"AV and IT have converged", Tim Albright AVNation

Tim Albright, President of AVNation Media, shares his insights into the convergence of AV and IT and the evolving landscape of meetings and video conferencing.

• Origins of AVNation, an online media platform dedicated to the audio-visual sector
• The critical role of video conferencing in today's hybrid work models and the importance of standardized solutions
• How Microsoft certified devices drive quality and consistency in user experiences
• Emerging trends such as multi-camera setups and the role of AI in enhancing video conferencing

Thanks to AudioCodes, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support

Transcript

Tim Albright: What it does is it allows for a more personal connection. at the far end. And there's a lot of smart people writing about return to office and where hybrid works and where hybrid lives. And if you look at a couple different reports about the state of work and, and, and, you know, where, where folks are working now and hybrid or remote connection is going to happen for the foreseeable future.

I do not see a scenario where we don't ever need video conferencing.

Tom Arbuthnot: Welcome back to the Teams Insider Podcast. This week we have my friend Tim Albright. He's the founder of AVNation. We get into what AVNation is and how that came to be and everything he does in the AV community. And then we talk about how AV and IT are kind of coming together. or as he says have already come together and what that means for AV, what that means for commoditization, scale and standardization in the AV and enterprise room space.

Really interesting conversation. Thanks to Tim for taking the time and also many thanks to AudioCodes who are the sponsor of this podcast. Really appreciate their support of everything we're doing at EmpoweringCloud. I hope you enjoy the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Excited to have this conversation.

I had a few conversations with Tim now offline, but this will be the first one on a pod, uh, Tim Albright. Some of you may know the name if you're on the AV side of the house, but Tim, do you want to just give us a little introduction and background to yourself? 

Tim Albright: Yeah, sure. Uh, thanks so much, Tom, uh, for having me.

Uh, my name is Tim Albright. I, uh, I'm the guy who runs AV Nation. Uh, we are a online media platform that covers the audiovisual space, um, for higher education, you know, your IT managers, tech managers that are responsible for the AV in their corporate, uh, boardrooms and huddle spaces and stuff like that.

Uh, we've been around for about 12, 13 years. . 

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. And then when we first got introduced it, there were some striking kind of resemblances to what you seem to have done in the AV community and what, what we are doing over at Empowering Cloud in the kind of Teams community. Yeah. And talk us a little bit through that, that journey.

'cause you were, you were way ahead of me on the, doing the media and you have a bit of a media background as well, don't you? 

Tim Albright: Well, I, I do. Right? I, I, um. There's an old joke, at least in the States, about having a face for radio, so that is where I started, was local radio here in the States. And, um, through a number of situations, I ended up working at a college.

Southwest Illinois, just outside of St. Louis, and found myself in the AV industry. And we were supporting, you know, 300, 400 classrooms and spaces and stuff like that. And, um, so I was learning an awful lot, uh, very quickly about, about the industry. And, uh, after a couple of years of that, it was, okay, this, this is kind of cool.

How do I get more information? How do I find out about what's going on? Um, latest products, latest whatever. Um. And I looked around and there wasn't exactly what I was looking for. A couple of folks had had, um, almost like audio case studies, right, where they would interview. Okay, you know, here's the principal.

Here's the integrator who put it in, um, talked a lot about a gear, which was fine, right? Um, but that's not what I was looking for. I was looking for kind of a weekly wrap up of the news that impacted me. In my college, right? Well, how do I take that and how do I find that information? And so took my, my media background, my, my radio background and TV background.

And we started, we started AV Nation. Uh, we started with a single podcast, AV Week, which you'll be on here shortly. And, and, um, it has just remained for the last, uh, 13 years. Uh, we do it every Friday, post it every Monday. And our goal really is to educate folks whose job it is to support and maintain these systems and to help them do their job better, right?

To give them the information they need to make decisions, to make quality, educated decisions on a daily and weekly basis. 

Tom Arbuthnot: That's awesome. I really appreciate anybody who's doing stuff to, you know, kind of get, get information and share knowledge. It's great. And, uh, yeah, I, I, I do tune into the show sometimes.

It's a bit bit over my head, but it's nice to, uh, be skilling me up in the, in the ways of the AV world. 

Tim Albright: Well, and, and you guys, you guys focus like you're, the thing, one thing I like about you guys is, is you're focused, right? You, you, you are laser focused on, on a specific aspect and, and we, we have to be a little bit broader.

Uh, so yeah, there's aspects, there's times, a lot of times. When it's over my head, I, I, I've made the joke is, is I am not smart. I know a lot of smart people. Uh, and I, and I hold to that. It's somewhat self deprecating, but it's true. Um, I, uh, you know, I, I was a tech manager. I was a programmer for, for a short amount of time and a designer, but really, um, I can ask really dumb questions and people answer me, right?

That, that is, if I have a super, superpower, that's it. And my dumb questions come from a lot of it is, you know, I have learned things over the years and garnered things over the years, but it's, it's, you know, really kind of, okay, why does that matter? Why do acoustic matter? Why does, you know, this matter? Um, and how does it impact folks, you know, in a college campus or, or in a corporate campus?

Um, And the folks that we have on are really, really smart. And so, you know, I'm able to kind of glean some of their, their knowledge that way. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, it's a real, it's a, it's a real skill though to pull that out of people. And I think that's, that's one of the privileges you have your show. And I kind of have with the podcast and what we do as well is, uh, getting access to people and trying to help them communicate across what they're trying to communicate.

Tim Albright: Yeah. 

Tom Arbuthnot: So what's your perspective, Tim? Our two worlds are definitely either colliding or fully collided, depending on your perspective, but you've been in this space long enough to kind of have seen that happen. What's the perspective from your side of the fence? 

Tim Albright: I've referenced this, but I'll say it again.

There's a dear friend of mine who worked for a control manufacturer 20 years ago. He takes a picture at Infocom, you know, our store over here in the States, and there's a big banner above the Infocom show floor that says Convergence, right? This is 2004, Tom, right? We've been talking about convergence for a minute, and, uh, quite frankly, it's time to stop talking about it.

It's happened, um, it's done, so let's talk about what that means, right? What does that mean, uh, again, in these rooms and on these campuses? What does that mean? And as far as You know, where, where UC and IT and AV, all these things come and come by, they all support one another and they all need each other in some way, shape, or form.

So how, how do they, you know, how do they leverage their strengths with the other's strengths? Right. Uc is great and, and having the ability to connect people, uh, globally right now, um, it is fantastic. Guess what? You need IT for that. 'cause without that, well then you're just talking to yourself. Um, and without a camera and microphone again, you're just talking to yourself.

So all of these worlds kind of interact with each other and, and intertwine. And realizing that and accepting that is a great first step and say, okay, great, fantastic. Now, how do we leverage everybody's strengths to make our communication better, to make what we're trying to do better and more seamless for the people that are working on a daily basis?

Tom Arbuthnot: And like it, it feels like certainly what I see from Teams and Teams rooms, and I see the same thing I think with, with Zoom as well. Like there's a, there's a keenness to simplify, to kind of commodify, like just ship, ship kit, get it in. Um, like thoughts on that and then thoughts on how that affects the AV space?

Tim Albright: Well, it, it, so there's a couple things. Um, both, both Zoom and, and, and Teams have their, um, their certified products. Right? And I'm not going to go into the details of how that happens. Uh, Teams is a little bit more, Microsoft is a bit more stringent in their certified process, but regardless, you can get both products certified.

That is a couple of things. First of all, it helps Microsoft and Zoom on their support side, right? If Tom calls up and says, you know what, my room's not working, I'm done with Teams, blah, blah, blah. Okay, great. What's in your room? Like, what is it? Well, it's it's XYZ camera, and I've got ABC microphone, and they're gonna stop you right there and go, okay, that's fantastic.

None of that stuff is certified. Have a nice day. Right? Because at that point, you are on your own because you've taken yourself on your own. You've taken yourself down your own path. Which is fine, right? That's your, your, your right to do so, and your organization's right to do so. But if you go, if you stay in their ecosystem, and you stay on their path, then it simplifies their support, and quite frankly, it simplifies and makes your experience better.

Now, I'm not going to debate about, you know, product A, B, or C, but whether or not it should be certified, that's not my job, right, that, that, I, it's, it's not my, my, my job, I am not qualified to tell you whether or not a product should be certified, I trust Microsoft and, and Zoom to do their due diligence, and then if I'm in that room, and I've done everything that I've, that Microsoft has told me to do, or Zoom has told me to do, then I expect a certain level of experience.

And that really is what Microsoft is after, is they're after a seamless experience. They're after a repeatable experience. Um, it's a bit like Starbucks, right? I am a huge coffee buff. I love coffee. Just, it's my thing, right? And, If you ever hear Howard Schultz talk about the Starbucks experience and the fact that they have grown as much as they've grown in the last 30 years or so, right?

Um, the way they've done that is they, they start out, they start out very small. Um, And they, they, they specialized in that experience in the coffee shop, right? And now, regardless of whether you go to a coffee shop in London or St. Louis, you're going to get roughly the same experience, the same coffee, right? Same thing with Microsoft. They're trying to, and I'm going to use commoditized in a good way here. They're trying to commoditize that experience across the board, regardless of where you are in the world through these various programs they have. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. Yeah. That's definitely the objective is to have consistent experience for the users, isn't it?

And it's, it started off in the early, you know, what was Skype room systems then, and, uh, you know, kind of then MTR, it was. There weren't tons of options to get really smart, but now we've got, you know, third party proper DSPs, we've got ceiling tile mics, we've got like lots of the peripherals getting certified, and you can do some quite advanced stuff staying in the certified ecosystem these days.

Tim Albright: Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned, you know, good old Skype rooms. I mean, uh, when, when I first put in my first video conferencing system, and this was early 2000s, Um, College I worked for, we had, so we were in, in, in Southwest Illinois, just outside of St. Louis, and so we were kind of a, um, a hub in, in connecting, um, more rural areas, right, um, place where I live is, is, is, we were, we're close to, to farmland, and so the, the high schools and the, and the, and the, uh, colleges out there, pretty far away, right?

Um, and so we put in, um, a Tanberg system and I said Tanberg, right? Cisco bought Tanberg if you're not, not. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yep, I remember. 

Tim Albright: And it was $50, 000. per system and we put in four. So we, we had one on our campus and then we connected three other high schools for, uh, continuing education. And it was, you had to book the room, right?

It was a whole thing. It was, it was a finite number of, of, um, equipment that you could use. And it was stupid expensive. I mean, 50, 000, so it was a $200, 000 system, right? To connect four locations, right? The thing that has happened over the last 20 years now. is yes, some, some, some commoditization of the, of those products, but also the, the realization that, um, you don't need a dedicated piece of hardware.

That's what your computer's for, right? Let's leverage that, because at that time, that the biggest, one of the biggest expenses was the actual codec, the, the, the device that took the video and audio in and out.. Um, but it's allowed for a lot more flexibility and it's also allowed for a lot more creativity. It's allowed companies like Shure to come up with the MXA system and Sennheiser to come up with the Team Connect.

Because they could say, Oh, we can connect to these systems. Okay, great. Well, we're going to go over here and we're going to spend a couple million dollars developing something that does just one thing. right? That does audio better than anybody else, right? And I'll let other people debate whether or not this Sennheiser is better, this Shure is better, but that's what they've done is, is they've, they've, the, the, these, these, these shrinking down to these systems and putting them on, you know, our own PCs or laptops or whatever has allowed these companies that do something really, really well to focus on that and to give the customer the best possible experience as opposed to 20 years ago, it was just whatever we could, we could get.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, and I feel like that's really unlocked our world to, you know, beyond just certainly when they came in, I had a lot of pushback around, you know, fine for this type of room, but not for this scenario, not for this type of room, not for the important ones. And I think that a lot of that has been pushed away now with the kind of advanced certified peripherals we have.

Tim Albright: Absolutely. 

Tom Arbuthnot: How do you find it from an AV perspective, AV community perspective around like education? Like I feel like it's interesting on both sides here. Like I see a lot of IT people who don't, you know, don't understand or even properly value the, the, the AV skill of, you know, setting the room upright and the acoustics and the right actual kit and, and, uh, and kind of on the other side of the fence, the.

AV people were not really understanding how you hook something up to Teams and how the accounts work and how that perspective if you've, does that resonate? Have you seen that 

Tim Albright: it does. And it's a, it's a bit, it's a bit like, like, um, silos, unfortunately, still. Um, and some of it's, it is a lack of education, it's a lack of understanding of what each of those teams is trying to do and the skill set that's required to get there.

Um, I have all kinds of respect for IT professionals. They've, you know, gone through all kinds of training, they've got certifications that I could only dream of getting. And so their job is to keep the network up, keep it secure, right, and make sure that everybody has what they need. AV, on the other hand, also requires a lot of skill and certifications.

And their job is to make sure that, you know, the people that walk into a room, they can communicate the way that they want to communicate. And, A lot of times it's those two teams going, well, I need X, Y, or Z, right? I need all the ports open, which is a phrase I know. And I know what it means. And I know that's a dangerous thing.

So in the IT folks are like, well, wait a minute, hang on. No, no, you don't. And the AV guys are like, no, we do. Cause the manufacturer says we need all these things open. And, and, and they, they come at it with just enough knowledge of their own little vertical of their own little silo to be dangerous.

without considering what that means to the other side. So yeah, IT, shut down all the ports. But, if you do that, well then none of our, none of our video conferencing systems work. Well, that's a problem. So, AV, you don't open up all the ports, silly, because that's a security risk. And so, so they, they, both sides I think need to educate themselves more than they have on what the other side is trying to do and, and the skill set it requires.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, I know Microsoft have been pushing, pushing hard with kind of the, the, the rooms training and things to help understand. I'm sure the other side is true. What I think the challenge with AV is like a lot of the things that AV does well are sort of invisible, like making the audio great. You can't. See, you can feel when it's bad, but you can't see what they've done to make it good or, you know, just thinking about the most appropriate kit.

I've seen some terrible installs with bar systems where they just put way beyond their spec, but IT think because the camera can see the person, the audio is going to pick up, which is absolutely not the case. 

Tim Albright: Not the case. No, and it's, um, I'm of the opinion that without audio, you don't have a video conferencing system.

That's just my opinion. You can't have a conversation. Now, yeah, you can if you know either American Sign Language or International Sign Language. You could technically have a conversation if both people know it. But, for the vast majority of us, without audio, there is nothing. Right? There is no form of communication.

Um, and, And that's actually why I would, I would suggest, and if anybody ever asked my opinion about the system, which is very rare. It's like, start with a good microphone, right? Start with a good microphone. I don't care what that is, right? And whatever's good is subjective. Um, but make sure that the far side can hear you well.

And can hear everybody in the room well. Then, work on the speakers. We haven't gotten to video yet, right? Work on the speaker so you can, so you can hear the far end as best as possible. Make sure those speakers are reproducing that audio as close to, to good as possible, close to perfect as possible. Then let's talk about the video, right?

Then let's look, let's work on being able to see everybody if that's a concern, if that's a need. Um, But we get it backwards because you're right, soundbar are a little bit of the bane of my existence because everybody and their brother has one. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Um, well, I mean they really do. It's insane. 

Tim Albright: They really do.

Tom Arbuthnot: Now every, everybody's got one. It's like everybody's got one you just walk around ISD. It's just like everyone's got a bar and a lot of them. It. Same thing as well. 

Tim Albright: It'll be the same thing with ISD right. Everybody will have one and, and, and half of them aren't any good. Right. Um. But that doesn't solve a problem. And yes, soundbars are good in an application, right?

And if you want to know what application, go find a really good AV designer, because I'm not it. But there are use cases for soundbars. They do not belong everywhere. They just don't belong everywhere. So you have to have the understanding of, you know, the size of the room, the makeup of the room, the materials that make up the walls and the ceilings and the floor, and then what you're trying to do in that room, right?

Um, And, and, you know, you don't just throw a soundbar up because it's easy and quick and the IT folks can do it. It's just not, that's not a solution. Um, it's not a great solution at least. I mean, you got to understand what, what you're trying to accomplish in that room before, um, you ever start ordering gear.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, yeah, I think that's, that's like, and that's part of the value that a good, good AV integrator, a good AV team brings is helping the customer along that journey of, of what fits where and why. What's your take on like the kind of multi camera scenario? Because that seems to be the trend going in as we record end of 24, start of 25.

There's a, you know, the kind of Q-SYS, Crestron type scenarios with multiple cameras outside. And then you've got the kind of Logi, Neat scenarios of inside multi camera kind of pointing out at the table. I'd love to get your perspective on that too. 

Tim Albright: So in the scenario so that it makes sense, right?

You're talking about large conference rooms, right? You don't, don't put these things in, in huddle spaces. That's just silly. Um, overkill is a good, is a good word there. Um, but what it does is it is, it allows for a more personal connection. at the far end, right? Um, and there's a lot, a lot of smart people writing about return to office and where hybrid works and where hybrid lives.

And if you look at a couple different reports about the state of work and, and, and, you know, where, where folks are working now and, um, hybrid is going to be hybrid or remote connection is going to happen for the foreseeable future. I, I do not see a scenario where we don't ever need video conferencing.

Okay. Lemme stop. Yeah. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Gene, gene Jeanie's outta the bottle now. There's no, no going back. Yeah, I think you, you, you are. No, I hear it. Certainly in Europe, pushing for three days kind of is a, is a, a max push at the moment. 'cause people will appreciate a combination of office and home for sure. 

Tim Albright: Well, and here's the other thing.

So let's say that everybody goes back to the office. Okay? I work at a company that has 37 locations. Yep. Are we all going to get in the same room? No. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. 

Are you going to meet every customer in person? 

Tim Albright: No. Right. Apple. Apple is, is one of the companies, Apple and Amazon are here in the States are the two biggest ones right now making noise about everybody's going back to the office, right?

Okay. How many locations, how many offices does Apple have, right? Two right now, and they're getting ready to build a third, right? Amazon, how many offices do they have? Again, four or five. And they're getting ready to build a fifth one. So, We can put this whole return to work, return to office thing over here.

You're still going to need those connections, okay? Um, So that's, that's the base with those connections. That means the far end has to be accommodated for. That means you have to design the system for the people in the room and especially for the people on the far end. So that's where these multi camera, multi camera setups really, really shine.

Because if you and I and 10 of our other closest work colleagues are sitting around a conference room table and Tom and I are sitting on the far end of, of that, of that, um, Table, and the camera's over there, right? Well, they're not going to see us very well. But if you have a multi camera system that is smart enough to go, Oh, Tom's talking, let me switch to this camera.

And let me frame him well. And that means that the far end is going to get a much more up close and personal experience with Tom as he's talking and he's enumerating and he's, you know, I talk with my hands. I am not Italian, but I do talk with my hands. So, you know, if I'm, I'm making a point, a lot of times my hands are going to be moving.

And so if I'm at one end of the table and you can't see me being expressive, right, or what have you, you lose half of the communication. And so those, those multi camera solutions are really, really great for the far end, because that means the person who is experiencing it, right, who is remote, regardless of the reason why, can really kind of connect with whoever it is talking in that room.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, and this is another area where the kind of IT slash compute influence has brought that technology and brought the price point down like I remember, uh, we worked for a particular bank long, long ago, and they had literally somebody sitting in a mirrored room side by side doing, you know, doing the remote control of the cameras.

And that was like, that was like the boardroom experience. And now we can bring some of that with, you know, AI direction and people recognition and things, and really start to bring that technology out to, you know, less expensive rooms. 

Tim Albright: And that's what, I mean, I love AI, so don't misunderstand this, but that is one of the aspects of AI that even people who don't like it are able to point to and go, okay, That's kind of cool, right?

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, 

yeah, yeah. You can, uh, I love that as well. All the codec improvements we've had as well. Like AI doesn't have to be like a text prompt. There's a lot we're getting that is, uh, yeah, adding value in our space for sure. 

Tim Albright: Yeah, absolutely. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. Well, Tim, for people who are more in, like, my world, the kind of, you know, Microsoft Teams, IT Pro world, from your point of view, what would you suggest they look at from AVNation and what you're doing to kind of get more into that world, dip a toe in?

Is it following the podcast? Is there some specific content? 

Tim Albright: So there's a couple things. Um, on our website we have a UC specific section, right? So anything that deals with Teams, deals with Zoom. Deals with Google Meet, even though I think it's horrible. Um, I'll get a call later from Google. Um, that, that has everything that you could possibly need and want and desire.

Certainly, there's other sections in there. There's an audio section, there's a video section, there's an AV over IP section, uh, depending on what, the topic that you're looking at, right? That, we did that specifically and strategically, um, because we, as we, um, talk more and more to IT folks, it's like, okay, that's great.

What's a white paper about? Because this is our old menu. What's a white paper? What's a podcast about? This way we're funneling people into the topics and the areas that they're interested in, right? Um, yes, AV Week is a weekly wrap up. Certainly a great one to take a look at. Um, and then, you know, that, we've got one that focuses on the higher education space, right?

We've got one that focuses on control and automation. Um, so those are some really, really great ones as well. Um, and then, yeah, just look around and, you know, poke around the website. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. Well, thanks Tim. Appreciate what you're doing to bring the knowledge and bring people together. And yeah, looking forward to swapping over and coming on your pod and getting grilled.

Tim Albright: Yes, sir. Absolutely. Looking forward to it. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. Thanks so much. 

Tim Albright: Thanks, Tom.