Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1472963
8 I ICT TODAY AV STAND RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND DESIGN A search for off-the-shelf AV stands revealed that there was no product available that could provide the right features at the right price. Therefore, the design-build team opted for a custom solution. A market search ensued for suitable large format displays, soundbars, and integrated AV stands. The team determined early on that there would be primary AV stands capable of originating AV content and secondary AV stands capable of mirroring the content created on the primary AV stands. To opti- mize teaching, the design would allow each primary AV stand to control and supply video and audio program signals to several secondary AV stands. The next step in the design process was to determine the fastest, most convenient, and cost-effective method for connecting the primary AV stands to the secondary AV stands. The obvious choice was the university's existing network infrastructure. This made audiovisual over internet protocol (AV over IP) an attractive choice for AV signal connectivity. The AV over IP allowed the AV stands to be easily placed where they were needed, requiring only a nearby network drop and AC mains power outlet, both of which were plentiful throughout all campus buildings. Since AV over IP was a relatively new technology at the time to the AV industry and to the design team, several sets of encoders and decoders were acquired for testing and evaluation. The integration contractor, NTU's AV staff, and the AV over IP equipment supplier tested an encoder-decoder pair in an off-campus testbed that included the configuration appliance used to set up all endpoints on the AV over IP network. Meanwhile, Bagley and NTU's IT staff tested a pair of the same encoders and decoders on the campus enterprise data network to verify compatibility and non-interference with ongoing network operations. Bagley's tests spanned several buildings on multiple campuses. The on-campus and off-campus tests con- firmed that AV over IP worked well and offered the quickest and easiest endpoint configuration, both initially and for ongoing growth and room rearrangement. Figure 1 illustrates the encoder-decoder pair. FIGURE 1: AV over IP encoder (top) and decoder (bottom).