The State of Networked AV Systems in IT Departments

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.