Three or four decades ago, techies started to get excited about convergence – the idea that audio, video, and data all co-exist, and even complement each other, on IP networks. A convergence of technologies.
Now there’s a new convergence becoming apparent – whole industries are converging.
The convergence of conventional AV and broadcast comes as no surprise. Advertising dollars moved away from traditional broadcasting to the web-based competition, and without this revenue, broadcasters were less able to purchase capital hardware. That hurt the broadcast manufacturers, so they looked around for similar markets to sell their particular expertise into – and found AV. At the same time, the broadcasters looked for similar markets to buy from (at a lower cost) – and found AV.
Those aren’t the only markets converging. The CCTV market shares the same interest in media, cameras, recording technology, and the network. CCTV has a different outlook, characterised by the sheer number of cameras and the consequential amount of media – but the interest in connectivity and media formats is very similar.
That description is spookily similar to another market well-known to AV – unified communication. UC abounds in the corporate space. Almost all users have cameras and want to collaborate, share live content, and record it via the network.
Even highly regulated industries, like medical, are recognising similarities and exploring how much overlap there is with other industries.
Of course, suppliers that have sold into the control room market have spanned those same industries for years, exploring and exploiting the commonality of technology.
The distribution channel has been quick to recognise what is happening, with distributors establishing multiple verticals, including some beyond their traditional scope; so ‘broadcast’ now commonly appears alongside ‘government’ and ‘retail’.
SYNERGY GOALS
When businesses combine, one of the first things they look for is synergy – where the combination yields benefits. The same applies to industries. We see exactly that in IPMX – an emerging extension to the SMPTE ST 2110 standard, which broadcasters developed for moving content over IP networks instead of as SDI over coax. IPMX was developed to converge that high-end standard with the wider AV world.
Industry requirements are inevitably fueling the convergence. Two things are making it happen faster:
• There are companies that already serve the converging industries. Matrox is one of them. The focus on moving and displaying video has changed it from a company with separate divisions to a converged company addressing both.
• IP switch manufacturers have worked hard to bring to market devices that match both the emerging needs of converged users, as well as the needs of traditional IT folks, whose networks are configured differently.
What next? In AV, we have CEDIA marketplace and AVIXA marketplace. Are they destined to get closer? Time will tell.
