Articles and whitepapers

Industry Opinion: The Challenges Facing AV Distribution (1/3/2010)

By Yasmin Hashmi, HiddenWires

We have more sources in the home, more places to distribute their content to, and more potential ways of controlling how we do it. There are also many technical challenges involved, particularly where HDMI signals are concerned.

We asked a number of leading lights what they see as the challenges facing AV distribution in the home, and what technologies they think installers should look out for during the coming year. Here are their replies (additional comments on this issue can be found at the HiddenWires LinkedIn Group where you can also participate in the discussion):

Mike Wingrove, Managing Director, ACA-Apex

The challenges facing AV distribution are mainly based around cost and the ability to send high-definition pictures over long distances. HDMI cables are only designed to go from a box to a TV, and have not been designed as a distributed interface. The introduction of matrix switchers has attempted to solve this problem, but the issue of passing data over long distances remains, and the matrix switch option can be viewed as quite costly.

I believe that if a home is being networked for AV, is highly likely that the infrastructure for a data network will already be planned or installed, and this, in the future, could be effectively used to distribute AV.

To do this, all that would be required is a digital media player linked via HDMI cable to each viewing device and to each viewing source. The digital media players would then all be networked via an Ethernet switch using twisted pair cable, coax, and potentially fibre optic cable.

This solution will become possible due to the costs of networking having tumbled over recent years: the first twisted pair Ethernet hub I sold was priced at GBP250 per port, and a switch was GBP2500. Now an equivalent mini switch is priced at around GBP35, and the average cost of digital media players is about GBP100! This may not be a good thing for the AV installer, as their margins will be eroded, but it is a reality to be faced.

www.aca-apex.co.uk

Stuart McCreadie, Account Manager, Unicam Group

Although HDMI is the first widely adopted 'smart' interconnect in the consumer electronics industry, it probably represents the biggest challenge for distribution and switching in the home. Whilst it offers numerous advantages over previous technologies, such as supporting 1080P video, lossless audio, etc., its high-speed digital nature and intelligent communication capabilities can be the cause of significant issues, primarily when it is adapted to multiroom video distribution. Even a correctly-installed HDMI system can exhibit some undesirable attributes, for example, long sync times due to HDCP authentication.

In this light, it is worth considering whether the performance benefits of HDMI outweigh the usability and stability of component video. One thing is for sure; with its limitations, HDMI may not be the ideal way to distribute multiple HD sources to multiple HD displays in the home.

It would seem that most clients want the technology of tomorrow today, but in reality, the major challenge for most systems integrators in 2010 is regaining profitability. Gaining new customers is one strategy, but another critical component is to find new profitable solutions to sell to existing customers and increase average ticket size.

www.unicamgroup.com

Chris Moseley, Product and Marketing Manager, Vivanco

HDMI is the connection that realistically must now be used to distribute any home AV signals. It was born not because of its vastly superior ability to produce higher quality images or sounds, but because it makes unauthorised copying much harder. I'm sure if you were to ask any installer, before HDMI was developed, for a shortlist of what a new all-in-one high-definition, multimedia cable should have, the top three every time would be: must be able to be terminated on site; must have a positive locking plug; and must be able to transmit signals over long distances.

HDMI isn't going away anytime soon, so this is one of the main problems that is faced every day by installers. Solutions such as boosted HDMI cables, fibre optic HDMI cables or CAT5/6 baluns are all solutions that are becoming more and more popular. In addition, alternatives to traditional wired systems are gaining in visibility, and prices for technology that can transmit uncompressed 1080P video signals are falling all the time. However, wireless solutions are still seen by most as unreliable, so for me, the 'networked home' will be the future reality of AV distribution.

CAT5/6 cables are cheap, reliable, work over any required distance, can be cut to length and terminated on site. They are often installed in new homes as standard, and we are already seeing a vast number of consumer electronic items with Ethernet sockets. Indeed the networked home and the way we all watch media in the coming years are set to be greatly influenced by developments such as Project Canvas. This is a partnership between the major broadcasters and telcos in the UK to develop a common interface for Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) for full and simple-to-use video on demand (VOD).

www.vivanco.com

Hagai Gefen, President and CEO, Gefen

Getting audio and video to various places in the home can be challenging. It all depends on the structure, the signal and the destinations. If you're simply distributing the same video to different displays, it's pretty straightforward. When you get into matrix switching of multiple sources being switched to multiple displays in different locations, it becomes more complex. One of the biggest challenges we see is maintaining a steady signal. Sometimes EDID issues can crop up during the switching, that lose the signal, which is really unacceptable. Providing switching products with built-in EDID, alleviates this issue.

Looking forward, we see 2010 technologies offering bundled packages. A switcher that also extends the signal over CAT5 cable or over Ethernet for example. Ethernet distribution is going to be huge, and we're excited to be a part of it. Control over IP is also making headway, as will anything that makes it simple and convenient to control content.

www.gefen.com

Johannes Rietschel, CEO and Founder, Barix

You can almost smell the answer when you ask an IP audio company about distribution and switching of audio and video signals. I certainly expect IP technology to further pave the roads in the connected home. Standardisation is progressing (802.1 AVB), and I expect more and more entertainment components to provide IP ports, whether Ethernet-based or wireless 802.11. The latter however, poses three major challenges:

a) While wired connections are typically very reliable and predictable in terms of timing, this is not the case for Wi-Fi. Unlike wired switches, which always deliver nominal bandwidth, wireless systems are unreliable as information may easily get corrupted or destroyed and needs to be repeated. This costs bandwidth and generates time lags. While such issues are the absolute exception with reasonably-installed wired networks, they are the norm with Wi-Fi. Of course, 802.11 protocols handle this, but at the cost of timing inconsistency.

b) When doing multicast/broadcast (source to multiple receivers) distribution, Wi-Fi will typically lower the transmission speed significantly to increase the likelihood of error-free transmission. A Wi-Fi system may already be at its capacity with an AV stream, while a wired system can handle ten times the load.

c) The biggest challenge with wireless systems is that they cannot be planned for 100% reliability. Whereas parameters are well-known for wired systems, noise sources, thick shielding walls and reflections may hamper the performance of even a well-planned Wi-Fi-based system. This produces additional cost and support issues, which can easily be underestimated by installers.

www.barix.com

Kevin Cray, Technical Director, CYP (UK)

As HDMI becomes the standard for TV viewing in the home, larger and more versatile matrix switching is required to enable installers and home users alike to distribute the myriad of HDMI sources to various locations around the home. The challenges are to increase compatibility and simplify control to empower home users, without breaking the bank (after all, the banks are pretty good at doing this themselves!) To achieve this, manufacturers need to converge existing technologies, such as matrix switching, HDMI over CAT cabling and IR control, into a single product, thereby reducing complexity and power consumption.

Wi-Fi-enabled control of the home cinema will be big this year - anything can be controlled from your iPhone/iTouch or Google Android device using simple Wi-Fi-to-IR or to RS232 hardware and cost-effective software. We will be keeping a close eye on which software Apps are gaining in popularity and ensure we can provide effective solutions to enable simple Wi-Fi control of our more complex products.

www.cypeurope.com

Jonathan Pengilley, Managing Director, Habitech

HDMI, audio, component video etc over twisted pair cable is now an established technology. However there are still gremlins and often the dreaded blue screen is the only thing we see. We have been at the forefront of HDMI over twisted pair cable (Cat5e/Cat6) and have been through a lot of pain trying to ensure that it is a robust and failsafe solution.

Our experience is that in the vast majority of cases, the problems lie in the cables and the terminations. Unfortunately as you know, once the walls are closed up, there is no going back. CAT cable has become so common and is such a commodity that manufacturers aren't getting even close to adhering to the official standards as they try to cut costs. Very few suppliers or customers are monitoring the quality and ensuring that it is adhering to the once strict standards.

IP data networks are inherently tolerant as the data is sent in packets and buffered. It has emerged that there are three quality standards for Cat5, but have you ever asked for the test results of the Cat5e you buy? Well guess what, cheap Cat5e is most probably the lowest standard - probably fine for a small 100baseT network, but for HDMI 1.3b running at 10Gb/s?

Custom installers have been telling us that they are constantly being undercut, and then when they commission a system they are having problems because the developer or electrical contractor has used inferior Cat5e. My advice is if you want to save on a whole lot of HDMI headaches that can be expensive to solve or even prohibitive to undo, insist on properly-certified cable. Even if it is a little more expensive to start with, if you are planning to use it with HDMI, how much is your sanity and time worth?

www.habitech.co.uk

Jon Lane, Managing Director, Smart-e

One of the main challenges for 2010 will be to try and distribute 3D content to multiple screens. The 3D market is being driven by programme makers, and whilst 3D displays are prohibitively expensive for most applications, display costs will start to reduce, which will result in an increase in demand, opening up the 3D market. We also anticipate that during 2010, IP for TV and HD wireless for multichannel building-wide applications, will also be areas for improvement.

www.smart-e.co.uk

Yasmin Hashmi is the Editor of HiddenWires magazine. Additional comments on this issue can be found at the HiddenWires LinkedIn Group where you can also participate in the discussion. If you would like to be included in future opinion pieces, please send an email to opinion(AT)hiddenwires.co.uk.