The State of Networked AV Systems in IT Departments
My TechDecisions | March 05, 2020
It will not surprise readers to hear that AV and IT are converging, at least in some senses of the term. It’s a drum that’s been beaten for several years in the AV industry, and for good reasons; IP-based AV solutions are more cost effective, easy to manage, and more flexible and scalable than traditional point-to-point systems. Nonetheless, the early years of AV-over-IP saw AV and IT departments still operating in separate spheres, maintaining the momentum built over decades. AV departments used closed networks without involvement of the IT staff. AV-over-IP grew in use, yet rarely touched the managed networks common in the enterprise space. Gradually, AV departments began to see uses that required buy-in from IT, and IT departments began to look seriously at how AV-over-IP solutions were designed in order to meet shared goals.