Some basic facts about the AVB standard:
NOT proprietary: Good news, open standard, everyone understands. Manufacturers, like Pakedge will make products that support the standard, and will back their products up with their usual strong after sale support directly. Same will go for others who produce AVB capable equipment.
NOT a whole lotta V: AVnu is the organization that promotes the 802.1 standard, and their members list is long and growing by the month. That being said, the list is short on the video side. As my girlfriend once told me when I asked why she was leaving me: “It’s complicated, Dave”. Video transmission standards are complicated, audio will definitely precede video. It’s still going to take manufacturers some time to get their products to market.
IS streamlining networks: What we have now is proprietary AV networking systems which cause problems with synchronizing multiple streams of audio and video, buffering delays, and resource reservation problems. AVB actually will fix networked AV. So:
Let me restate the obvious, but here is why networked AV will be dominant if it everyone ever agrees on a standard:
Share equipment between rooms and locations. For example, a single AVB network can transport all media between all rooms, such as a boardroom, the CEO’s private conference room, a training room, and conference rooms. At the moment, a designer must create seperate room environments, four sets of equipment, each room with its own DSP hardware, all tied together with some kind of matrix type device.
Requires AVB enabled switch: AVB-enabled switches are necessary for end-to-end communication with other AVB-enabled devices. Without them, no automatic management of MSRP, QoS, and more.
Does play nice with the other kids: The AVnu Alliance assures us it will “create compliance test procedures and processes that ensure AVB interoperability of networked A/V devices, helping to provide the highest quality streaming A/V experience.” I hear the AVnu Pavilion was a happy little place at Infocomm.
Don’t forget the AVnu Alliance certification program. There will be compliance testing, so that all AVB equipment complies with the IEEE 802.1 standards for AVB, including protocol quality, consistency, and playing nice with other devices.