Thursday 15 October 2015


AV MARKET HANDLE IT - As organizations continue to deploy new collaboration spaces such as audio visual integrated rooms and huddle spaces, there is an upcoming trend around the consumer of these offerings. But what does you understand exactly? The AV world has seen more and more users bringing consumer devices to work and even using consumer based services to get their work done (file sharing, video conferencing, etc). A similar trend is starting to occur on the AV side.

Users are now opting for same video equipment’s and putting them into the meeting and boardrooms to make the presentation done. Further, some organizations have taken simple off the shelf devices (USB web cameras, microphones, etc.) that they can buy at Best option or other retailers and are using those to build their collaboration rooms.

So, is this a good thing or a bad thing? It really depends upon your formal needs. In some cases these consumer technologies provide a decent audio or video experience. In this case, the quality can be “good enough.” And in some cases it’s enough works for people.

A person who has been looking for work told me a story about his online meeting with a recruiter. He was asked to join a Video call to discuss his qualifications and previous job experience. Immediately upon joining the call he was not able to watch the face of the recruiter because the video was so distorted. Her audio was bit better but was difficult to hear. During the course of the interview, he felt less confident and had a hard time concentrating because he was not able to see whom he was talking other than a few blurry pixels.

The recruiting example is a case of when “it’s good "is not optimal

On the other hand, the ancient AV approach has been to develop with an AV vendor and have them design and implement a professional solution based on the business needs of the customer. The result is a perfect solution that provides a high quality user experience with business level technology. This often proves to be the best solution when quality and experience matter most.

There is an upcoming trend now where professional AV OEMs are bringing some consumer opted properties to their requirements. Manufacturers are now offering AV solutions in an assembled way. Essentially these products provide a complete room solution from hardware to control system and all the programming in between. These solutions are easy to buy and easy to deploy for an AV solution provider and do not require the time or money associated with designing a solution. These solutions make the challenges of designing audio and video solutions much faster