Audio Visual Solutions

Connect remote users and collaborate with ease: Audio Visual solutions

 

 

 

AV for Video conferencing

AV for collaboration / secure remote working

AV for image wall presentations

AV interactive displays

AV for security & surveillance

Seamless reliable video conferencing and online connectivity for modern family, friends life and covid-times business has become mission critical to the modern business model. But with wireless devices, image and video content connected and stored online, cyber hacker attacks, and other security threats all proliferating, SMBs and consumers can no longer run the risk of “winging it” with unmanaged AV and wireless connectivity devices anymore. They need professional-grade networking solutions that ensures minimal downtime, and maximises what your business can do.

Video conferencing helps businesses increase efficiency through faster communication channels and decision making, while simultaneously reducing travel costs.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced organisations world-wide to cut-off all business travel. This greatly impacted how employees are able to host or attend meetings. Never before has videoconferencing with high quality audio and video capture, along with the best collaboration tools, been more important.

We’ll continue to see the impact of this change everywhere. Homes will be built with dedicated workspaces. Remote work policies will become more expansive. Teams will become more virtual in nature. However, one thing that won’t change is the need for business-grade communications.

It’s no longer enough to just focus technology investments on central office space. Organisations need to provide a consistent, enterprise-grade experience for every worker, whether they’re at home, in a co-working location, or in a company office. To thrive in this new world, you need to empower employees to work from anywhere by delivering a secure, professional experience across workspaces, all while juggling device deployments and software updates. Sounds simple, right?

Traditional audiovisual (AV) architectures where signals are sent and received via AV transmitters, receivers and video matrix switches rather than using true Ethernet LAN switches. This has prohibited AV transmission from truly converging onto existing network cabling infrastructures, and they have instead remained on their own standalone network. But all that is changing with AV over IP that uses standard network equipment to transmit and control AV signals.

Today, there are newer AV protocols that truly can be considered an IP system because they transmit AV signals over standard off-the-shelf Ethernet LAN switches. Introduced in 2017, Software Defined Video over Ethernet (SDVoE) supporting uncompressed 4K video, audio, control and 1 Gb/s Ethernet (1000BASE-T) is one such platform that aims to offer greater saving, flexibility and scalability compared to HDBaseT since it addresses the full 7-layer OSI model and leverages what we in the IT industry already use for transmitting data—standards-based network cabling, Ethernet, TCP/IP and low-latency switching.

The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) 2110 standard that defines the uncompressed transmission of HD video over IP, JPEG-2000 lightly compressed video over IP, and high-efficiency H.264 and H.265 video compression for video over IP, most industry professionals see SDVoE as the most disruptive technology and the one that will ultimately pave the way for fully converged AV over IP. In response, the HDBaseT Alliance introduced HDBaseT over IP shortly after the introduction of SDVoE to also leverage standards-based network infrastructures and 10 Gb/s Ethernet switches for cross-campus transmission, but it requires HDBaseT-to-HDBaseT-IP bridges and HDBaseT-IP switches.

Software-based

Most software platforms, including Zoom and Cisco, are standards-based H.323 or SIP systems. It means they all function on the same protocol allowing a user to join calls regardless of the platform. Zoom can dial into a Cisco call, Polycom can dial into Zoom- they’re all based on the same platform so it works back and forth. 

 

The Challenges of todays reality

It’s up to IT to somehow keep everyone connected and communicating no matter their job, location, or communication style.

The good news is cloud communication and collaboration platforms have made the reality of hybrid work more viable than ever. Coworkers can collaborate over video as easily as face-to-face in a conference room. Customer support can take place as effectively from a cubicle or a kitchen table.

Built-in laptop cameras and smartphone microphones are fine for chatting with friends, but poor video quality and background noise provide a sub-optimal experience when talking to a client, customer, patient, student, and the like.

Impact of key industries

We all have been impacted by COVID-19 in some way. However, the healthcare and education sectors and central government agencies have been transformed by it, and it’s creating new realities for the way people connect, communicate, and collaborate. Technology is the driving force to help organisations and their workforces adapt.

Healthcare

Healthcare institutions have used telemedicine and video conferencing for years, but the pandemic has accelerated their adoption and reaffirmed their critical role moving forward.

Education

Schools have had to pivot their class formats and teaching techniques based on local COVID-19 infection rates, as well as guidelines from administrators and teacher unions. Teachers need to ensure students have access to reliable computers, learning software, and peripheral devices to provide a quality learning experience

Audio visual solutions have increased in demand at an exponential rate, and they are now more applicable and achievable than ever due to more recent advancements in technology.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced organisations world-wide to cut-off all business travel. This greatly impacted how employees are able to host or attend meetings. Never before has videoconferencing with high quality audio and video capture, along with the best collaboration tools, been more important!

With the help and integration of audiovisual solutions, local and remote team members can meet with ease via video and audio conferencing, while simultaneously using collaboration tools to share ideas and content.

Audiovisual systems can also incorporate digital content to relay expressive messages and marketing to your clients in an easily configured and changeable format. Video walls can create a focal point in nearly any environment displaying beautiful and customized images for all to see.

To get the most out of your collaborative efforts and maximise your efficiency, there are a few key pieces of conference room audio visual technology critical to success

Workspace and workstyles

No one works the same way. Different departments, job functions, environments, and employees all have unique communication requirements.

Similarly, the needs of an office desk are wildly different than those of a conference room. Delivering the right access and devices across these spaces and types of work ensures that your employees can be their most productive, no matter the location.

Key considerations

Device management & monitoring - Choose a solution that offers rich monitoring and insight capabilities, so you can keep a pulse on device status, meeting performance, and end-user experience. Troubleshoot issues quickly and maintain centralised performance information.

Compliance & security - Between cyberattacks that can take your business offline, and data privacy regulations like HIPAA, GDPR, and ISO, you must hold security to the highest standard. That’s why it’s important to keep in mind that every communication device is an endpoint that needs to be regularly monitored and enhance.

Applications

High-definition visual communication solutions for conference rooms, lecture halls, immersive environments, huddle rooms, and small gathering spaces through strategic and cost-effective partnerships with key manufacturers.

- Dual or single screen displays

- Microphones & speakers

- Audio and visual conferencing

- Touch screens

- VR/AR displays

Benefits

Video conferencing helps businesses increase efficiency through faster communication channels and decision making, while simultaneously reducing travel costs.

- Customer-relationship building

- Reduce travel costs

Video Conferencing

Video conferencing systems integrate video and voice to bridge the gap between in-person and remote meetings. These conferences require very little equipment; just a computer, webcam, microphone, and internet connection.

From our home office to the conference room, the way we work is changing at a rapid pace. More and more companies are allowing employees to work remotely part time to cut down on commuting and create more work-life balance.

The display enables you to see colleagues in other locations, view presentations, and screen share from laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Single displays are a go-to choice for many small conference rooms. Dual displays are a popular option, especially for companies that are heavy video-call users. These dual, or even tri, displays allow screen sharing and video conferencing to share the spotlight.

Bandwidth & Quality

4K UHD is now the standard in display technology, but a display alone doesn’t necessarily mean a 4K UHD image. The bandwidth and content can all impact image quality.

Don’t forget, no video conferencing software can overcome low bandwidth. Ensure your IT team has designated sufficient bandwidth for your conference rooms. Equally as important, make sure you have data drops at the locations specified by your AV partner to minimize unsightly wires.

Signal latency: The information transport of digital signals in many steps need time. In a telecommunicated conversation, an increased latency (time lag) larger than about 150–300 ms becomes noticeable and is soon observed as unnatural and distracting. Therefore, next to a stable large bandwidth, a small total round-trip time is another major technical requirement for the communication channel for interactive videoconferencing.[30]

Bandwidth and quality of service: In some countries, it is difficult or expensive to get a high quality connection that is fast enough for good-quality videoconferencing. Technologies such as ADSL are usually provided as two separate lines (for uplink/downlink) because each has limited upload speeds and cannot upload and download simultaneously at full speed. As Internet speeds increase higher quality and high definition videoconferencing will become more readily available.

Compliance

A change in Cloud DVR (Digital Video Recorder) deployment strategies has been driven by a few factors including regional copyright laws and specific legal restrictions in North America and consolidation between cable and telecom players, especially in Europe.

A shared copy model for Cloud DVR means that only one copy of a program is recorded and all playouts will be from the same physical recorded copy. All the subscribers that requested to record the program are assigned with a ‘reference’ and share the same physical recorded asset. The main advantage of this model is high capacity efficiency due to a significantly lower footprint on storage capacity than in the “private-copy” model.


Moving AV over IP ( switch-based networks)

The trend for audio and video system transforming from traditional Matrix Switch infrastructure to industry standard IP-based network technology is growing rapidly. Utilizing the strength of the standardised IP-based infrastructures and its agility, networked AV can fit into a wide variety of systems, ranging from classrooms, sports bars and even to larger and more complex transmission systems such as central control rooms and large outdoor video wall displays.

For traditional AV system integrators, using Networked AV technology is a relatively new concept; the biggest challenge is that they are less familiar with the IP-based network settings, especially with IGMP. Detailed IGMP parameters could easily be ignored which results in a major impact to system performance.

Professional Ethernet switch providers, deliver top quality high-definition audio and video experience with professional guidance to alleviate integration efforts.

Selected switch models provides users an instant view of the network status and setup AV over IP system with ease.

Hardware-based

Modern day AV systems convert analog audio to networked audio that can be carried via Cat 5/6 ethernet cabling.

As a result, it can limit productivity, employee engagement, and how those on the other end of the call view your company. To enable hybrid working, you need professional-grade solutions to maximise the audio and video capabilities of your cloud communications platforms, across every workstyle and workspace.

Cloud

Could basing your AV infrastructure in the Cloud be a solution? Yes, depending on your requisite in-house IT skills and budgets.

What if you could use your existing data network to connect into a cloud service, and introduce new collaboration tools without having to find large amounts of capex or in-house IT expertise?

Then, all your branches, home and mobile workers could all connect to the network through whatever access works for them – broadband, the internet, wi-fi or 4G. They’d all have the latest collaboration tools they need, so they could share information more easily and speed up decision-making.

On the go kit

Considerations around connectivity for the on-the-move generation

Today is is quite rare for people to have a dedicate office desk or single working location. We are always on the move, be it in the home working, socially or out an about connecting for business, family or friends. The traditional notion as we know of needing to go sit in front of a dedicted desktop camera in order to video conference for work, family or friends has changed significantly – you can now make and be part of video calls on the go from almost anywhere in the world from your mobile phone. As a result more sufistocated carrier networks have been developed to cater for the current and future demands for mobile video and data traffic.

- WiFi 6

- 5G

- 4G LTE


On the move, need greater bandwidth for your video calls - AX1800 Wi-Fi 6 USB 3.0 Adapter (DWA-X1850)

Delivering a simple, affordable upgrade to WiFi 6 performance for existing desktop and notebook computers, the DWA-X1850 is the industry-first WiFi 6 USB 3.0 adapter in the market. Simple plug and play delivers smooth, reliable combined speeds up to AX1800 (574 Mbps + 1200 Mbps), ideal for large file transfers, online learning lessons, and FPS gaming. The adapter features WPA3 encryption giving SOHO employees added peace of mind over network and device protection.

- wireless access points

- mesh extender

Switches

Switch stacking, and easy management, the switches are ideal for a variety of applications at every scale. With Gigabit Ethernet SFP, 10G SFP+, security features, and advanced Quality of Service (QoS), the DGS-3630 Series can act as core, distribution or access layer switches.

Ideal solution for consumers and small businesses with high-speed Internet access.

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By Paul Rummery, Securenet Consulting