI output connector (ARC
signal from the connected TV), or from a separate SPDIF audio input connector available on the receiver.
The Bottom Line: The extender kit consists of a compact transmitter and
a corresponding receiver. Fully compliant with HDBaseT specifications, the
devices are designed to work with all other certified HDBaseT 1.0 and 2.0
products. For example, the UH2X-P1 transmitter can be connected to displayswith native HDBaseT inputssuch as Panasonics Digital Link equipped
projectors.
HITACHI PTZ SERIES

The What: The Hitachi PTZ Series of high-definition
cameras features six new models aimed at the house
of worship vertical market.
The What Else: The PTZ Series offers detailed
monitoring on screen with 2.07 million effective
pixels, as well as 1920 x 1080 resolution. For large
worship spaces and low-light shooting, the PTZ
Series also offers adaptive noise reduction and up to seven cameras can be
daisy chained together to eliminate the need for multiple-control cables.
Thanks to high-quality image processing, the PTZ Series features a high signalto-noise ratio and high resolution using noise reduction technology, while
producing color reproduction using a non-linear matrix circuit, and reducing false color signal phenomena. In addition, a Full HD, two million pixel
CMOS imaging sensor offers bright colors and high sensitivity.
The Bottom Line: Featuring easy operation, clear imagery, and a low total
cost of ownership, Hitachis PTZ line of cameras is designed to provide an
ideal solution for a variety of needsincluding videoconferencing, video
recording, and Internet broadcastingfor venues of all sizes.
Classifieds
adindex
flypacks & road cases
Adaptive Technologies
19
adapttechgroup.com
AMX
60
amx.com/enova
AMX SVSI by Harman
55
amx.com/svsi
Audio Technica Us Inc.
17
audio-technica.cm
Barco Inc.
A9
barco.com
Black Box
A8
blackbox.com
Contemporary Research
13 contemporaryresearch.com
Crestron
crestron.com
Datapath, LTD
datapath.co.uk
Digital Signage Expo/DSE
59
dse2016.com
FDW CORP
23
fwdcorp.com
Hall Research Technologies
53
hallresearch.com
Kramer Electronics USA Inc.
A4
kramerus.com
Listen Technologies Corp
11
listentech.com
Nab Association
27
nabshow.com
North American Cable
25
nace.tv
Revolabs, Inc.
A6
revolabs.com
Rose Electronics
21
rose.com
shure.com
Shure Inc.
Sonic Shock Corporation
29
fiber cables
furniture
Have Your Cake
ee
S
And Eat It Too!
Have your eye-level rack space

AND video monitor! Its one of
the 100s of innovative options
with HSA
Rolltop Desks!
www.hsarolltops.com
(574) 255-6100
AVT_2015_AlternateUpper_Cake.indd 1
acoustical products
tm
5/14/15 1:56 PM
sonicshock.com
Utelogy
A13
utelogy.com
Vaddio
vaddio.com
TO ADVERTISE TODAY CALL ZAHRA AT 212.378.0400 X517
57
BACK-TO-SCHOOL
TECH SHOPPING
hen we hear the words back
to school, many of us think
of the traditional late summer
consumer shopping season as
parents and students stock up for the new
academic year. However, the truth is that for
manufacturers, retailers, and decision-makers
on college technology teams, the back to
school season begins much earlier. In fact, as
soon as the calendar year changes, its already
time to start planning for the next school year.
Among a wide range of products that are
used in classrooms across a variety of industries, technology is often at the forefront for
parents, educators, and manufacturers alike to
consider for the academic year. According to a
study, Trends in Digital Learning, conducted
by Project Tomorrow, 78 percent of parents said
the best way for their children to learn citizenready skills is to use technology on a regular
basis. Students also agree on the importance
of technology in the classroom and in fact, 64
percent of middle school students stated that
effective technology increases their interest in
what they are learning.
Each year, the first quarter is a busy time for
new technology devices being introduced so
the industry often has its eye on those that are
relevant for the education community. Trade
shows like CES, FETC and TCEA are often a
focus for many of these decision makers so its

key for manufacturers to attend and exhibit
new products to make sure they are visible during the early planning and purchasing stages.
The education community is already starting
to plan for the year ahead and administrators
are beginning to budget and identify the products they want to bring into their classrooms.
Between 2010 and 2011, overall spending
for education technology in the U.S. reached
$632 billion and analysts say this will only
continue to increase. So the question becomes,
with so much being spent on education technology, how can manufacturers ensure they
are providing superior products for the classroom that meet educators needs? Well, as
trends in education technology mirror those
in consumer technology, many of the same
principles apply.
When it comes to selecting new products
for the classroom, those that offer a lower total
cost of ownership (TCO) are certainly among
the most ideal, especially when considering
their long-term use. Brands that offer reliable
products that are built to last will be the most
appealing so there is little maintenance and
fewer purchases required to keep the technology running properly. For instance, educators
are relying heavily on the use of projectors in
classrooms, so one way to still use the new-
est technology and maintain a lower TCO is

to select projectors that are lamp-free and do
not need continuous lamp replacements. In
addition, a lower TCO includes products and
brands that feature robust warranty programs
so the decision makers will have peace of mind
knowing that the products they choose will last
and are backed by the manufacturer and they
wont need to continuously buy replacements
for each new school year.
While, each school has a different budget
for new classroom technologies, it may not be
feasible to purchase the newest or most expensive model that your brand offers. Offering
a range of similar products with a variety of
features and at different prices points can keep
your brand relevant and top of mind regardless of how much the decision maker is able
to spend.
Weve also started to see sustainability make
its way into classrooms, as many products
on the market take into account the technologys impact on the environment. Providing
products that feature recycled, recyclable, or
low-impact features and components also add
peace of mind in our now eco-conscious world.
Never before has there been so much technology offered within the classroom. With the
education and technology landscapes both
rapidly shifting each year, its critical for educators to remain focused on providing the most
robust classroom technologies for students so
they can help them both learn and grow.
Joe Gillio is senior director of Strategic
Planning and Marketing of Casios Business
Projector Division.
Big Ideas
mercial grade hardware such as flat-panels

and media players has been blurring. Lower
cost usually relates to lower performance,
which can be adequate for the simplest of
applications. These low cost elements are
advertised as plug and play, because little or
no support will be provided given the lower
profit margins. The technologies along with
the supply and operating approaches needed
for the tech
The greatest change in 2016 will be in the
level of capability related to digital signage

application. End users have learned to benefit from suppliers quest for market share
and revenues and many have an over-arching
understanding of the medium that exceeds
that of suppliers in their deeper knowledge of
their element.
Lyle Bunn will present Capitalizing on
Your Opportunities: Dynamic Signage for
Integrators, at DSE 2016. For more information on DSE 2016, visit www.dse2016.com.
By Joe Gillio
(continued from page 9)
advances in detection leap forward related to

presence, notice, dwell, sentiment, and actions
while respecting the privacy of individuals, patterns emerge from data as actionable insights.
The value for the end user of digital media
is in its improving price/performance proposition. The line between consumer and com-
58
How Its Done
Enova DGX 3200
Enova DGX 100 Series

Simple & Secure AV Distribution
Th Enova DGX delivers pixel-perfect video and clear audio to any environment from inThe
room meeting spaces to campus-wide distribution up to 10km in distance. The 100 Series
ro
has been internally re-architected to make installation, management and control of the entire
ha
Enova DGX system, including DXLink Transmitters and Receivers, more intuitive than ever.
En
Parametric EQs on every output and true audio breakaway on all I/O
Powerful web interface with real-time feedback on signal status including quality levels
and diagnostics, as well as full setup of DXLink endpoints
Integrated NX Control Security enhancements address user authentication, role-based
access control, encyption, and network service security

AV Technology - February-March

Enviado por

Dados do documento

Direitos autorais

Formatos disponíveis

Compartilhar este documento

Compartilhar ou incorporar documento

Opções de compartilhamento

Você considera este documento útil?

Este conteúdo é inapropriado?

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

AV Technology - February-March

Enviado por

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

T H E

THE IT MANAGERS GUIDE TO NETWORKED AV

MEET YOUR IT MANAGER:

Is the Internet of Things changing the

New AV Products for

FREE SOFTWARE DESIGNED

VISIT OUR WEBSITE FOR AN INSPIRING VISUAL

Tel: +1 484 679 1553 www.datapath.co.uk

Technology that works

CONNECTING THE DOTS

DIGITAL SIGNAGE INDUSTRY

THE CAMPUS: WHERE AV

their annual client meetings to their office

A1THE IT MANAGERS GUIDE TO

NEW & NOTABLE AV PRODUCTS

10 Q&A WITH CARLISLE B. WILLARD,

BLE & IOT LEAD DIGITAL

Giving your higher ed tech end users the

MEET YOUR MANAGER

No longer confined to a rectangle box,

improvements this year.

PH.D., DUKE UNIVERSITY

Meeting room signage & interactivity

Expect iterative & breakthrough

how its done

BACK-TO-SCHOOL TECH SHOPPING

Visit us online at www.shure.com to find out more.

Cindy Davis Contributing Editor

Janis Crowley Advertising Sales

ART & PRODUCTION

NEWBAY MEDIA CORPORATE

LIST RENTAL: 914-925-2449,

PRINTED IN THE USA.

1 Color - 100 Black / 40 Black

1 Color - 100 Black

IP ROUTERS AND ROUTING

ing and receiving computers. The IP

n the last Byte-Sized

If youre using a camera,

EXPECT ITERATIVE & BREAKTHROUGH

The line between

Meet Your Manager

Q&A WITH CARLISLE B. WILLARD, PH.D., IT MANAGER,

rinity Technology Services (TTS) is an office within the

Carlisle B. Willard, Ph.D., Duke University

time while we upgrade all the rooms. The

Each school or department has its own way

but they are designed for an assumed lighter

Relatively few manufacturers will provide direct purchase, but since

entitys desire to have things my way, but the

fact, common needs. When that is realized, it

of smart spaces to enhance branding, David also

turer recently partnered with Zebra Technologies on

6.) SKIP THE LINE

Network Microphones with Direct Dante Protocol

AUDIO AND CONTROL DATA FROM A SINGLE SOURCE.

Dante is a trademark of Audinate Pty Ltd.

Essentially, what Google wanted us to do was build an open infrastructure

I think, are most interested in

and management perspective, these schools can be a

with the main difference being that its Resource

An IoE Game-Changer in 2016?

ments where, once again, the number of devices is

than just an app and a device soon, or people are