FOREWORD

Why is InfoComm International®, the trade association representing the commercial audiovisual industry for 75 years, associated with a networking book? If you’ve recently studied for a Certified Technology Specialist® credential or visited one of InfoComm’s trade shows, you will have noticed significant changes.

At the shows, the latest streaming media, digital signage, unified communications, audiovisual control, and other technologies have injected a decidedly information technology–laced flavor into what was once a very analog AV experience. These days, you can’t swing a microphone in a roomful of AV professionals without hitting at least one who’s wondering how many IP addresses will be needed for a digital AV system that’s about to be installed.

And in CTS prep classes—or any number of InfoComm courses—you’ve probably noticed that instructors are good and ready to tell you how to get the IP addresses that you need in order to connect and manage those displays, projectors, audio DSPs, and other AV devices that sport newfangled Ethernet jacks. The truth is, as you know, Ethernet in AV isn’t newfangled at all.

Still, AV professionals could be forgiven if, in the process of learning Ohm’s law, sight lines, systems commissioning, signal switching, aspect ratios, reverberation, needs analysis, cable termination, rack building, and all the other skills they need to earn their CTS credentials, they threw up their hands at the introduction of IP addressing and said, “But I don’t need to learn that !” They could be forgiven, but they would be wrong.

In 2011, InfoComm introduced a course called Networked Audiovisual Systems, which was followed by the course Networking Technology. Both were products of along collaboration between training developers and a legion of volunteers—AV and IT professionals who recognized the need for a combined knowledge base at the intersection of their two worlds. This book is the result of those courses and represents an important primer for AV integrators, installers, consultants, and technology managers who need to operate in a networked world. It is also a window into the minds of AV pros for the network managers who must deliver audiovisual communications to clients while protecting valuable IT assets. “Why does the AV installer want a VLAN in the first place?” the network manager might wonder. This book aims to answer.

AV and IT technology have converged. No one is saying that AV pros need to be experts in IT, nor that IT pros should be handling AV (although cross-discipline experts would—and do—create exceptional AV communication experiences). But more and more, these two sides of the same technology coin must be able to communicate—in each other’s language—in order to deliver the kinds of solutions customers want; whether it’s a videoconferencing system that spans the globe, or a smart building that knows how to monitor its own AV systems’ energy use and take steps toward optimizing performance.

Many people thought that putting the first Ethernet port on the back of a projector was crazy. History has taught us it was no crazier than building a projector that could display images in three dimensions. Technology advances quickly. Today, AV technology advances even more quickly over a network. To keep up with the changes, visit infocomm.org.

David Labuskes, CTS, RCDD

Executive Director and CEO

InfoComm International