Welcome back to HowToAV.TV we're over at ISE been joined by David Mayor of the Cedia
training team. David I know you've got a lot of Technology training going on
throughout the show this week but one of the key issues is of course and we've
seen it throughout the show is all AV over IP. Yes. But it's not as simple as
one single platform, there are a number of different platforms. Where there's so
much coming through from HDBaseT, SDVoE is fairly new to the market we've
just seen Dante have launched their new dante AV as well.
So there is not one single standard there are a number of platforms out
there. What can you tell us about the different platform, do they fit into
different applications and which ones are the ones that we should be rolling
with? Okay yeah as for which ones we should be running with I'm not sure
whether we can actually discuss that, but the reality is there's actually
more options available now than there are actually vendors. Which sounds
crazy but the reason is that they're some vendors are actually selling more
than one option. Now AV over IP is - it's a great solution, it's an option for
distributing in the home video around the home. It's an alternative to
something like HDBaseT matrix which has been popular for a few years now.
It's a fairly emerging technology even though it's been around for a
number of years, we haven't really had the chipsets and the technology. The
sheer grunt that's required to actually make it work. So yeah there's a lot of
options out there. Okay so for some of our viewers
we know AV over IP it's been around for a long time. Some of us it's still very
very new. So the simplistic version of AV over IP what does it stand for and how
does it differ from standard cabling? Okay so AV over IP is talking about IP
as in Internet Protocol. So it's sending Internet like packets of data over a
network as opposed to sending it through HDMI or an HDBaseT type data
structure. So some big questions around AV over IP one big one is what's taking
so long? Because like you say it actually has been around a long time but why now?
Why does this seem to be this buzz about it now? When really what it's going to
come down to is the quality and the capability of processes for
compressing the video. I find it ironic though that it's right at the time where
we're talking about bigger and bigger images. We've gone from 1080p to 4K and
now going from for 4K in the 24 frame to 60 frame and now we're talking about
4K 120 and 8K. All at the same time as we've got compression codecs and engines
that are being developed to make the file sizes and therefore the
transmission speeds low enough that we can send them over a network. But the
complexity of AV over IP is a lot lower than it is with other types of
distribution which is centralized. Like a matrix - which for example the matrix
which sits at the at the core, at the center and it distributes the signal
around from there the control is back to the core. With AV over IP it actually
decentralizes the system we're not set to
a fixed dimension of a matrix. Which you buy an 8x8 matrix and your fully
populated. Then you end up with a client that actually says I want two more
displays. What do you do you either upgrade or he starts putting out and
sharing and we get some pretty big AV over IP systems. Or actually sorry going
back to the matrix which 32 by 32 is 64 by 64, they've been getting into tens of
thousands of dollars and who's ever going to connect 64 sources we may end
up with 6 or 8 sources in there because we want we move 140 displays. Yeah. So it
seems like a rather obscene cost to go that way. AV over IP is infinitely
scalable we use a off-the-shoulder standard switch at the core, it can only be
one - a 1 gig or a 10 gig that's the big question right now is what do we
have. And there seems to be a lot of opinions - there are two different
camps it depends who you talk to. SDVoE for example they're based on 10 gigs
of course they're gonna say we have to go 10 gig - everything's going that way.
But there's a lot of great 1 gig solutions out there as well. You were
mentioning earlier on it's important to understand that that HDBaseT that
SDVoE, that Dante isn't limited to just one manufacturer, it's not limited to
just one brand. It is a shared platform between a number of different
manufacturers, of sources, of displays as well. So first of all how do the
hybrid technologies and the software based technologies those different
platforms. How do they differ and do they have different applications, let's say
for residential or commercial? What it comes down to with AV over IP is because
we're talking about having to compress images, especially the 1gig solutions,
they all have to use compression. We're not wanting to send very low-grade
standard definition signals. We're talking about high def signals,
the 1080 P60 signal requires four-and-a-half gigabits per second. HDMI
we want to send that on one gig network, we're gonna have to compress it. We want
to send multiple streams at once on a one gig network we're going to have to
compress it more. So there is a degree of what does that mean for
picture quality? What does that mean for latency - because compression takes time.
So what we're seeing is this great evolution of products that are
getting better and better compression but 1 gig, 10 gig that that really
comes down to a design decision. Which is going to suit better, if there's some
Wi-Fi, there may be some points that you simply can't get cables to. Some homes
the construction that might make it impossible and a couple of displays in
there they need to go Wi-Fi then installing only a 10 gig solution in a
home like that is going to exclude those Wi-Fi points. It's Wi-Fi simply not
that fast, so there's a lot of design considerations and I would never suggest
choosing one solution and then sticking with only that in every install. Be
adaptable look at what's out there. Don't expect any operability between brands
because like I said there's there's a whole bunch of different ones, you can't
mix and match. But the scalability of AV over IP is exceptional - so if somebody
has four sources and they've got eight displays, you can buy four transmitters
and eight receivers plug them in to switch configure the system and off you
go. I want to add two more displays simply plug in two more receivers. It's
really simple! And is there a point where we move from let's say
distribution over standard HDMI cable that we should absolutely move
towards an AV over IP platform? Is it about scalability? Is it a number of
displays? Is it distance that were sending the signal? When should
we need to make that that jump? That's a good question.
What I just came out of a class talking about HDMI 2.1 and where things
are going. We've got high frame rates, but HDR, we've got wide colour gamut,
increasing resolutions. One question is do we need to distribute that or is that
just for the primary displays? So it could be that there's a media room,
dedicated theaters primary displays the big screens in the home. We want the best
today - so connect those differently don't necessarily include those in a
distribution system. So we may look at a fiber or active optical cable or some
technology that's going to get us the best possible bandwidth to those
displays and then for the rest of the system push into an AV over IP system as
a design choice. Alternative to a matrix, which they're both still valid
and it's going to be case-by-case depending on the Installer.
There's a lot to consider about how to handle the splitting of those
signals too, but the other point to consider with AV over IP is we need to
make that distinction of IP distribution of in-home content versus what people
are actually increasingly watching and that is streaming content. Which is
also IP but that's IP as in brand wide area network internet - not to be confused
with an internal private network which is what we're talking about with AV over IP.
So the irony in all of this is we may have a declining need to actually
distribute content within the home. Somebody has a net server, they've got a flex
server for example a blu-ray player. Really what people are wanting to
distribute around the home from in-home content are things like cable or
satellite TV services or terrestrial TV and to other other points you may
install another display. In the home we don't even see the point there, we don't
have a capable point you don't want to pay for another cable box. Then we want to
distribute that content, that's fair enough but more and more people are
watching stream content. So if we've got displays that are being installed that
have apps already in there that's a Smart TV - meaning it's connected. It's not
necessarily smart, it doesn't make me feel any smarter. Then
really they don't need big bandwidth for that, they need an internet connection
with sufficient speed in their internet connection.
Maybe Netflix is suggesting 24 megabit is what you need to stream their
high-end content, that means you can get potentially 4K 60 with HDR. We're
talking more like 15 16 megabit if you're gonna watch the normal 4K movie.
Maybe like 4K 24 frame movie. So we need to make that distinction between
the streaming content and distributed content that begins in the home. So an
even cable TV - we're talking about the cable box is sitting in the home. So it's
still in home content even though it's coming through a dish or through
cable. So how are people going to want to live? What do they want?
What's the cabling infrastructure? You can use cat6 cabling,
existing network infrastructure in the home on a shared network or potentially
some AV over IP vendors are recommending a separate network. Is that practical? Are
we going to pull new cables for that? There's a lot of design choices but a
lot of options. So there's great technology out there and it can really
really work. I guess some of the tips that we need to consider when
thinking about AV over IP, what are the main things? First of all that we
shouldn't just assume that one manufacturer and another manufacturer
using the same platform that they're just gonna work. We need to make sure
that we're testing that those systems are compatible first.
Bandwidth of course is really really key to the network in your building, so
certainly in a new build then you can design that in. But if you're
retrospectively putting in over an existing network you've really got to
understand the bandwidth capabilities of that infrastructure. What else do we need to
be thinking about to make sure that this is going to work David?
Well the the infrastructure itself - the cabling that's in there is probably
going to support even a 10 gig network. A regular cat 6 cable will actually
support a 10 gig network up to 50 meters or so. Which is usually enough in most
residential applications. So the cabling infrastructure is fairly simple.
The switch on the other hand, you have to make sure that you get a switch which is
going to be compatible and that choice is where you make that one gig v.s.
ten gig. Which one do I go for and that partly comes down to the choice
of the whole system. Which system do we want to go for and what are the
deliverables? SDVoE is a great solution if you want the maximum
performance and the absolute minimum latency, because they hardly compress.
There's a lot of content that don't compress at all. So the latency is
zero but the switch itself you need to have which is a good robust
networking device. You do need to be proficient with networking
and that is a critical element and make sure that you then follow the
vendors recommendations on compatible switches. Do you need to set up Vland's
do you not? IGMB snooping and there's a whole bunch of other considerations
in play. So if you're interested, anyone that's watching that is
interested in pursuing AV over IP and they haven't tried it yet, there's
some investigation to be done but there is no one-size-fits-all solution. There's
actually a bunch of Alliances out there, there's not necessarily standards
in place and I don't think there's anyone that can just profess to be the
solution that is kind of the Holy Grail. So if we're looking to consider AV over IP
as an installer as you mentioned earlier there is some great training
academies from CEDIA. How do we find out about those? Go to cedia.net
and look through our training, we actually do have some some white papers
on various topics as well. There is plenty more information on AV over IP on
HowToAV.TV - we've got more videos on IP on Ethernet, CEDIA as you say cedia.net
have got some incredible training courses available throughout the world,
throughout the year and more added all the time. David thanks for all of your
brilliant information, thanks for joining us again at HowToAV.tv.