Video usage has skyrocketed across all market applications. From security operation centers to social media centers, encoding and decoding video streams are now an integral part of the majority of AV projects. Long gone are the days of a completely centralized equipment room with miles of heavy, expensive baseband video cabling. Today’s equipment rooms take up less space while still incorporating equipment located thousands of miles away.

Customers increasingly need content distribution across multiple rooms, buildings, and geographies. They are looking to integrators and consultants to provide a new solution that accommodates these needs.

Traditional baseband video distribution has several strengths:

• Lossless quality
• Low latency
• Fast switching

However, there are also some weaknesses associated with the hard-wired way of video distribution:

• Centralized switching and need for expensive extenders or optical connections for long cable runs
• Limited number of simultaneous devices supported
• Lack of platform flexibility - configuration and control
• Limited distance

While traditional solutions excel in close-proximity environments with a limited number of devices, new solutions are required for larger, distributed installations and IP streaming media support.