By Joe Dorsey, Director of AV Technologies
Conference rooms have been a staple in corporate offices for decades, but the technical demands for these spaces have evolved. Today the bill of materials for a meeting room more closely resembles the equipment you would find in a broadcast TV studio.
For years, the line between broadcast, streaming and AV environments has been blurring, and now it has disappeared altogether.
The needs of corporate communications have surpassed the capabilities of traditional meeting rooms.
Teams need dedicated camera streams and displays that send live feeds around the world. They need microphones and speakers that ensure everyone feels heard. They need reliable infrastructure they can use that conveys their message with professionalism.
The equipment for a standard conference room won’t cut it when the executive team needs to use it to record professional-quality videos for external communications or host a live feed to offices around the country for an all-hands meeting.
Industry organizations are riding this wave in real time. For the first time this year, the National Association of Broadcasters held a dedicated Enterprise Video Strategies Track at its annual convention, where they hosted 13,000 corporate media professionals.
This track represents a growing need for broadcast-quality production equipment in corporate environments. Conference rooms require the same IP-based media workflow that used to only be seen in a network studio.
But what is “Broadcast AV”? Avixa, the premier credentialing organization for the AV industry, defines it as the creation of broadcast quality content, outside of the broadcast and media professions.
In traditional broadcast settings, the operation of this equipment is highly specialized, in corporate settings that role usually falls on the shoulders of PR and Communications staff who have dozens of other responsibilities.
Corporate professionals are quickly learning the difference between connections like AV over IP and USB over IP, or why standards like SMPTE ST 2210 matter, but questions remain.
The industry is building the answers.
Simpler, adaptable and modular systems are being designed with the corporate communications environment in mind, and a new suite of open standards, like IPMX, are being developed.
IPMX is built on more technical industry standards like SMPTE ST 2110 with the goal of streamlining AV over IP through media flow and control.
New standards paired with AI content creation tools are making broadcast quality streams far more attainable, and audiences are expecting more. The return on investment for these systems becomes accessible, high-quality content.
Broadcast AV is also gaining a foothold in our education system. High schools and higher education institutions are implementing these platforms into their curriculums.
Engaging students with live broadcasting technology empowers students to develop improved communications skills and technical literacy while learning to collaborate with their classmates.
These changes mean systems are easier to use than ever, but without the knowledge to determine what you need, and how to install it, production spaces and meeting rooms will fall flat.
If your teams are scrambling to meet communications needs in an environment they outgrew two years ago, contact us for a needs assessment today.
