5 Ways AV Has Transformed in 2016

The evolution of voice control, the development of the first video products over the AVnu standard and learning from the DDOS attacks are just a few of the ways AV has advanced in 2016.

Tim Albright

It’s been an eventful year. The Olympics, presidential politics, and an unlikely Chicago Cubs World Series run are just a few events that made the headlines in 2016.

While this year will be remembered for the upheaval in politics and sports, it’s important to also take a look at the upheaval that has taken place in the AV industry.

Here are five things that shifted or changed in the audio visual industry this year.

Voice Evolution

Voice interaction is not new. Let’s just start there.

Dragon is a software that has allowed you to speak into a mic and have things happen on a computer for about fifteen or sixteen years at this point. So, talking to a computer is not new. What is new is what we are doing with it today.

Voice control has reached the point where Amazon’s Echo had a booth at this year’s CEDIA show. Amazon showcased Echo’s integration with Crestron, Control4, Lutron, and others.

The ability to have “native commands” is huge. In the past, to control a non-Amazon service you had to say “Alexa, tell Nest to make it 75 degrees.” Now you just have to say “Alexa, make it 75 degrees.”

It’s a small thing but the removal of that little hurdle is going to make all the difference in creating natural interaction between the user and the system.

Echo, Google Home, Josh.AI, and other up and coming technology companies have found ways to take voice commands and turn them into actions.

amazon echo
Amazon Echo will soon become a commercial offering.

Currently this is seen as a residential offering. I’m going to tell you why it won’t stay in the home for long: June 29, 2007.

That is the date the iPhone was officially announced to the world. It was, and is, a consumer device.

At first, no IT manager on the planet was putting these devices on their networks. The arguments are long and well known. They had their Blackberries and no iPhone was going on their system.

Fast forward to 11 years later. Where is Blackberry and what are the restrictions on iPhones on the network now?

Blackberry is all but gone and iPhones, and iPads for that matter, are all over the network.

This was driven by upper management who brought these devices in and wanted to make it happen. These same decision makers have driven wireless video by looking at AirPlay and wondering why they couldn’t do the same thing in the office.

The same thing will happen with voice. The CEO, CIO, and others in decision making positions will experience this in their home and bring it to the office. No, it won’t replace touch panels but you will be putting voice into commercial AV installations before you know it.

The V in AVB

AVB (audio video bridging) or TSN, or AVnu technology, is putting audio and video over the network.

When AVB was first introduced, it was pitched as an agnostic technology that anyone could adopt and make their own.

Coming out of the IEEE, the AVnu Alliance came together to create some standards and a certification process. Audio and switch companies began creating products and getting them AVnu certified. But, no video.

Enter Biamp’s TLUX product, which was released this year. Biamp markets it as “the V in AVB.”

Think about this for a second. A company who has long been known for some pretty innovative audio products (DSPs, amps, etc.) came out with the first video product over the AVnu standard.

That says a couple of things. First, it solidifies Biamp’s commitment to the AVnu standard. They have long been proponents of AVB/TSN/AVnu. It also demonstrates the problem with emerging technologies—no incentive to change.

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