AVnu Alliance, the industry forum that certifies Audio Video Bridging (AVB) products for interoperability, held the first AVnu Alliance Installer Roundtable Breakfast during CEDIA EXPO 2013 with the goal of understanding the unique challenges and demands of custom installers that could be solved with AVB.
The Alliance has recently completed research and market requirement for wireless audio distribution and chose to initiate a roundtable discussion at CEDIA EXPO 2013 to discuss use case, best practices and field-related information regarding residential installation among a small group of like-minded integrators. The roundtable served as the next step in the development of the Alliance’s market and the technical certification documents for consumer and residential audio and video products.
Serving as a forum to gather information about today’s installation challenges in the residential space, the Installer Roundtable brought together influential and knowledgeable industry integrators who could share experiences and talk through use cases for AVB. The attendees included: Shawn Lemay, founder and owner of Sound & Theater; Jesse Miller, integrator with Myriad Home Entertainment; Jeff Mitchell, director of projects and systems for Robert Saglio Audio Video; and Jeff Terzo, regional sales manager for RS Pro Sales.
Alliance members Greg Schlechter from Intel, and Denis Labrecque from Analog Devices moderated the roundtable, initiating conversation with general background on AVB and AVnu Alliance and encouraging questions and suggestions from the other participants.
“Wireless bridging solutions would be helpful in the multiple dwelling unit market and right now those solutions use a lot of bandwidth,” said Jeff Mitchell, Installer and CEA TechHome member about wireless audio via AVB. Other installers in the roundtable mentioned the need for wireless when retrofitting a location, wiring between buildings and as a must have for control systems.
Mitchell also mentioned: “Our industry is going more end-to-end but what we still really need are less expensive and more reliable diagnostic tools to accurately identify problems within the installation. Currently there is no easy way for us to know what is working incorrectly.”
Having technology that is certified to work on the IEEE standard network could give installers an industry standard tool to solve that problem. “The Alliance has set up a certification program to ensure that products will work in harmony. That’s going to be a promise of AVB Certification from AVnu Alliance. We guarantee that the device conforms to the specification,” said Alliance member, Denis Labrecque, ProAudio Business Development manager, Analog Devices. “I am an audio guy, and for me AVB is a whole new world. We need to hear from installers working in this industry to help us share and shape the future of residential audio and video installations.”
“AVB is better plumbing,” Greg Schlechter of Intel and AVnu Alliance Board of Directors member touched upon the benefits of AVB, “One of the key capabilities required for network AV distribution is time synchronization. AVB makes this a fundamental capability of the network.”
“CEDIA’s purpose is to actively educate the installer and bridge that gap with the installer and IT,” said Shawn Lemay of Sound & Theater, who has been involved in commercial and residential electronics integration for 25 years.
Designed to meet the demanding needs of high-quality, real-time synchronized audio and video through guaranteed bandwidth networks infrastructure, the open IEEE AVB standards make a compelling solution for residential applications. AVB has already been adopted in many demanding markets including automotive and professional audio.
Manufacturers interested in joining or learning more about the AVnu Alliance may contact [email protected].
