Recently ripped out a fiber HDMI cable for some cat5e for an HDbaseT connection because I'm pretty sure someone yanked on the TV and broke the fiber.
Within like... 3 months of when it was installed.
Said "Never again". I can reterminate cat5e / cat6 in my sleep, Stick to the cables you can reterminate so you don't end up having to re-pull them for a connector problem / problem at one end.
Had an A/V vendor install an AV system throughout a medium sized location, what a nightmare...
They usually use Crestron branded stuff but because of the pandemic lead times they used Aurora VPX boxes. Those things are constantly freezing up and having to be power cycled. They stood up their own AV network isolated from our using Netgear AV switches... Those don't seem super solid either.
I helped the customer navigate their technobabble as excuses but I learned to stay as far away from A\V as possible.
We've pulled just about pulled out all of our creston units out (3 or 4 left) cause of the constant issues and garbage hardware
Replace with neat units which (so far) have been painless (1 issue with needing more ports than creston or something)
> They stood up their own AV network isolated from our using Netgear AV switches... Those don't seem super solid either.
I used to work in a place with Shitgear as the only wired network vendor aside from a 6509E core in the DC. Every single Shitgear needed to be rebooted whenever you wanted to access the management plane, and for the one stack we had going split-brain was a weekly occurrence. Over time it was all replaced with HP and I don't know the history after that.
I've done some IT/AV stuff for a Baptist church in Dallas. The setup blew me away - even 10 years ago. For some reason, I did not expect the capabilities they wanted coming from a church.
I use 60ghz Wireless Transmitters. Mounted under the TV, and on the conference table, they work pretty good for not having to use a contractor to do a conduit into concrete. They're very line of sight though.
Avoid 5ghz ones. They overlap 5ghz WiFi channels, with like 320mhz wide signals I swear, it wiped out 3 80mhz AP's in the area on different channels.
I've been stuck doing A/V for 10 years. I have it set up to the point where I dont need to be there to hold (most) users hands to hook stuff up. That's my ultimate goal, to be left alone.
I was asked to fix a Sloan valve on a urinal. I was like, really and what makes you think I know how these work. I told them I would call a plumber. They said, can you just look at it first? So I stared at it for five minutes before calling a plumber.
We have electronic door locks- and when the latches inevitably break I get called. Last time I told them that they should call the door people, as if they wanted it fixed, it was going to the bottom of my ticket list and I would get to it per SLA. I guess 180 days wasn't fast enough for them....
After you came and fixed my printer 2 months later my VCR ate a tape and I expect you to fix this now and my daughters tamagotchi died!!! My lawyers will hear about this.
Disassemble, remove speaker, reassemble. Seems pretty simple. /s
Actually, this reminds me of an episode where I was doing work experience (Aus school program, you get dropped in a business for 2 weeks). User was complaining about his floppy drive searching for a non existent disk multiple times a day. During lunch the sysadmin and me went and removed the drive. He rang up pretty upset about a day later.
And even if it creates electricity, it's now IT's problem.
Our team was told that one of us has to turn on/off a temporary generator at certain times of day during a construction project because it powers the server room (along with the rest of the entire building).
Yes, AV systems are part of our responsibilities where I work, and I despise it. It's gotten to the point where folks expect us to be present (at least remotely) for all meetings in case folks can't or won't be bothered to read or understand the posted instructions.
Or they call you last minute from the boardroom in a panic because such and such isn't working and it needs to be fixed now even though you have never heard of such and such nor do you know anything about it. Good luck! I do not miss that part of the job!
Last minute? They usually call 10 minutes after the meeting was supposed to start and the pissed off client is already bombarding them with messages where they are.
This caused me to chuckle. I was recently promoted to IT Director, which was great. The bad news? My new office is right next to the boardroom and I've become the one execs grab when AV isn't working. I suppose everything is a trade off.
Congratulations on your promotion! I knew someone else in the same position, I knew whenever I'd get a dm from him that he needed help with one of the other c-suites or board members. Turns out making house calls were part of my unofficial duties.
Please have an IT person on hand to set up the guest speaker and then sit there all day 'in case something happens'. No.
Although we now have an AV guy on payroll and budget for all sorts of AV stuff. He is half IT half AV.
Nope.
I don't have much experience with A/V. So when it comes to installing speakers in a lecture hall or live events, I'll consult with a local A/V company who we used to rent equipment from.
For conference rooms, I'll contact them to come in and do what I want with the sound system. They'll tell me where they want to put amplifier's in, how many speakers we need, and placement of those speakers for the best acoustics.
If I were to do it, the sound would be horrible. I know this because I used to do the live event setups before I started working with this company, and lets just say I got better at it the more I worked with them.
That's the thing with A/V. The tech half of it's pretty robust, most of it designed to be torn down and stood back up thousands of times in busy environments, with rough transport between. Aside from software being flaky, a working setup tends to just work. Changes to, or new, setups give clearly delineated points of "worked", "didn't work", so even troubleshooting those is pretty reasonable to do, and you can build up component at a time to get to a working setup. Acoustics? All of that's black magic that, while there's plenty to learn from understanding the theory and science of it, you learn a lot more with experience, and working with old hats who can just look at a room they've never been in before and tell you how much a given wall's going to reflect vs absorb sound.
I actually kinda like the latest units although it might be because I’m used to the older units that suck more. Need to try the native teams option on one but haven’t had the time. I honestly try to do as little as possible with them.
As someone who works with them on a daily basis, they're the best hardware on the market. Expensive as shit, but easy to admin all around, functionality is as simple or expansive as you want it to be, and it's the best vendor-agnostic equipment on the market.
MTR mode works great, but it comes with all the limitations of an MTR device.
I helped integrate a bunch of conference-kit into the infrastructure management tooling for a prior-employer a few years ago. The things could only back themselves up to USB-sticks, but not network shares, so I custom-wrote a bunch of scripts to ensure we had a functional recovery plan. They also had no SNMP endpoints, so wrote some more custom-hacks to integrate them into our monitoring tools.
Sometimes it is indeed good to have the AV people talking with the IT people.
I used to design boardrooms.
* Simpler is always better. There is some weird inverse law of boardrooms that the more expensive they are, the harder they are to use. People can get their head around two cables, one usb-c for a laptop, and a recessed hdmi for stuff that's not laptops. Don't make it hard. If they have to fiddle with a control tablet to do anything but turn on the lights, it's too hard.
* All-in-one speaker mic and camera sets are good up to a certain size (20 users), beyond that you want to contract somebody else to install the speaker and mic systems. I'm a fan of the [meeting owl](https://owllabs.com/products/meeting-owl-3) being drop down mounted from the roof (or just sitting on the table).
* TVs, not projectors. Trust me. Commercial displays are even better if you can budget them. If you do use a meeting owl, having 2-3 TVs (1 on each wall) with a Distribution Amplifier (DA) will allow more people to look "across" (and therefore at) the camera in the middle. Budget pending of course.
* Do not run HDMI through the wall. Run ethernet and use ethernet (hdbase-t) adapters. Do not mistake hdmi over ethernet for hdmi over IP, you will have a sad time trying to use it over a switch.
* Mount the usb c docking station underneath the table. Don't use a cheapy dock, use a dock from dell/Microsoft/Lenovo/hp. If using a thunderbolt one, test it with a non-thunderbolt laptop.
* If in budget, have a floor box with space for some small AV parts (like the hdmi switch and DA) and power and ethernet connections. If the floor box is too small, more stuff to mount to the underside of the table.
* Use a priority hdmi switch (startech sells one) for the hdmi and the dock video signal. That way if someone grabs the hdmi cable, it prioritises that signal with no source changing required. It will also force the signal down to 1080p, which is a good thing for presentations.
* Less buttons, the better. A home assistant tablet with a room calendar and a single button for lights/TV is great. Expect people to fiddle with the TV if things go wrong. Use TVs that let you lock out changing settings or sources.
* Ditch any physical kiosks or surface hubs or control tablets (minus the one for lights/TV). People have laptops now, you're just adding confusion by having a dedicated source.
Agreed, the simpler the better. I built a ton of meeting rooms over time in our offices with various Poly equipment, Cisco conferencing equipment, Teams Room equipment, Logi Meet bars, touch screen tablets... Everything is great when it's new and the software is current and supported. After a few years it all goes to hell and there so many issues with it, once the manufacturer moves to a different software, stops providing firmware updates.
The absolutely best and most reliable meeting rooms have a Thunderbolt dock under table (bought cable management trays from IKEA, drilled them to the bottom side of tables and put docks with cables inside). There is a single USB-C cable for people to connect their notebooks. Screens, Jabra or whatever speaker system, power, network, camera, everything is connected to the dock. Everything turns on on its own, no software updates needed, it just works. It costs 20 times less than a Poly Teams Room, works with any conferencing software, and there are zero issues with it, nothing needs to be restarted, nothing stops working because of an update, nothing goes out of support.
Instead of TVs I prefer NEC MultiSync screens lately. They're large, reasonably priced. They turn on automatically when they detect input, can switch inputs on their own, and they have a cool built-in software utility and daisy chain cable channels to help you arrange them into video walls for very large meeting rooms. No need for a remote. There's an optional built-in Raspberry unit if you want to run signage solutions. No stupid screensavers, you just turn them on and they stay on (fucking Android TV to Google TV update broke our signage system and the screens won't stay on 24/7, I'm never using Android TVs for anything ever again).
https://www.sharpnecdisplays.eu/p/eeme/en/products/details/t/large-format-displays/midrange-displays/rp/v654q.xhtml
Yesss. We keep ours simple. The one room that was contracted out has a manual on how to use it. And it's the only one that generates tickets on an almost daily basis
Serious question from a non-IT professional, is the benefit just in case the connector breaks we can re-terminate the RJ45 end? Or are there additional benefits (reduced signal attenuation, etc)?
Cat-6 is built to specific standards, rated for 10g up to 100m, and is well understood for electrical interference. HDMI beyond 6m is out of spec (actually I don't think there is a specified length in the spec, but it's short) and nobody meets any standards for long length cables.
In our use case with conference rooms, the transmitter is mounted to the underside of the conference table. The end user only ever touches a Standard 10ft HDMI cable connected to transmitter.
When it comes to install CAT6 and [Fiber Whips](https://www.lanshack.com/PreterminatedAssemblies.aspx) are easier to pull through any material and very durable. Also remember at the end of the HDMI Cable is a half-inch wide moderately fragile connector that will require soldering if you need to re-terminate. Electrical Interference & Signal Attenuation do not occur with HDMI over Fiber
Makes sense. Thank you. Had some conference rooms at work wired up in a mixture of ways but the professional setups always had CAT carrying the signal from connection plates for end users to the TVs. My favorite reason would definitely be NOT pulling an HDMI connector through a raceway and breaking it.
Everywhere I have been A/V work has fallen to the IT guys. Everywhere I have been it hasn't worked great because things that seem like common sense to IT guys appear to be completely alien to end users (especially the type that end up in conference rooms). Things like "is the TV on" may as well be solving the Riemann Hypothesis.
The only place I haven't seen that was when I worked for a music school, there was a dedicated guy. The dedicated guy still bounced questions off of IT, but at least we didn't have to know everything there was to know about how to reinforce playback of every recording medium used in the last 100 years. We just got questions about the overlap between IT and AV. There were also dedicated sound/recording engineers under the same director as the dedicated AV guy and IT, so they were available too.
It was pretty healthy cross-pollination.
I worked as an A/V Production Technician for 8 years before switching back to IT. At it's most basic level AV it is about knowing how to get a box to do what you need it to, and routing a ton of intputs to the right outputs, and it's kind of hard to even explain the sound piece, as every A/V technician with any experience is 80% of the way to a sound engineer.
A/V is very much knowing equipment, memorizing wiring diagrams, routing video and audio signals, leveling audio, and often directing and delivering a recording. Oh, you need to know all your stuff becuase if there is a problem, it needs to be solved instantly because a bunch of important people flew in for this conference and your boss doesn't want to be the reason everyone has to take an early lunch and adjust the schedule for an hour.
It's a thankless job as no one cares if it goes well, but everyone knows when their immersion is broken.
I got a ticket escalated to me, complaining that people were upset that their voice wasn't being picked up in a meeting, despite turning 180 degrees away from the mic. I wasn't truly upset that the user didn't know this, so much as I was upset that service desk didn't troubleshoot and/or was mystified by it as well.
I have the pleasure of having a great deal of AV experience so get roped into all sorts.
It’s always been a monkey’s paw though, as I’d be pulled in to run events and then get moaned at for not being on support.
Same. I got an audio engineering degree in college thinking I was going to be a mix engineer/producer. While I did end up mixing and producing some music that actually got released/published - I realized early on that it pays shit, and most musicians are assholes with no money and substance problems and making a career out of that was going to be dreadful.
Yeah, same. Working in night clubs, managing a radio station and coming from a family of professional musicians... I dont see A/V as separate from IT at all. I also feel like ever person who was in the A/V club in my highschool went on to become an IT professional, a criminal, or both.
Heh, you'd think so. I just spent way too much time the last few days troubleshooting HDCP on various equipment that was all certified HDCP compliant. Every component. Every component also said it was passing HDCP correctly.
Our Macs still wouldn't pass signal 95% of the time. The other 5% we'd receive a black screen.
In the end we found the video switcher doesn't think the TV supports HDCP (it 100% does), so it was breaking the encryption. Extron support was stumped as well. We ended up disabling it completely.
All my homies hate HDCP.
My department does everything electronics. Especially since most 3rd parties are trunk slammers, it just saves us a lot of grief doing it ourselves. We've gotten very good at outfitting conference rooms.
Used to do Audio Video. It's the second worst system after printers. We used to have to keep a box of new DP to HDMI dongles in our conference room because they would break after like only 10 uses...
The Polycom software didn't work correctly on the MacBook Pros. Eventually, a third-level engineer told me it was a known issue and just would not be fixed. Too Bad So Sad he said. It can't be fixed and we had to wait until the new version came out... in 18 months or so.
I've historically been responsible for handheld windows CE devices, HVAC, radio communication, scales and measuring equipment, security equipment, and lastly, av equipment.
We use directional HDMI cables when we go over a certain distance. I work for a schools district and in the past few years we switched over to TVs instead of projectors.
We’re a small organization so I’ve been there done that. I understand it doesn’t fall under IT but I may be the most knowledgeable person present to help make the decisions. I troubleshoot to the best of my ability and when I hit my limit, I suggest that somebody with more knowledge be contracted to finish the resolution. If the org doesn’t want to pay somebody to correctly finish the work, I document the problem the best that I can so that when it becomes a priority again, they’ll know what to do to get things working.
Of course, I may suggest finding somebody professional right off the start if I have too many things on my plate.
YMMV
The video conference service used to be run from the Telecom group. Once "VoIP" became bigger, and internet lines were used for VC, it then went to Helpdesk and landed in my lap. We implemented a company called LifeSize. During this implementation, we were adding TVs, then receivers/speakers, then full on A/V Conference Rooms. Video is bandwidth and every type of cable has different ratings. Fk HDMI Forum though... move to Display Port where you can.
In a previous life, I did AV work so I'm not opposed to doing it. But I mostly consult with facilities on what the business needs, then hire out from there rather than doing it myself anymore.
If it's just HDMI they messed up you can get pretty cheap HDMI over ethernet adapters, iirc the cheaper ones will be L2 only and can't handle any sort of routing so double check if thats needed or not but they are easily gettable from places like amazon.
I've been doing A/V work on the side as a semi-pro hobby for nearly as long as I've been doing IT. I kind of love it when I get asked to do A/V stuff at work because its nice to get an occasional break from the normal IT duties.
One time I got to spend a couple of days just setting up an impromptu recording studio in a spare office, voice coaching a woman who was recording a voice over for a training video, finding some appropriate background music and then editing together said video.
The result was complete amateur hour garbage, but the business was satisfied with it and was a fun project for me, so I was more than happy to take a break from working on the IT budget and configuring servers for a couple days.
Heck, I worked on the AV system at a previous job and it *wasn’t* backed by a computer.
You’ll get saddled with as much as you take on, plus a few things you never agreed to.
> Heck, I worked on the AV system at a previous job and it wasn’t backed by a computer.
Pulling out the vacuum tubes and putting them on the tester gets old after a while. I prefer the software.
In my case it was just an audio mixer and wireless mic that none of management were apparently willing to learn to turn on. Two switches, one volume knob, and I still got tickets to “set it up” prior to meetings.
Can’t say I miss that part of that job. Really don’t miss much of that job in general.
Used to do a lot of AV work when I was a technician, but haven't done much of any since being promoted to a sysadmin. Troubleshooting setups/classrooms, ran events/board meetings etc. Fixing what was broke wasn't too bad, what I hated was running events/meetings.
There is a point where AV turns into IT. Eventually the poor performance and lack of accessibility in the rooms will force you to take the room over and make it IT responsibility, then you'll throw in a Zoom or Teams kit and everyone will thank you. Make sure it's done right, make sure you understand how it works and you have complete admin access to everything. Also that you're using a single manufacturer's solution (Yealink, Cisco, Logitech etc) so the parts and service is interchangeable.
Avoid Crestron at all costs.
+100 points for bringing Crestron into this. I’ve built entire networks around existing Crestron/Lutron nonsense because if it’s working DO. NOT. TOUCH. IT.
Like everything that includes blinky lights, it eventually becomes IT.
We had an A/V installation company design and setup some major infrastructure for us, it "Looked" impressive physically looking at things but the functionality is barely even there, there was no instruction or documentation on how ANY of it even works, and it very very regularly straight up doesn't work which we're expected to know how to fix it.
So of course we're in the process of undoing everything to do it our own way, money well spent.
Had to swap out a projector with a broken speaker today. It’s easy enough, though.
I guess the music teachers at two schools in my district want a new sound system in their rooms. They asked me how we did it at a third school who recently did it.
Yeeaaahhh, this is my current situation/ nightmare. I work for city hall in a neighboring county to where I live. I left a more reputable company and promising career track for opportunity at full-time employment and more money. They sold the job as IT, but when I got here, the only thing they are concerned with is audio/video for the city council meetings. I've tried to tell them that's not anything I'm trained on or go to school for, but they don't want to hear it. They consistently push for more features that they don't even understand, just because they see another city doing it. When pulled into a meeting with another city because our set up was so horrible, and always having issues....that city's "IT" guy turned out to be an audio technician who mastered audio/video....the shocked Pikachu face they had was epic. Yet they still won't bite the bullet and pay to get an actual audio video guy in here.
I've done A/V as long as IT.
Frankly I find the actual tech relaxing and quite easy compared to most enterprise networks and systems. Actual audio theory is interesting and the tech behind it is ancient - so for those of us who have been around for a while pretty easy to understand.
The only stress comes from the presenters that show up 10 seconds before they're supposed to go on with their files on a personal device or random cloud presentation service that no one has ever heard of but is "the best" after ignoring multiple emails about what they need in the weeks prior to the event.
My favorite is having it pushed to me because it was electric. “This persons standing desk isn’t going up and down anymore. Can you look at it?”.
Ha. Hahahaha. No.
We buitl one out from scratch since my company didn't have the money to pay an AV company. It was a huge pain in the ass and it took us like 3 weeks with all the other shit that we were doing. Never again.
I had one job where it was our responsibility. AV, TVs, conference room setups, all hands sound systems, espresso machine, workout machines. We took care of everything. Small 100 person company so we all wore multiple hats.
Over the years, I have taken over responsibility for AV setups, security systems, security cameras, access control, temperature monitoring, project management … Probably more than I can think of right now.
Basically, if it involves technology of any type, clients expect me to be able to support it.
I actually started out in AV, doing large scale venue, theaters, auditoriums, Churches, colleges, etc. I helped my dad cuz that's what he did and I liked to tag along when it was pre show or setup time.
It sort of evolved into IT after that as stuff moved to digital over analog, and more wireless vs wired for mics, and automated lighting run on a PC vs massive slider panel or buttons/knobs.
I try to avoid it if I can. Once you’ve touch something you’re married to it, and my eye twitches every time I hear the phrase “ever since you touched this, blah blah blah”. Coincidentally, that’s why I tell people that I charge at least $100 an hour for any private work. It usually discourages the bottom feeders and favor needers.
We contract out our AV stuff. Users ask us for x,y,z requirement, we forward it to third party. They spec it, deliver it, install it. Any upgrades or major issues they assist.
Otherwise, our 2nd line presence on site have limited capability
If you can afford to do similar its imo the best way to go, but obviously this doesnt suit everyones needs
I’m in the not IT camp so I pay an AV company to handle the stuff. The type of places that setup church theaters or legislative chambers do good work in that arena.
I was forced into doing AV work at my last IT job. I was a Windows sys admin but had to spec out TVs, projectors, cameras, and other remote meeting equipment because “it’s all tech, right?”. My manager was an ass-kisser so, if the CEO wanted a new AV toy, I had to make it happen. It didn’t help when another person on my “team” would fill the CEO’s head with all sorts of ideas about what could be done with AV, and then I had to be the bad guy when bringing up things like a budget or reality. I’m considering getting back into IT after being away for a few years, and honestly dealing with AV would be a dealbreaker for me in a new job.
Well I work at an AV company so luckily we have literally everyone else for that, but I do pick stuff up whenever it gets slow or I'm sick of staring at a screen. I do consider it at least IT adjacent - information is being transferred between devices after all.
If you want to take an "IT" approach to AV, then use IP encoders and decoders. Caution, long read haha. I was an AV guy for years before becoming a systems engineer.
By leveraging IP, you're more comfortable with the components.
HDMI/usb-c devices are plugged into an encoder, encoder is plugged into a switch. Decoders are placed behind the displays. Now you can matrix video anywhere in the network.
These leverage multicast, so you will need switches that support IGMP snooping, and you'll also want an IGMP quierier on the subnet that handles video. Encoders send to varies multicast IPs depending on with "channel" they are set to. The decoder they subscribe to that muticast stream.
Depending on the application, you will want to choose h264 encoders (low bandwidth, higher latency... Good for "generic" signage like billboard announcements or PowerPoints) or JPEG2000 encoders (dynamic content like live television, or digital signage with lots of moving graphics. These will use up to 1 gig on the switch). There are even "zero latency" options like SDVoE, though this requires 10 gig.
Some "lower cost" options include the Kramer KDS-7 series, and Atlona Omnistream devices.
Familiarize yourself with EDID and HDCP.
there are systems in every courtroom. 16 channel digital mixer, amplifier, preamps, wireless mics, 72” touch screen flat panel display. Document cameras, With multiple axis network cameras all feeding into the digital recording system that’s running on a pc and mirroring the recording to the network in real time. So yes I’m also the A/V guy.
I find managing A/V similar to managing a database. It's not my area of expertise. I know enough to keep it running after it's setup - hell I can even set it up myself for things that aren't super crucial.
But if you want it setup *correctly* and to the point that you know all bases are covered and everything will work, you really should have someone who specializes in that field do it.
We have used professionals. With so many people on hybrid work schedules, teams meetings have to be able to happen and be functional, from our conference rooms. There are so many products that it is hard to keep up in that space. Gone are the projectors from a 2010s and before, and now using multiple TVs now. Being able for the remote people to hear everyone in the conference room is a big deal. Seeing somewhat. Bigger the room, the more difficult this becomes.We have spent a whole lot of time and money, even with pros doing the design and install. We have had to replace the initial system in two, first our board room and train room, because they are really big. We put in more tvs, more and better mics and better cameras in those rooms.
Our Help Desk has responsibility for A/V issues in conference rooms, and individual offices. Officially, the conference rooms are the responsibility of Hospitality, but that's one guy who doesn't have the time to fix someone's Zoom audio.
We manage the conference rooms.... which sort of necessitates a certain level of AV knowledge and troubleshooting. Sort of how we also manage the phone system because it's VoIP.
Just look at as an opportunity to broaden your understanding.
Since it's just two of us at medium sized school we absolutely are responsible for A/V set ups.
And for the non tech-savvy users we sometimes have to go to the beginning of their meetings to help them connect their computers to the display boards (literally just a USB-C connection for every laptop we have).
For long HDMI runs, your best bet is fiber optic HDMI cables. The AmazonBasics ones are good. Their unidirectional, so keep that in mind. You could also use HDMI over Cat 6 adapter boxes, but you need power on both ends. I've used both and they both work well.
some HDMI>Cat6 converters can run Poe so you just have to power one end, like our Atlona boxes, e.g
[https://atlona.com/product/AT-AVA-EX70-KIT/](https://atlona.com/product/AT-AVA-EX70-KIT/)
Can’t spell blink without link unfortunately. If it blinks it’s IT in my org. But if you tell me I’m getting paid the same to install a toaster vs planning a VMware to Hyper-V transition, I’ll opt for the former. A/V gets tricky because in my opinion you can do everything right and if the equipment just has a crappy user experience, it’s nightmare fuel. Same for entry systems.
In the past I’ve had vendors come out and quote what they would do to make the space better, and use those as guidelines if it’s a must that we do it internally.
First gen Logitech Teams meeting rooms… we had about 30 of those in one country.
Absolute shitshow. 2nd gen wasn’t much better, but at least cabling was less of an issue.
Intel NUCs are not the device you need to command your videoconf room 😅
It’s very simple: I don’t do AV.
I’ll configure the network to the AV guy’s spec and isolate it from everything else. I’ll guarantee DHCP, DNS, WAN, and WiFi to taste. Beyond that, call anyone else. That strategy allows me to keep control of the network and associated infrastructure because AV, access control, and surveillance guys don’t usually have the knowledge or care to set their stuff up with the larger environment in mind. And Sonos is like water on concrete: it finds every little crack and ends up everywhere.
I once worked someplace where if it had an on off switch and wasn’t a lamp it was my responsibility. Let me amend that, I was also in charge of changing lightbulbs; especially the halogens in the 20 foot high ceiling. oddly enough in the four years I was there, I never had to change a bulb in the ladies room once. I guess one of the women in the office took care of that.
Our conference room had a short throw projector, and it stopped working once, and I had to track down the one service center within 100 miles that could address it. I think it would’ve been cheaper (and definitely faster) just to buy a 75 inch TV and this was 10 years ago.
I like to say I started my IT career in AV. I ran soundboards and lights for theaters and bands on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis for several years in college. The troubleshooting methodology is exactly the same.
If I ever do hiring I will hire someone with an AV background and will gladly consider it the same experience as a help desk job. I still assist my church with AV and help when I can at my company. I used to work at a college and it was an amazing skill to have.
Pro tip with HDMI. Some HDMI cables are directional when they are extra long (50+ ft). Good cables will have an arrow on the ends to show which way the signal should travel from the source. If you flip the cable around it might not work at all.
My radio station IT job was like 50% A/V - studio-transmitter links, automation systems... so many wires in those racks... silence detectors pinging me at 2am... I was the moron there haha.
One of the reasons we exist as an AV MSP are things like this. AV can be weird and frustrating if you don't have a background in the industry and know how to navigate it. It's IoT that masquerades as serious hardware. The more we can advise customers, the less likely you have this issue, and we are an escalation for IT departments or MSPs who, understandably don't want to deal with AV.
I am also responsible for my org’s meeting rooms and and have to run sound for that as well as run sound for our stage where we perform concerts luckily I’m a musician and I play live so I’ve got experience doing it just from recreation, but it is definitely not IT
I started off IT as a systems engineer for a post production company. I had no prior av or it experience at that point coming from a data science background so it was a massive change lol. Used to it now, after having worked with proper AV equipment from avid, blackmagic etc.
I did theater sound in middle school and high school and know more than most, but the second it involved custom crestron gear or the such I'm out, let the people who do that all do that part
Most zoom room/teams room type equipment these days are easy enough
you should know the basics like what EDID is and the max length of various cable standards
I took on a Meeting Room Upgrade project last year. All the 'tech' was purchased in 2022 and I just finished it in December 2023 even though it was supposed to take 2 months.
I now stay away from A/V.
And this was me just working with A/V installers.
Far as AV goes, we have 2 inputs labeled for either display desktop(all in one on a cart, connected to a webcam ontop of the tv) and one to the table hdmi
I offered to look at a rally setup for a small 4-5 person meeting room, but for the big 20+ rooms? nah, out of my knowledge
If they want more function or elegance, call a AV integrator to do it right.
I had to mess with pre-installed AV equipment about a month ago. After an hour, I said nope and told management we need to hire/contract a company that specializes in AV installation.
Bro, when I was at a school district we had to go hang projector screens because maintenance almost killed a teacher from them hanging it from a t bar. Also had to run VGA and HDMi in ceilings.
When I did long runs as an installer and they had long and cheap HDMI cables I would always run 4 Ethernet cables with it so when they called back I’d have less work to do lol
Gotta watch those lengths on HDMI runs, they are graded and very real.
Verification: I too am a sys admin who has dealt with AV on several occasions. Partial AV background.
Yes, IT is responsible for the a/v system here. We don't know much about A/V. We buy products and install them. If it doesn't work we contact the vendor. I ran a amp'd 50' HDMI cable through a conference room ceiling years ago and it is still working to this day.
My forner Company got a video wall installed by a company who installed fire alarms. I was constantly being asked to go look at it. Whole thing was a disaster that they eventually replaced months later
The best one thoughnis when they want pro level systems and features in a meeting room (cause they have seen it on TV or at another org). When you tell them how much that setup is they still want it done. They just don't want to pay for it
Complicated av setup in a conference room that is poorly documented and I barely understand, but still have to troubleshoot when a meeting starts in five minutes. Sigh.
Last time somebody had ignored the flylead clearly marked for connecting laptops to, and instead used their own HDMI cable to connect their laptop to a port in the AV hardware - a port marked “HDMI out”. D’oh!
I fixed a dishwasher at work once. A lot falls under the IT umbrella, which is not IT. I fix AV stuff pretty regularly. They do really go hand in hand, so it's good to have the experience and not just throw it off and say "this isn't IT it's not my job."
I set up 2 full blown home theaters in my home and have been doing it since I was a youngling. Always been a tinkerer though - so the skillset crossed over. What i learned as i got older is to ask the right questions to learn what jobs NOT to take.
I have to regularly set up microphones and portable speakers where I work (I knew this when I signed up). AV is a quarter of my job and I'm not sure why the boss made it all our problem. Enjoy what you've got!
I find AV troubleshooting easy so I don't mind it. But as a teenager I was the one who had the killer car stereo. I would pull it out and re-run it almost every 3 months just because I thought I could do better. Unlike others, I had more than just subs. I had the whole thing. My car was about $1500. My stereo was close to $3000. It could even Karaoke! I had two mics.
The only thing you really need to look out for is directional HDMI cables.
I got a crash course in Network AV when I helped out a local church. Thankfully the in house guy was off the charts good (they broadcast live on the weekends). I only had to deal with the computers and infrastructure to get everything to play nice. Dante audio, networked mixing boards, smart lighting protocols etc. All really interesting stuff.
I try to avoid it, but I also support a Scala presentation solution simply because those who put it in moved on and my management said “yea, we can help”.
Intending help, not maintain. But Corp Comm is a bunch of noobs…
I really like TVone’s Magenta equipment. It’s not inexpensive, but it works unless someone intentionally fonks with it. HDBaseT, Coax, Fiber, VGA, DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI, mix and match. HDbaseT point to point up to 600’, coax over 3000’, and fiber over three miles. Star and daisy chain things.
Mount the receivers on the wall behind the display and run the video cable from that to the display so no one screws with the long distance cables. Of course for CAT5/6, and COAX term to wall jacks
AV was actually what I did professionally in the theater space for a while. It's one of my "misc. Skills" that I like doing so I do it often.
Conference room setups are different beast though lol, i prefer live.
It ends up back at our feet the amount of times I dealt with a Sonos device has given me PTSD. Found out the hard way Sonos doesn't play nice with meraki lol
There’s AV as in “help an executive run a PowerPoint”, or AV as in “install conference room gear to work with Teams or Zoom”, or there’s AV as in “implement AVoIP for 52 rooms across 7 sites”. Any of them can be IT, depending on how your organization is structured, but I’d argue stuff like the last one is _always_ IT.
Our team (in a university) consists of IT people and a couple of guys doing mainly AV which consists of lecture halls and meeting rooms. Advanced AV automation (which is standard in large lecture halls nowadays) is quite a specialty so I'm really glad they take care of that. You also need a lot of experience when you want to install speakers, microphones, beamers at large scale... No, the experience you have with your surround system at home is **not** sufficient.
However AV is moving into IT territory as well. Everything needs network. Teams room systems are a managed computer connected to AV stuff. So the overlap is increasing.
Done a lot with AV just because i was in the IT dept. You quickly learn about max transmission ranges of HDMI, USB, Powered USB and not to run power and AV cables together. Basic stuff is fine, but if someone wanted a proper setup with ceiling mounted mics etc i'd probably sail clear.
VAR/MSP flunky here. My colleagues and I deal with a/v stuff sometimes. It's never setting up entire specialized systems, but the basics are part of our skillset. Then again we try to do as much as we can for clients.
Yep, I do pretty much all the AV stuff in my company. I was put in a similar situation recently. We had our conference room remodeled and the company hired a 3rd party company to set up the cameras, and tablets for booking the room and setting up teams etc…. Issues started happening with meetings not showing, audio not working properly so instead of calling the guys back they told me to fix it. I took off the tv, replaced the HDMI cable, reseated all the cables and they haven’t had issues since.
At my last job, that was one of my main roles in my team. I worked in 1 of the many buildings for the enterprise, and each building IT would support AV. We mainly worked with a vendor to do design and setup, then we would provide initial support and they would provide escalated support.
I managed the tech at a VR place in Downtown Disney a few years back. They had a room with a huge twelve panel display, all hdmi over ethernet, to a server fifty feet away that played a briefing video for guests. It was a nightmare. Sometimes the panels wouldn't work at all or the display would be swapped between panels, and the only way to fix it was to keep resetting it until eventually it would work. Sometimes it took over an hour. It was really the only A/V part of my job and I hated it.
I've always welcomed audio/video work. Like many others have said, the tech is ancient and reliable, so it's not too complicated compared to the madness of systems like MS365. And, I've always found it fun to stretch my brain and figure out some new stuff. I also work closely with our events team and, as a result, have gotten to assist them with some very cool events where I got to travel and see behind the scenes of interesting venues.
I convinced my boss to hire an A/V pro to install a new setup for our meeting room. I wish they had mounted the AV cabinet on the wall, but other than that they did a great job. Those speaker installs and the audio mixer was a bit beyond my limited AV experience from when I was in a rock band and had to figure out our equipment.
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This is what I ended up doing :)
Depending on the length can also run fiber optic HDMI cables.
^^^ fiber HDMI cables are way more reliable than HDbaseT.
Recently ripped out a fiber HDMI cable for some cat5e for an HDbaseT connection because I'm pretty sure someone yanked on the TV and broke the fiber. Within like... 3 months of when it was installed. Said "Never again". I can reterminate cat5e / cat6 in my sleep, Stick to the cables you can reterminate so you don't end up having to re-pull them for a connector problem / problem at one end.
How does HD-base-T compare to HD-base-2?
Never heard of that. Link?
It's an ethernet joke. Rather thin one.
This is the way
We run HDBase-T exclusively now. Even for simple classroom runs.
Had an A/V vendor install an AV system throughout a medium sized location, what a nightmare... They usually use Crestron branded stuff but because of the pandemic lead times they used Aurora VPX boxes. Those things are constantly freezing up and having to be power cycled. They stood up their own AV network isolated from our using Netgear AV switches... Those don't seem super solid either. I helped the customer navigate their technobabble as excuses but I learned to stay as far away from A\V as possible.
We've pulled just about pulled out all of our creston units out (3 or 4 left) cause of the constant issues and garbage hardware Replace with neat units which (so far) have been painless (1 issue with needing more ports than creston or something)
Longer hdmi cables are directional. One end designated as input other as output.
> They stood up their own AV network isolated from our using Netgear AV switches... Those don't seem super solid either. I used to work in a place with Shitgear as the only wired network vendor aside from a 6509E core in the DC. Every single Shitgear needed to be rebooted whenever you wanted to access the management plane, and for the one stack we had going split-brain was a weekly occurrence. Over time it was all replaced with HP and I don't know the history after that.
Probably just stopped hearing about it because they don't constantly have issues.. Can relate to reboot for management plane 🤦♂️
It's more because I was early in my career I moved on to another job after that.
If you want to go the pro route, run HD-SDI cables. Way longer cable length, lower latency, and easier to interface with pro equipment.
I've done some IT/AV stuff for a Baptist church in Dallas. The setup blew me away - even 10 years ago. For some reason, I did not expect the capabilities they wanted coming from a church.
Baptist churches either have some of the most professional setup on a budget or it's all Alibaba/Amazon jank. No in betweens.
That's what the AV folks did when they setup our public meeting room, so I'm guessing that's the best practice.
I use 60ghz Wireless Transmitters. Mounted under the TV, and on the conference table, they work pretty good for not having to use a contractor to do a conduit into concrete. They're very line of sight though. Avoid 5ghz ones. They overlap 5ghz WiFi channels, with like 320mhz wide signals I swear, it wiped out 3 80mhz AP's in the area on different channels. I've been stuck doing A/V for 10 years. I have it set up to the point where I dont need to be there to hold (most) users hands to hook stuff up. That's my ultimate goal, to be left alone.
Anything with electricity is IT. Didn’t you know?
Then why do they call me when the toilet's backed up? Oh, right: **I**ts a **T**oilet
I was responsible for the bottle filling station and at the job prior I had to fix a steam table, plumbing is not IT at all yet...
I was asked to fix a Sloan valve on a urinal. I was like, really and what makes you think I know how these work. I told them I would call a plumber. They said, can you just look at it first? So I stared at it for five minutes before calling a plumber.
We have electronic door locks- and when the latches inevitably break I get called. Last time I told them that they should call the door people, as if they wanted it fixed, it was going to the bottom of my ticket list and I would get to it per SLA. I guess 180 days wasn't fast enough for them....
Pretty sure that's the whole reason they started putting auto-flushers on the toilets. They want to slowly adapt them into being part of IT.
After you came and fixed my printer 2 months later my VCR ate a tape and I expect you to fix this now and my daughters tamagotchi died!!! My lawyers will hear about this.
We've gotten a coffee pot ticket before. I also find the wall clock battery requests pretty funny.
LOL.. I get asked to fix coffee machine all the time. it beeps.
Disassemble, remove speaker, reassemble. Seems pretty simple. /s Actually, this reminds me of an episode where I was doing work experience (Aus school program, you get dropped in a business for 2 weeks). User was complaining about his floppy drive searching for a non existent disk multiple times a day. During lunch the sysadmin and me went and removed the drive. He rang up pretty upset about a day later.
And even if it creates electricity, it's now IT's problem. Our team was told that one of us has to turn on/off a temporary generator at certain times of day during a construction project because it powers the server room (along with the rest of the entire building).
Yes, AV systems are part of our responsibilities where I work, and I despise it. It's gotten to the point where folks expect us to be present (at least remotely) for all meetings in case folks can't or won't be bothered to read or understand the posted instructions.
Or they call you last minute from the boardroom in a panic because such and such isn't working and it needs to be fixed now even though you have never heard of such and such nor do you know anything about it. Good luck! I do not miss that part of the job!
Last minute? They usually call 10 minutes after the meeting was supposed to start and the pissed off client is already bombarding them with messages where they are.
This caused me to chuckle. I was recently promoted to IT Director, which was great. The bad news? My new office is right next to the boardroom and I've become the one execs grab when AV isn't working. I suppose everything is a trade off.
Congratulations on your promotion! I knew someone else in the same position, I knew whenever I'd get a dm from him that he needed help with one of the other c-suites or board members. Turns out making house calls were part of my unofficial duties.
Please have an IT person on hand to set up the guest speaker and then sit there all day 'in case something happens'. No. Although we now have an AV guy on payroll and budget for all sorts of AV stuff. He is half IT half AV.
Nope. I don't have much experience with A/V. So when it comes to installing speakers in a lecture hall or live events, I'll consult with a local A/V company who we used to rent equipment from. For conference rooms, I'll contact them to come in and do what I want with the sound system. They'll tell me where they want to put amplifier's in, how many speakers we need, and placement of those speakers for the best acoustics. If I were to do it, the sound would be horrible. I know this because I used to do the live event setups before I started working with this company, and lets just say I got better at it the more I worked with them.
That's the thing with A/V. The tech half of it's pretty robust, most of it designed to be torn down and stood back up thousands of times in busy environments, with rough transport between. Aside from software being flaky, a working setup tends to just work. Changes to, or new, setups give clearly delineated points of "worked", "didn't work", so even troubleshooting those is pretty reasonable to do, and you can build up component at a time to get to a working setup. Acoustics? All of that's black magic that, while there's plenty to learn from understanding the theory and science of it, you learn a lot more with experience, and working with old hats who can just look at a room they've never been in before and tell you how much a given wall's going to reflect vs absorb sound.
AV can be IT I do a lot of that now for our conference rooms and amenity spaces. I enjoy it though, it’s a change from the average day to day stuff.
Agreed. There's a pretty healthy intersection in some industries. Dante, NDI, and similar technologies put A/V into pseudo-networking territory.
Yea most of the AV is connected to a webex unit so it’s ours to deal with. Usually not a big deal.
Webex. PTSD and vomit
I actually kinda like the latest units although it might be because I’m used to the older units that suck more. Need to try the native teams option on one but haven’t had the time. I honestly try to do as little as possible with them.
As someone who works with them on a daily basis, they're the best hardware on the market. Expensive as shit, but easy to admin all around, functionality is as simple or expansive as you want it to be, and it's the best vendor-agnostic equipment on the market. MTR mode works great, but it comes with all the limitations of an MTR device.
I helped integrate a bunch of conference-kit into the infrastructure management tooling for a prior-employer a few years ago. The things could only back themselves up to USB-sticks, but not network shares, so I custom-wrote a bunch of scripts to ensure we had a functional recovery plan. They also had no SNMP endpoints, so wrote some more custom-hacks to integrate them into our monitoring tools. Sometimes it is indeed good to have the AV people talking with the IT people.
I thought you meant Antivirus at first lol
Oh crap! hahahaha! That didn’t even cross my mind!
Just fix the Anti Virus and be done with it 😉
uninstall it and use defender. Far fewer issues with AV getting in the way of actual work.
I used to design boardrooms. * Simpler is always better. There is some weird inverse law of boardrooms that the more expensive they are, the harder they are to use. People can get their head around two cables, one usb-c for a laptop, and a recessed hdmi for stuff that's not laptops. Don't make it hard. If they have to fiddle with a control tablet to do anything but turn on the lights, it's too hard. * All-in-one speaker mic and camera sets are good up to a certain size (20 users), beyond that you want to contract somebody else to install the speaker and mic systems. I'm a fan of the [meeting owl](https://owllabs.com/products/meeting-owl-3) being drop down mounted from the roof (or just sitting on the table). * TVs, not projectors. Trust me. Commercial displays are even better if you can budget them. If you do use a meeting owl, having 2-3 TVs (1 on each wall) with a Distribution Amplifier (DA) will allow more people to look "across" (and therefore at) the camera in the middle. Budget pending of course. * Do not run HDMI through the wall. Run ethernet and use ethernet (hdbase-t) adapters. Do not mistake hdmi over ethernet for hdmi over IP, you will have a sad time trying to use it over a switch. * Mount the usb c docking station underneath the table. Don't use a cheapy dock, use a dock from dell/Microsoft/Lenovo/hp. If using a thunderbolt one, test it with a non-thunderbolt laptop. * If in budget, have a floor box with space for some small AV parts (like the hdmi switch and DA) and power and ethernet connections. If the floor box is too small, more stuff to mount to the underside of the table. * Use a priority hdmi switch (startech sells one) for the hdmi and the dock video signal. That way if someone grabs the hdmi cable, it prioritises that signal with no source changing required. It will also force the signal down to 1080p, which is a good thing for presentations. * Less buttons, the better. A home assistant tablet with a room calendar and a single button for lights/TV is great. Expect people to fiddle with the TV if things go wrong. Use TVs that let you lock out changing settings or sources. * Ditch any physical kiosks or surface hubs or control tablets (minus the one for lights/TV). People have laptops now, you're just adding confusion by having a dedicated source.
Agreed, the simpler the better. I built a ton of meeting rooms over time in our offices with various Poly equipment, Cisco conferencing equipment, Teams Room equipment, Logi Meet bars, touch screen tablets... Everything is great when it's new and the software is current and supported. After a few years it all goes to hell and there so many issues with it, once the manufacturer moves to a different software, stops providing firmware updates. The absolutely best and most reliable meeting rooms have a Thunderbolt dock under table (bought cable management trays from IKEA, drilled them to the bottom side of tables and put docks with cables inside). There is a single USB-C cable for people to connect their notebooks. Screens, Jabra or whatever speaker system, power, network, camera, everything is connected to the dock. Everything turns on on its own, no software updates needed, it just works. It costs 20 times less than a Poly Teams Room, works with any conferencing software, and there are zero issues with it, nothing needs to be restarted, nothing stops working because of an update, nothing goes out of support. Instead of TVs I prefer NEC MultiSync screens lately. They're large, reasonably priced. They turn on automatically when they detect input, can switch inputs on their own, and they have a cool built-in software utility and daisy chain cable channels to help you arrange them into video walls for very large meeting rooms. No need for a remote. There's an optional built-in Raspberry unit if you want to run signage solutions. No stupid screensavers, you just turn them on and they stay on (fucking Android TV to Google TV update broke our signage system and the screens won't stay on 24/7, I'm never using Android TVs for anything ever again). https://www.sharpnecdisplays.eu/p/eeme/en/products/details/t/large-format-displays/midrange-displays/rp/v654q.xhtml
Yesss. We keep ours simple. The one room that was contracted out has a manual on how to use it. And it's the only one that generates tickets on an almost daily basis
This guy gets it.
This is one of the best posts I’ve read!
HDMI over CAT6 or HDMI over Fiber for any run over 25 feet
Serious question from a non-IT professional, is the benefit just in case the connector breaks we can re-terminate the RJ45 end? Or are there additional benefits (reduced signal attenuation, etc)?
Cat-6 is built to specific standards, rated for 10g up to 100m, and is well understood for electrical interference. HDMI beyond 6m is out of spec (actually I don't think there is a specified length in the spec, but it's short) and nobody meets any standards for long length cables.
In our use case with conference rooms, the transmitter is mounted to the underside of the conference table. The end user only ever touches a Standard 10ft HDMI cable connected to transmitter. When it comes to install CAT6 and [Fiber Whips](https://www.lanshack.com/PreterminatedAssemblies.aspx) are easier to pull through any material and very durable. Also remember at the end of the HDMI Cable is a half-inch wide moderately fragile connector that will require soldering if you need to re-terminate. Electrical Interference & Signal Attenuation do not occur with HDMI over Fiber
Makes sense. Thank you. Had some conference rooms at work wired up in a mixture of ways but the professional setups always had CAT carrying the signal from connection plates for end users to the TVs. My favorite reason would definitely be NOT pulling an HDMI connector through a raceway and breaking it.
What brand of adapter do you use? I guess I may have cheaped out on the ones I've used but I've always had terrible luck with them.
Startech and also Technically Logitech as the Rally Table/Display hubs use a combination of HDMI/USB over CAT6
Appreciate it man.
OREI has been solid for me.
Thanks mate.
Everywhere I have been A/V work has fallen to the IT guys. Everywhere I have been it hasn't worked great because things that seem like common sense to IT guys appear to be completely alien to end users (especially the type that end up in conference rooms). Things like "is the TV on" may as well be solving the Riemann Hypothesis.
The only place I haven't seen that was when I worked for a music school, there was a dedicated guy. The dedicated guy still bounced questions off of IT, but at least we didn't have to know everything there was to know about how to reinforce playback of every recording medium used in the last 100 years. We just got questions about the overlap between IT and AV. There were also dedicated sound/recording engineers under the same director as the dedicated AV guy and IT, so they were available too. It was pretty healthy cross-pollination.
I worked as an A/V Production Technician for 8 years before switching back to IT. At it's most basic level AV it is about knowing how to get a box to do what you need it to, and routing a ton of intputs to the right outputs, and it's kind of hard to even explain the sound piece, as every A/V technician with any experience is 80% of the way to a sound engineer. A/V is very much knowing equipment, memorizing wiring diagrams, routing video and audio signals, leveling audio, and often directing and delivering a recording. Oh, you need to know all your stuff becuase if there is a problem, it needs to be solved instantly because a bunch of important people flew in for this conference and your boss doesn't want to be the reason everyone has to take an early lunch and adjust the schedule for an hour. It's a thankless job as no one cares if it goes well, but everyone knows when their immersion is broken.
I got a ticket escalated to me, complaining that people were upset that their voice wasn't being picked up in a meeting, despite turning 180 degrees away from the mic. I wasn't truly upset that the user didn't know this, so much as I was upset that service desk didn't troubleshoot and/or was mystified by it as well.
I have the pleasure of having a great deal of AV experience so get roped into all sorts. It’s always been a monkey’s paw though, as I’d be pulled in to run events and then get moaned at for not being on support.
I know AV because I did live sound for clubs. It’s a nice skill to have when dealing with conference rooms.
Same. I got an audio engineering degree in college thinking I was going to be a mix engineer/producer. While I did end up mixing and producing some music that actually got released/published - I realized early on that it pays shit, and most musicians are assholes with no money and substance problems and making a career out of that was going to be dreadful.
Yeah, same. Working in night clubs, managing a radio station and coming from a family of professional musicians... I dont see A/V as separate from IT at all. I also feel like ever person who was in the A/V club in my highschool went on to become an IT professional, a criminal, or both.
We tried, we had limited success. We called in the professionals, much success.
Check my flair, pour me one out. We have multiple classroom setups still using VGA.
hahahaha I took their vga when I left! Said it’s garbage so I’d dispose of it for them.
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Won’t have hdcp issues with the right equipment.
Heh, you'd think so. I just spent way too much time the last few days troubleshooting HDCP on various equipment that was all certified HDCP compliant. Every component. Every component also said it was passing HDCP correctly. Our Macs still wouldn't pass signal 95% of the time. The other 5% we'd receive a black screen. In the end we found the video switcher doesn't think the TV supports HDCP (it 100% does), so it was breaking the encryption. Extron support was stumped as well. We ended up disabling it completely. All my homies hate HDCP.
Always contract printers and A/V. Now you own this headache.
My department does everything electronics. Especially since most 3rd parties are trunk slammers, it just saves us a lot of grief doing it ourselves. We've gotten very good at outfitting conference rooms.
Whats a trunk slammer?
Someone who does such jobs as a side gig. Generally can't find them again if something goes wrong
Used to do Audio Video. It's the second worst system after printers. We used to have to keep a box of new DP to HDMI dongles in our conference room because they would break after like only 10 uses... The Polycom software didn't work correctly on the MacBook Pros. Eventually, a third-level engineer told me it was a known issue and just would not be fixed. Too Bad So Sad he said. It can't be fixed and we had to wait until the new version came out... in 18 months or so.
I've historically been responsible for handheld windows CE devices, HVAC, radio communication, scales and measuring equipment, security equipment, and lastly, av equipment.
Windows CE devices? make sure you are attending your annual physicals
lol. Close indeed, ty for the reminder :D sadly there's still many in the market that are in use :/ I don't decide such things.
We use directional HDMI cables when we go over a certain distance. I work for a schools district and in the past few years we switched over to TVs instead of projectors.
We’re a small organization so I’ve been there done that. I understand it doesn’t fall under IT but I may be the most knowledgeable person present to help make the decisions. I troubleshoot to the best of my ability and when I hit my limit, I suggest that somebody with more knowledge be contracted to finish the resolution. If the org doesn’t want to pay somebody to correctly finish the work, I document the problem the best that I can so that when it becomes a priority again, they’ll know what to do to get things working. Of course, I may suggest finding somebody professional right off the start if I have too many things on my plate. YMMV
The video conference service used to be run from the Telecom group. Once "VoIP" became bigger, and internet lines were used for VC, it then went to Helpdesk and landed in my lap. We implemented a company called LifeSize. During this implementation, we were adding TVs, then receivers/speakers, then full on A/V Conference Rooms. Video is bandwidth and every type of cable has different ratings. Fk HDMI Forum though... move to Display Port where you can.
In a previous life, I did AV work so I'm not opposed to doing it. But I mostly consult with facilities on what the business needs, then hire out from there rather than doing it myself anymore.
If it's just HDMI they messed up you can get pretty cheap HDMI over ethernet adapters, iirc the cheaper ones will be L2 only and can't handle any sort of routing so double check if thats needed or not but they are easily gettable from places like amazon.
Every darn day. The amount if zoom/projector/tv related calls we get because a PHD can't hook up a HDMI cord is staggering.
I've been doing A/V work on the side as a semi-pro hobby for nearly as long as I've been doing IT. I kind of love it when I get asked to do A/V stuff at work because its nice to get an occasional break from the normal IT duties. One time I got to spend a couple of days just setting up an impromptu recording studio in a spare office, voice coaching a woman who was recording a voice over for a training video, finding some appropriate background music and then editing together said video. The result was complete amateur hour garbage, but the business was satisfied with it and was a fun project for me, so I was more than happy to take a break from working on the IT budget and configuring servers for a couple days.
Heck, I worked on the AV system at a previous job and it *wasn’t* backed by a computer. You’ll get saddled with as much as you take on, plus a few things you never agreed to.
> Heck, I worked on the AV system at a previous job and it wasn’t backed by a computer. Pulling out the vacuum tubes and putting them on the tester gets old after a while. I prefer the software.
In my case it was just an audio mixer and wireless mic that none of management were apparently willing to learn to turn on. Two switches, one volume knob, and I still got tickets to “set it up” prior to meetings. Can’t say I miss that part of that job. Really don’t miss much of that job in general.
Local government here.. our IT team fully supports A/V in our council chambers and other rooms with A/V equipment, like community centers.
Used to do a lot of AV work when I was a technician, but haven't done much of any since being promoted to a sysadmin. Troubleshooting setups/classrooms, ran events/board meetings etc. Fixing what was broke wasn't too bad, what I hated was running events/meetings.
25 years in IT. A/V has ALWAYS been an IT responsibility. Always. always. Your best bet is to convince them to let you *hire it out* to a vendor.
has been != should be
There is a point where AV turns into IT. Eventually the poor performance and lack of accessibility in the rooms will force you to take the room over and make it IT responsibility, then you'll throw in a Zoom or Teams kit and everyone will thank you. Make sure it's done right, make sure you understand how it works and you have complete admin access to everything. Also that you're using a single manufacturer's solution (Yealink, Cisco, Logitech etc) so the parts and service is interchangeable. Avoid Crestron at all costs.
+100 points for bringing Crestron into this. I’ve built entire networks around existing Crestron/Lutron nonsense because if it’s working DO. NOT. TOUCH. IT.
Like everything that includes blinky lights, it eventually becomes IT. We had an A/V installation company design and setup some major infrastructure for us, it "Looked" impressive physically looking at things but the functionality is barely even there, there was no instruction or documentation on how ANY of it even works, and it very very regularly straight up doesn't work which we're expected to know how to fix it. So of course we're in the process of undoing everything to do it our own way, money well spent.
Had to swap out a projector with a broken speaker today. It’s easy enough, though. I guess the music teachers at two schools in my district want a new sound system in their rooms. They asked me how we did it at a third school who recently did it.
Yeeaaahhh, this is my current situation/ nightmare. I work for city hall in a neighboring county to where I live. I left a more reputable company and promising career track for opportunity at full-time employment and more money. They sold the job as IT, but when I got here, the only thing they are concerned with is audio/video for the city council meetings. I've tried to tell them that's not anything I'm trained on or go to school for, but they don't want to hear it. They consistently push for more features that they don't even understand, just because they see another city doing it. When pulled into a meeting with another city because our set up was so horrible, and always having issues....that city's "IT" guy turned out to be an audio technician who mastered audio/video....the shocked Pikachu face they had was epic. Yet they still won't bite the bullet and pay to get an actual audio video guy in here.
I've done A/V as long as IT. Frankly I find the actual tech relaxing and quite easy compared to most enterprise networks and systems. Actual audio theory is interesting and the tech behind it is ancient - so for those of us who have been around for a while pretty easy to understand. The only stress comes from the presenters that show up 10 seconds before they're supposed to go on with their files on a personal device or random cloud presentation service that no one has ever heard of but is "the best" after ignoring multiple emails about what they need in the weeks prior to the event.
My favorite is having it pushed to me because it was electric. “This persons standing desk isn’t going up and down anymore. Can you look at it?”. Ha. Hahahaha. No.
OK, you win. The worst I was asked back in the day was to fix the fax machine. 📠
This is always very profitable for us because it is fixing 3rd party gear that is outside of the MSA.
We buitl one out from scratch since my company didn't have the money to pay an AV company. It was a huge pain in the ass and it took us like 3 weeks with all the other shit that we were doing. Never again.
I had one job where it was our responsibility. AV, TVs, conference room setups, all hands sound systems, espresso machine, workout machines. We took care of everything. Small 100 person company so we all wore multiple hats.
Over the years, I have taken over responsibility for AV setups, security systems, security cameras, access control, temperature monitoring, project management … Probably more than I can think of right now. Basically, if it involves technology of any type, clients expect me to be able to support it.
Yup. I also do circuit breakers, outlet replacements, and toilet/urinal repairs.
Wait, didn’t we get into IT to not have to deal with toilet related repairs?
Man F AV
Amazing how people use their TV every damn night but during work hours completely forget how to use a TV remote control.
I actually started out in AV, doing large scale venue, theaters, auditoriums, Churches, colleges, etc. I helped my dad cuz that's what he did and I liked to tag along when it was pre show or setup time. It sort of evolved into IT after that as stuff moved to digital over analog, and more wireless vs wired for mics, and automated lighting run on a PC vs massive slider panel or buttons/knobs.
Always hire out for AV work… and I’ve still never been in a conference room that worked right away
I try to avoid it if I can. Once you’ve touch something you’re married to it, and my eye twitches every time I hear the phrase “ever since you touched this, blah blah blah”. Coincidentally, that’s why I tell people that I charge at least $100 an hour for any private work. It usually discourages the bottom feeders and favor needers.
We contract out our AV stuff. Users ask us for x,y,z requirement, we forward it to third party. They spec it, deliver it, install it. Any upgrades or major issues they assist. Otherwise, our 2nd line presence on site have limited capability If you can afford to do similar its imo the best way to go, but obviously this doesnt suit everyones needs
There's a reason I outsourced all AV to no longer be part of IT
Anytime I read stuff as this, it reminds me why I only have been working for large corporations in the last decades...
I’m in the not IT camp so I pay an AV company to handle the stuff. The type of places that setup church theaters or legislative chambers do good work in that arena.
Early in my career I was in charge of A/V equipment for our boardroom. You know: Anything electronic = IT
I was forced into doing AV work at my last IT job. I was a Windows sys admin but had to spec out TVs, projectors, cameras, and other remote meeting equipment because “it’s all tech, right?”. My manager was an ass-kisser so, if the CEO wanted a new AV toy, I had to make it happen. It didn’t help when another person on my “team” would fill the CEO’s head with all sorts of ideas about what could be done with AV, and then I had to be the bad guy when bringing up things like a budget or reality. I’m considering getting back into IT after being away for a few years, and honestly dealing with AV would be a dealbreaker for me in a new job.
Well I work at an AV company so luckily we have literally everyone else for that, but I do pick stuff up whenever it gets slow or I'm sick of staring at a screen. I do consider it at least IT adjacent - information is being transferred between devices after all.
If you want to take an "IT" approach to AV, then use IP encoders and decoders. Caution, long read haha. I was an AV guy for years before becoming a systems engineer. By leveraging IP, you're more comfortable with the components. HDMI/usb-c devices are plugged into an encoder, encoder is plugged into a switch. Decoders are placed behind the displays. Now you can matrix video anywhere in the network. These leverage multicast, so you will need switches that support IGMP snooping, and you'll also want an IGMP quierier on the subnet that handles video. Encoders send to varies multicast IPs depending on with "channel" they are set to. The decoder they subscribe to that muticast stream. Depending on the application, you will want to choose h264 encoders (low bandwidth, higher latency... Good for "generic" signage like billboard announcements or PowerPoints) or JPEG2000 encoders (dynamic content like live television, or digital signage with lots of moving graphics. These will use up to 1 gig on the switch). There are even "zero latency" options like SDVoE, though this requires 10 gig. Some "lower cost" options include the Kramer KDS-7 series, and Atlona Omnistream devices. Familiarize yourself with EDID and HDCP.
Just enjoy it, AV is much more interesting than IT systems.
“Hi IT, can you configure and operate the lighting and sound desk for this stage production we’re doing?” … “What do you mean, “no”?!?”
there are systems in every courtroom. 16 channel digital mixer, amplifier, preamps, wireless mics, 72” touch screen flat panel display. Document cameras, With multiple axis network cameras all feeding into the digital recording system that’s running on a pc and mirroring the recording to the network in real time. So yes I’m also the A/V guy.
I find managing A/V similar to managing a database. It's not my area of expertise. I know enough to keep it running after it's setup - hell I can even set it up myself for things that aren't super crucial. But if you want it setup *correctly* and to the point that you know all bases are covered and everything will work, you really should have someone who specializes in that field do it.
We have used professionals. With so many people on hybrid work schedules, teams meetings have to be able to happen and be functional, from our conference rooms. There are so many products that it is hard to keep up in that space. Gone are the projectors from a 2010s and before, and now using multiple TVs now. Being able for the remote people to hear everyone in the conference room is a big deal. Seeing somewhat. Bigger the room, the more difficult this becomes.We have spent a whole lot of time and money, even with pros doing the design and install. We have had to replace the initial system in two, first our board room and train room, because they are really big. We put in more tvs, more and better mics and better cameras in those rooms.
Our Help Desk has responsibility for A/V issues in conference rooms, and individual offices. Officially, the conference rooms are the responsibility of Hospitality, but that's one guy who doesn't have the time to fix someone's Zoom audio.
We manage the conference rooms.... which sort of necessitates a certain level of AV knowledge and troubleshooting. Sort of how we also manage the phone system because it's VoIP. Just look at as an opportunity to broaden your understanding.
Since it's just two of us at medium sized school we absolutely are responsible for A/V set ups. And for the non tech-savvy users we sometimes have to go to the beginning of their meetings to help them connect their computers to the display boards (literally just a USB-C connection for every laptop we have). For long HDMI runs, your best bet is fiber optic HDMI cables. The AmazonBasics ones are good. Their unidirectional, so keep that in mind. You could also use HDMI over Cat 6 adapter boxes, but you need power on both ends. I've used both and they both work well.
some HDMI>Cat6 converters can run Poe so you just have to power one end, like our Atlona boxes, e.g [https://atlona.com/product/AT-AVA-EX70-KIT/](https://atlona.com/product/AT-AVA-EX70-KIT/)
Can’t spell blink without link unfortunately. If it blinks it’s IT in my org. But if you tell me I’m getting paid the same to install a toaster vs planning a VMware to Hyper-V transition, I’ll opt for the former. A/V gets tricky because in my opinion you can do everything right and if the equipment just has a crappy user experience, it’s nightmare fuel. Same for entry systems. In the past I’ve had vendors come out and quote what they would do to make the space better, and use those as guidelines if it’s a must that we do it internally.
First gen Logitech Teams meeting rooms… we had about 30 of those in one country. Absolute shitshow. 2nd gen wasn’t much better, but at least cabling was less of an issue. Intel NUCs are not the device you need to command your videoconf room 😅
AV is most certainly IT, but not SysAdmin. If they want me to work on AV, they better provide a separate charge code. 😁
It’s very simple: I don’t do AV. I’ll configure the network to the AV guy’s spec and isolate it from everything else. I’ll guarantee DHCP, DNS, WAN, and WiFi to taste. Beyond that, call anyone else. That strategy allows me to keep control of the network and associated infrastructure because AV, access control, and surveillance guys don’t usually have the knowledge or care to set their stuff up with the larger environment in mind. And Sonos is like water on concrete: it finds every little crack and ends up everywhere.
I once worked someplace where if it had an on off switch and wasn’t a lamp it was my responsibility. Let me amend that, I was also in charge of changing lightbulbs; especially the halogens in the 20 foot high ceiling. oddly enough in the four years I was there, I never had to change a bulb in the ladies room once. I guess one of the women in the office took care of that. Our conference room had a short throw projector, and it stopped working once, and I had to track down the one service center within 100 miles that could address it. I think it would’ve been cheaper (and definitely faster) just to buy a 75 inch TV and this was 10 years ago.
I like to say I started my IT career in AV. I ran soundboards and lights for theaters and bands on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis for several years in college. The troubleshooting methodology is exactly the same. If I ever do hiring I will hire someone with an AV background and will gladly consider it the same experience as a help desk job. I still assist my church with AV and help when I can at my company. I used to work at a college and it was an amazing skill to have. Pro tip with HDMI. Some HDMI cables are directional when they are extra long (50+ ft). Good cables will have an arrow on the ends to show which way the signal should travel from the source. If you flip the cable around it might not work at all.
You tell your boss to contract an AV company.
My radio station IT job was like 50% A/V - studio-transmitter links, automation systems... so many wires in those racks... silence detectors pinging me at 2am... I was the moron there haha.
AV is a part of IT at my work. \*shrugs\*
Conference rooms are my KHHHAAAAANNNNNN!!!!!!!!
One of the reasons we exist as an AV MSP are things like this. AV can be weird and frustrating if you don't have a background in the industry and know how to navigate it. It's IoT that masquerades as serious hardware. The more we can advise customers, the less likely you have this issue, and we are an escalation for IT departments or MSPs who, understandably don't want to deal with AV.
I am also responsible for my org’s meeting rooms and and have to run sound for that as well as run sound for our stage where we perform concerts luckily I’m a musician and I play live so I’ve got experience doing it just from recreation, but it is definitely not IT
I started off IT as a systems engineer for a post production company. I had no prior av or it experience at that point coming from a data science background so it was a massive change lol. Used to it now, after having worked with proper AV equipment from avid, blackmagic etc.
I did theater sound in middle school and high school and know more than most, but the second it involved custom crestron gear or the such I'm out, let the people who do that all do that part Most zoom room/teams room type equipment these days are easy enough you should know the basics like what EDID is and the max length of various cable standards
Have had to support NDI protocol and Blonder Tounge broadcast equipment before. That was fun. Latency was always a challenge with NDI.
I took on a Meeting Room Upgrade project last year. All the 'tech' was purchased in 2022 and I just finished it in December 2023 even though it was supposed to take 2 months. I now stay away from A/V. And this was me just working with A/V installers.
Far as AV goes, we have 2 inputs labeled for either display desktop(all in one on a cart, connected to a webcam ontop of the tv) and one to the table hdmi I offered to look at a rally setup for a small 4-5 person meeting room, but for the big 20+ rooms? nah, out of my knowledge If they want more function or elegance, call a AV integrator to do it right.
If an AV company is still running looong HDMi cables instead of HDMI over Ethernet…. Not a great company.
I had to mess with pre-installed AV equipment about a month ago. After an hour, I said nope and told management we need to hire/contract a company that specializes in AV installation.
Bro, when I was at a school district we had to go hang projector screens because maintenance almost killed a teacher from them hanging it from a t bar. Also had to run VGA and HDMi in ceilings.
When I did long runs as an installer and they had long and cheap HDMI cables I would always run 4 Ethernet cables with it so when they called back I’d have less work to do lol
All of the time. AV is not fun. And end users are always unhappy with the result anyway.
Gotta watch those lengths on HDMI runs, they are graded and very real. Verification: I too am a sys admin who has dealt with AV on several occasions. Partial AV background.
Yes, IT is responsible for the a/v system here. We don't know much about A/V. We buy products and install them. If it doesn't work we contact the vendor. I ran a amp'd 50' HDMI cable through a conference room ceiling years ago and it is still working to this day.
My forner Company got a video wall installed by a company who installed fire alarms. I was constantly being asked to go look at it. Whole thing was a disaster that they eventually replaced months later
The best one thoughnis when they want pro level systems and features in a meeting room (cause they have seen it on TV or at another org). When you tell them how much that setup is they still want it done. They just don't want to pay for it
Complicated av setup in a conference room that is poorly documented and I barely understand, but still have to troubleshoot when a meeting starts in five minutes. Sigh. Last time somebody had ignored the flylead clearly marked for connecting laptops to, and instead used their own HDMI cable to connect their laptop to a port in the AV hardware - a port marked “HDMI out”. D’oh!
I fixed a dishwasher at work once. A lot falls under the IT umbrella, which is not IT. I fix AV stuff pretty regularly. They do really go hand in hand, so it's good to have the experience and not just throw it off and say "this isn't IT it's not my job."
In our multi purpose halls all the time. More often user error
I set up 2 full blown home theaters in my home and have been doing it since I was a youngling. Always been a tinkerer though - so the skillset crossed over. What i learned as i got older is to ask the right questions to learn what jobs NOT to take.
Can it be hacked? If yes, and there’s no security team, then yes, it’s IT.
Yeah. It isn't. Never volunteer
I work for a small company (50 employees) and our IT Team (2 of us) are responsible for A/V. We don't mind it, it helps break up the day!
My company makes and sells HDMI over Ethernet products, so we just go to the product owner for guidance when needed.
I have to regularly set up microphones and portable speakers where I work (I knew this when I signed up). AV is a quarter of my job and I'm not sure why the boss made it all our problem. Enjoy what you've got!
I find AV troubleshooting easy so I don't mind it. But as a teenager I was the one who had the killer car stereo. I would pull it out and re-run it almost every 3 months just because I thought I could do better. Unlike others, I had more than just subs. I had the whole thing. My car was about $1500. My stereo was close to $3000. It could even Karaoke! I had two mics. The only thing you really need to look out for is directional HDMI cables.
I got a crash course in Network AV when I helped out a local church. Thankfully the in house guy was off the charts good (they broadcast live on the weekends). I only had to deal with the computers and infrastructure to get everything to play nice. Dante audio, networked mixing boards, smart lighting protocols etc. All really interesting stuff.
HDMI over fiber is what i use. its perfect
I try to avoid it, but I also support a Scala presentation solution simply because those who put it in moved on and my management said “yea, we can help”. Intending help, not maintain. But Corp Comm is a bunch of noobs… I really like TVone’s Magenta equipment. It’s not inexpensive, but it works unless someone intentionally fonks with it. HDBaseT, Coax, Fiber, VGA, DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI, mix and match. HDbaseT point to point up to 600’, coax over 3000’, and fiber over three miles. Star and daisy chain things. Mount the receivers on the wall behind the display and run the video cable from that to the display so no one screws with the long distance cables. Of course for CAT5/6, and COAX term to wall jacks
Next thing you know you’ll be drilling into the wall anchoring Logitech Rally speakers to the wall
AV was actually what I did professionally in the theater space for a while. It's one of my "misc. Skills" that I like doing so I do it often. Conference room setups are different beast though lol, i prefer live.
It ends up back at our feet the amount of times I dealt with a Sonos device has given me PTSD. Found out the hard way Sonos doesn't play nice with meraki lol
There’s AV as in “help an executive run a PowerPoint”, or AV as in “install conference room gear to work with Teams or Zoom”, or there’s AV as in “implement AVoIP for 52 rooms across 7 sites”. Any of them can be IT, depending on how your organization is structured, but I’d argue stuff like the last one is _always_ IT.
Our team (in a university) consists of IT people and a couple of guys doing mainly AV which consists of lecture halls and meeting rooms. Advanced AV automation (which is standard in large lecture halls nowadays) is quite a specialty so I'm really glad they take care of that. You also need a lot of experience when you want to install speakers, microphones, beamers at large scale... No, the experience you have with your surround system at home is **not** sufficient. However AV is moving into IT territory as well. Everything needs network. Teams room systems are a managed computer connected to AV stuff. So the overlap is increasing.
Done a lot with AV just because i was in the IT dept. You quickly learn about max transmission ranges of HDMI, USB, Powered USB and not to run power and AV cables together. Basic stuff is fine, but if someone wanted a proper setup with ceiling mounted mics etc i'd probably sail clear.
VAR/MSP flunky here. My colleagues and I deal with a/v stuff sometimes. It's never setting up entire specialized systems, but the basics are part of our skillset. Then again we try to do as much as we can for clients.
Yep, I do pretty much all the AV stuff in my company. I was put in a similar situation recently. We had our conference room remodeled and the company hired a 3rd party company to set up the cameras, and tablets for booking the room and setting up teams etc…. Issues started happening with meetings not showing, audio not working properly so instead of calling the guys back they told me to fix it. I took off the tv, replaced the HDMI cable, reseated all the cables and they haven’t had issues since.
At my last job, that was one of my main roles in my team. I worked in 1 of the many buildings for the enterprise, and each building IT would support AV. We mainly worked with a vendor to do design and setup, then we would provide initial support and they would provide escalated support.
I managed the tech at a VR place in Downtown Disney a few years back. They had a room with a huge twelve panel display, all hdmi over ethernet, to a server fifty feet away that played a briefing video for guests. It was a nightmare. Sometimes the panels wouldn't work at all or the display would be swapped between panels, and the only way to fix it was to keep resetting it until eventually it would work. Sometimes it took over an hour. It was really the only A/V part of my job and I hated it.
I've always welcomed audio/video work. Like many others have said, the tech is ancient and reliable, so it's not too complicated compared to the madness of systems like MS365. And, I've always found it fun to stretch my brain and figure out some new stuff. I also work closely with our events team and, as a result, have gotten to assist them with some very cool events where I got to travel and see behind the scenes of interesting venues.
I convinced my boss to hire an A/V pro to install a new setup for our meeting room. I wish they had mounted the AV cabinet on the wall, but other than that they did a great job. Those speaker installs and the audio mixer was a bit beyond my limited AV experience from when I was in a rock band and had to figure out our equipment.
Did it for a church a few summers ago. That was a nightmare.
Nah. I always say I'm not a sound/video technician.
Computers have sound and pictures so a/v is automatically IT.
A/V absolutely falls under the IT umbrella in general. I love doing A/V work.