AV-over-IP continues to pick up traction among integrators in the ProAV industry, but there are still quite a few that find themselves questioning if they should start implementing this technology. In fact, 45% of respondents in a 2019 industry survey revealed that they either do not embrace, or are on the fence with adopting AV-over-IP as a viable AV distribution solution – nearly half. So why all the hesitation, and furthermore, why is now the right time for using AV-over-IP?
Let’s start with asking what is AV-over-IP? It stands for Audio-Visual over Internet Protocol, which might sound a little challenging to some AV integrators who don’t know anything about networking.
AV-over-IP (also known as AVoIP) refers to the use of standard network equipment to transmit and switch video and audio. At its foundation the basic AV-over-IP system is quite simple. Sources are being encoded, connecting through a network switch to decoders that are then connected to displays (see image below).
Image courtesy of Atlona
What about more complex AV-over-IP applications in ProAV? Just take a look at the sample below where you see converged usage of Digital Signage, IP Surveillance, Content Servers, Blu-Ray players, Set Top Boxes, and Personal Computers…. all on the same network.
When looking at these examples it may cause some AV dealers to avoid taking on AVoIP due to apprehensions about the technology, networking skills, cost, interoperability, flexibility and scalability. Let’s address some of these concerns head on.
There are numerous products available for AVoIP, which can cause difficulty deciding which technology, networking hardware or brands to use. In contrast with past attempts at accelerating AV over IP, it’s not just one or two obscure vendors that are stepping into this change. The largest and most influential AV vendors in the industry are leading the change. For example, the Software Defined Video over Ethernet (SDVoE) Alliance is an eco-system of companies in and around the AV-over-IP space, working together to create a fantastic platform for the next generation of audiovisual applications. Not only do all SDVoE products and solutions work together, network hardware manufacturers, like NETGEAR, are making it easier than ever to deploy them. SDVoE partners provide the audio-video products while NETGEAR, one of the founding members, provides the backbone network products that make it all possible, with interoperability being key.
What about the networking skill sets and support required for these systems? NETGEAR, for example, not only will provide design engineers (with ProAV experience) to help specify products, but will actually provide an optimal network topology design for you. Their Pro AV Engineering Services team are trained AV and IT professionals to help you both before and after the sale as well as during installation, all for free. This takes a huge load off of the AV system designer and often leads to the best outcome for the project.
NETGEAR has also taken out much of the complexity with setting up an Ethernet switch with the various protocols required for video and audio to ride over the network. Preconfiguring protocols like IGMP, Multicast and VLANs make the network switch a plug-n-play device right out of the box, saving time, money and resources usually dedicated to this task. NETGEAR’s IGMP Plus™ is a fantastic and unique feature simplifying the deployment of multicast solutions, which especially helps people who are uncomfortable with some of the more complicated IT configurations such as Layer 3 Protocol Independent Multicast or PIM routing.
AVoIP also solves the distance limitations with traditional AV cables (by utilizing copper Ethernet & fiber cables instead), is more scalable and flexible than traditional circuit-based AV products (by adding more ports & stacking the switches), and equipment costs are decreasing. All of these factors will contribute to more adoption and it will only get better as time goes on. IP convergence has already happened with telephony (POTS vs. VoIP), surveillance (analog vs. IP cameras), audio (ex. Dante, AVB) and other industries, and at some point, everything else will move to the network. AV-over-IP is happening right now and the ProAV industry will continue its way down this inevitable path, so don’t get left behind.
Don’t you think it’s time to invest in AV-over-IP to advance the future of your business? Please drop me a line and share your experience, or let me know if you would like some help getting started.
There’s a great solution for integrators wanting to learn a
lot more about all aspects of Digital Signage. The Digital Signage
Federation(DSF) has worked with subject matter experts from around the
industry to create over two dozen online classes as part of a
micro-credentialing program. Training covers everything from the basics,
to specific topics for hardware, software, scheduling, project planning and
content. Courses were developed by Digital Signage Federation members working
as volunteers to deliver educational content to industry peers.
Courses are about 30 minutes so they are perfect for learning a topic at whatever pace makes sense. Courses include a short quiz at the end and return a certificate of completion when done. Courses area always being added throughout the year as more contributors add to the growing library.
These courses are limited to DSF members, so you do need to
first register yourself or your company to gain access. Once in, there’s hours
of courseware available.
Ryan Cahoy, DSF Board Member and Managing Director of Rise Display provides some clarity about
how these courses were developed.
“The Digital Signage Federation’s mission is to help
our industry grow through ongoing education. We have a very diverse
membership so our approach has been From Members – By Members. This
approach has allowed experts in each field to share their expertise, such as
the 2 courses contributed by Almo on
interactive content design.
Today we have over 30 active courses with new releases each month. We
would encourage Almo reseller partners to join the DSF to get access to the
entire library to and expand their digital signage knowledge.”
Learning about content
As Ryan mentions, I contributed two courses, a basic
overview of content and a more advanced course on experiential content. The
basic overview provides a good introduction to content creation, content
strategy and workflows. The experiential course goes over interactive and
dynamic content, both for close up touch screens and more complex at a distance
experiences.
Getting involved
The great thing about this program is the DSF is always looking for more content, and they accept multiple contributions on similar topics. If you’re interested in contributing a course, reach out to me and I’ll connect you with the right people at the DSF.
With most of our industry cooped up at home in quarantine, it feels like we are all hearing about video games every single day. If you’re working from home with kids, you’ve probably heard them talk about a sweet new Minecraft build, the new League of Legends meta (still hoping for AP Blitz to be a real thing one day), or some co-worker to co-worker smack talk about 3v3 gunfight in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (looking at you Todd Heberlein). While traditional entertainment experiences are closed down, online eSports tournaments are exploding in popularity.
Call of Duty has gone so far as to add drop in tournaments every five minutes and organizations like Nerd St Gamers have moved their traditional in person tournaments to an online structure. As game studios, tournament organizers, and fans alike shift their habits, so too should our industry. As such my wonderful team here at Almo, organized yet another webinar via our partners at rAVe and Panasonic. If you missed last week’s webinar and couldn’t make it onto our second showing this week, check out the VOD here! Angie Greene (Almo business development manager), Gary Kayye (Director at THE rAVe Agency), and Stephen Milley discuss the market.
One of the biggest pieces of eSports news, coming in the wake of COVID-19, is a surprise to many and a pleasant reminder of what those “in the know” have seen coming for years. NASCAR announced a shift from physical in person races, to an all-digital eSports model. That’s right you read that correctly, NASCAR is still running races and was ready to switch their model in the blink of an eye. For traditional NASCAR fans this is an unexpected respite from the doom and gloom being pumped into their daily lives. For those of us keyed into gaming, we’ve heard stories of Gran Turismo and Forza (Playstation and Microsoft’s flagship driving simulators) drivers being given “IRL” (in real life) racing careers for years.
But it isn’t just NASCAR that is crossing into the eSports world, the NFL, FIFA, and NBA are all leveraging their relationships with EA and 2K Games to continue providing their fans with unique and engaging cross overs with their eSports league counterparts. As we have discussed in prior webinars and blog posts, this cross pollination is not unique to the COVID-19 crisis but a larger trend that these organizations are using to mitigate the financial pain of our current pandemic-centric lives. COVID is by no means the main driver of this cross pollination, think of it as additional fuel added to the fire.
The takeaway from this story for me is that there are already audiences ripe for changing their viewing patterns. It isn’t just hardcore gamers that are primed and ready to accept modernized variations of traditional entertainment. Kids watch high definition beautiful animation from Pixar and Disney, while dad may be watching the next box office CGI-fueled Marvel film. In today’s day and age, everyone is comfortable engaging with digital media.
Not that long ago it was passé for adults to love superheroes, yet today Marvel tops box office numbers again and again. It may seem niche or not be your particular taste (to each their own) but it isn’t going to just be Call of Duty and Overwatch succeeding. This seems to be even more true as my generation comes into being parents. Part of why we love watching the NFL is that we live vicariously through superhuman athletes. When people my age start having kids, and stop having as much time to play games, eSports will fill that spot for a huge number of people.
You don’t have to love first person shooters and MOBAs to engage in eSports! Keep an eye out for our next esports webinar where we will dive deeper on hardware!
The year is 2020 and by now the word is out that ALMO Professional A/V offers Business Communication Services as a value-add to our partners and their customers. What is rapidly evolving are the specific services that fall under the “business communications” category and just how they can impact our daily routines.
Whenever a discussion about Business Communication Services begins, most think of Internet, Voice, and TV services as the traditional “triple play bundle” and stop the conversation there. Do not get me wrong, Internet connectivity is still an absolute essential and with the number of home-based workers drastically increasing; that will not change any time soon. In fact, in the past 3 months alone, ALMO has assisted two top-10 integrators save between $11,000 and $54,000 a year on their internet connectivity, all because they wanted an analysis on their current spend and found that their current service was not nearly as efficient as it could be.
I am here to tell you that there is so much more value to be gained by analyzing the other essential communication services and not to be scared by outside the box thinking and questioning. With that in mind, I present to you my new bundle: Mobility and Marketing.
Mobility might be the easier of the two to comprehend to the
average customer. Gone are the days
where you have to drive to the local phone store, pick out a device and stand
there for over an hour waiting for the process to be completed. Through ALMO, our customers can source
wireless phone service, devices, and accessories for the same cost as if they
were to walk into a store directly. The
difference is that ALMO has partnered with AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and
T-Mobile so we are able to provide you full transparency on the best pricing,
calling service, and terms for your needs.
Competitive information, in the wireless world, is a very powerful
commodity. Our customers can expect the same device lineups, same pricing, and
same service…just more information at their fingertips!
Marketing, while some feel is not a form of communication, is actually one of my favorites. Without necessities like SEO (search engine optimization) and social media our customers would be in a black hole while trying to find new opportunities and thus not able to “communicate” with their customers. ALMO has recently begun working with one of the top providers in the country, Vivial, to provide that benefit. Vivial specializes in offering a fully integrated online+social+mobile solution to customers. The foundation of what they offer through ALMO is Vivial’s award-winning Marketing Platform which helps customers with tactics such as Facebook Advertising, Content Marketing, Directory Optimization, Review Generation, and Improving Google Rankings. Consider all of this PLUS our customers have a dedicated account manager to hold their hands through the entire process. Use the information I provided to help your own business flourish this year. My challenge to each of you is to take at least ONE of your current services and contact ALMO Professional A/V for a FREE analysis and quote on how we can pass on the same savings to you as we have for so many others.
Let me start by stating the obvious, being quarantined to our homes with next to no human interaction is hard. Even for someone like me who has spent the past 15 years of his career working remotely, it is difficult. I enjoy being able to grab lunch during the day or running errands on the weekend. Just the other day my wife convinced me that buying fertilizer for our lawn was not “essential” so I ordered online and paid extra for shipping instead.
One aspect that I do not mind, however, is having my wife and two daughters Samantha and Sydney (ages 12 and 8) home with me every day. They allow me to close my office doors and focus on the work I have but it is also nice to get a break and watch them play outside for a little as well.
The most interesting part of being home with my family is watching them adapt to remote learning/teaching and how technology, specifically video conferencing, has helped them remain connected.
The day was March 18, 2020. Our house had been under a quarantine since Saturday the 14th and my wife and daughters were learning a “new normal” of home schooling. My youngest, Sydney, was having the hardest time because frankly she is a social explosion waiting to happen! She has so many close friends, classmates, cheer teammates, girl scouts, and cousins that you could see the smoke coming from her ears when she realized she could not see any of them. That is, until I introduced her to the world of Zoom. Watching her eyes light up like Christmas morning the second she saw her friends Talia, Lianna, and Reilly on the screen was worth more than gold at that moment. That is when it dawned on me that something I have always taken for granted, Zoom, was now viewed as the “recreation of the wheel” by those that have never experienced it. Sure, we have FaceTime, Skype, and a number of other video-calling platforms to choose from, but the ease of “zooming” your friends, colleagues, family, and customers takes it to another level.
Zoom’s platform is the perfect teleconferencing tool for a multitude of uses and as each day goes by, we are finding new ways of creativity on how to use it: happy hours, school assemblies, birthday parties, even quick check- ins with a customer. We have certainly done it all. Almo Professional A/V is certainly no stranger to Zoom, having utilized it for 4 years now. What started as a necessity for our organization to remain connected to our customers has expanded into the 2019 introduction of Zoom Certified Hardware Bundles and the April 2020 announcement that we are now an Authorized Zoom Solution Provider which means our customers (and their customers) can source a full solution from us; Certified Hardware Bundles and the necessary Zoom License to make it all work as desired. One of the best features of the Almo/Zoom relationship is that it requires little to no extra work from our valued resellers. For every opportunity that is brought to us, it is assigned a Zoom Account Executive to help see through the sales process.
“What’s the job of the reseller?” you might ask. It’s to send the initial referral and then collect the recurring commission that is paid out on every job. The ability to collect recurring revenue in these times of uncertainty can certainly be a valuable proposition.
In closing, I hope we can all find creative ways to use Zoom as a bridge during these interesting days and weeks ahead. While most of us might not have the same bright-eyed look that my daughter Sydney had, I know we all appreciate the ability to connect with the outside world while being told to “not go outside.” I would love to have future discussions with all of you on how Zoom and Almo Professional A/V can help you stay connected and make your business, schooling, family get-togethers, or happy hours even better!
I thought I would share with you what it has been like working from home with a full house. No schools or pre-schools open. Inside playgrounds, restaurants etc. all shut down and it’s been raining all morning here in Utah.
I have 3 kids here today, 2 of them under the age of 5, To keep from going crazy and to have a bit of fun I thought I’d share a log of activities, but instead of referring to them as kids or by their names I just substituted co-worker since this is our place of business. True Story. Read On…
Co-worker activity log
6:45 am – co-worker barges in as I am preparing for the day loudly quotes Olaf from Frozen 2 – “Turtles can breathe through their butts”
7:21 am – co-worker has me put movie Frozen on TV in common area, loudly sings “let it go”
7:30 am – 5.7 earthquake hits SLC, building shakes, co-worker yells from other room “can you bring me some milk”
9:30 am – second co-worker finally shows up interrupts zoom call and argues with me about having Cheetos for breakfast
10:22 am – co-worker pees all over the toilet seat in bathroom and yells from bathroom for someone to come clean it up
11:15 am – co-workers run into my office yelling excitedly for me to come see the farm they made in the common area with Jenga blocks and stuffed animals. Left mess for someone else to clean up – Jenga pieces everywhere.
11:49 pm – co-workers playing “pretend” co-worker 1 yells at co-worker 2 for not playing pretend correctly, fight breaks out – both co-workers hysterically crying
11:52 other co-worker finally shows up interrupts asking for wifi password, so they can hook up their Xbox
11:54 pm – other co-workers back to playing pretend as if nothing happened
12:13 pm – co-worker yells at me to come open bathroom door cause their hands are messy
1:09 pm – fight breaks out between co-workers over possession of item, co-worker frantically crying yells for their momma
1:17 pm – co-workers play pretend again as if nothing happened moments before
1:25 pm – co-worker takes a break from Xbox demands I make them something to eat
