by Kirsten Nelson
Excited about AVB but want to know how it’s going to work in the real world? Then make sure your flight to InfoComm is booked for arrival early enough so you can attend the AVB Networking Conference 2012 on June 12 at the Renaissance Hotel.
In order to serve AV consultants and integrators thirsty for knowledge on real-world AVB applications, conference sponsors Avid, Biamp Systems, Harman, Lab X Technologies, Meyer Sound, and Riedel Communications — all of which have AVB-capable devices on the market today — will join AVB switch manufacturer Extreme Networks in hosting this “real-world system showcase” event. Program sessions will cover house of worship, performance, sports facility, broadcast, and hospitality applications.
“InfoComm is going to be a big show for AVB in general, and the reason we put together the conference is to really highlight to people how much equipment is available now,” said Lee Minich, president of Lab X Technologies and AVnu Alliance Marketing Work Group chair. “This is just the tip of the iceberg. Those of us who are leading the charge, bringing products to market now, really want to stress to the market that the technology is here and it's available. Now we really want to underscore the application side of it.”
For those who presume that AVB is still a dream protocol yet to be realized, the conference will demonstrate that it is a working reality for those with product in the field today. “These are leading manufacturers,” Minich elaborated. “That’s the interesting thing about AVB in general. You've got a bunch of competitors who are really rallying together in unprecedented ways because they realize the advantage of the applications.”
Those advantages are quite compelling, noted Adam Holladay, market manager for Harman’s SDIG, developers of HiQnet: “AVB doesn't require network deployment expertise at any scale because the intelligence required to configure the audio/video network is actually in the switch. AVB is the transport, but it's also making sure that the audio and video data get priority and do not interfere with any other ethernet data on the network.”
“Part of the value of AVB in general is that prior to this networking has been complicated and expensive and that's kept it quarantined in the upper-echelon applications,” Minich elaborated. “There's a whole realm of applications that either it's been too complicated to set up and maintain or it's been too expensive. With the underlying advantages of the technology, there's a whole range of applications that are opening up that were previously not possible.”
Detailing the real-world deployment of AVB at the conference will be guest speakers Jim Risgin of On Stage Audio and Vikram Kirby of Thinkwell, who will share their AVB system success stories.
