Walk any trade show floor in 2025, and you’ll hear the same phrases echoing from booth to booth: future-proof, interoperable, secure, and standards-based. Every vendor in the AV over IP space seems to promise the holy trinity of performance, scalability, and simplicity. In fact, it’s one of the main conversations I’ve had at Almo E4 and the AVL Rep Expo this month.
But scratch beneath the marketing gloss and a different story emerges. Despite a decade of progress, true interoperability remains more aspiration than reality. Each manufacturer speaks the language of open standards, yet often with a dialect only their ecosystem understands. The result? IT departments are left untangling competing claims and trying to fit AV systems into enterprise networks built for everything but AV.
It’s time for IT leaders to bring the same due diligence they apply to cybersecurity or cloud procurement into the AV domain. Because the stakes are no longer about better displays or smoother audio. They’re about the integrity and efficiency of the entire network.
Say No
Before we go any further in this conversation, let me make one thing clear. There are times when you do not need an AV over IP system. You just don’t. These situations are point-to-point systems. Simple huddle spaces, classrooms, or other installs that are islands. That is the key there. If you have no desire to ever get that signal out of the four walls of that space, then you don’t need AV over IP. No, not even if the distance between your source and display is longer than 50 feet. There are other, more cost-effective solutions.
There. I feel better now. Moving on.
The Maturity Curve: From Proprietary to “Standard-ish”
Ten years ago, AV over IP was still a bold experiment. Integrators were wrestling with bandwidth demands, latency concerns, and proprietary compression methods. Fast forward to today: higher education campuses stream lectures across VLANs, and corporate IT teams manage conference rooms remotely through the same dashboards used for their servers.
That maturity has brought confidence and confusion. The market now offers a buffet of “open” options: SDVoE, Dante AV, NDI, IPMX, and proprietary variants that claim compliance. On paper, it all sounds interoperable. In practice, many solutions still rely on vendor-specific firmware or control protocols that break when paired with competing systems.
For IT teams used to plug-and-play standards like Ethernet or USB, that can be frustrating. One higher-ed technology manager told me, “Interoperability always sounds easy until you connect it to your switch.”
The Pitch vs. The Proof
AV vendors are brilliant storytellers. They know how to turn complex systems into compelling narratives. But as networks carry more of the AV load, IT decision-makers must separate engineering from enthusiasm.
Here are the three most common claims and how to verify them:
- “Interoperable” – Ask: with whom? Many solutions work beautifully within their own ecosystem but fail to communicate with others without middleware or conversion hardware.
- “Standard-based” – Which standard? The nice thing about standards is there are so many to choose from. Some vendors tout “open standards” yet quietly rely on proprietary codecs or control APIs that lock you in.
- “Secure” – What’s the evidence? Encryption is a start, not a finish line. Request documentation on penetration testing, certificate management, and network segmentation practices. Better yet, put it in your own system and test it with your team.
AV manufacturers aren’t intentionally misleading. The problem is that the word “standard” means something very different in IT than it does in AV. In IT, it’s ratified by a body and tested by thousands. In AV, it’s often “our version of the standard.”
How to Vet Vendor Claims Like an IT Pro
So how can you cut through the noise? Treat AV over IP as you would any other enterprise system by demanding verifiable proof.
- Standards alignment. Ask for interoperability test results, not just marketing collateral. Test within your environment.
- Network impact. Insist on clear documentation for multicast behavior, QoS, and bandwidth requirements. If a vendor can’t tell you how their product behaves under network load, that’s a red flag.
- Security validation. Request details on how firmware updates are signed, how credentials are managed, and whether independent security audits have been performed.
- Lifecycle planning. Evaluate firmware support cycles and backward compatibility. Your switches and encoders should have at least a five-year coexistence plan.
- Interoperability in practice. Before deployment, test multiple vendors in a live environment. Seeing traffic flow, and fail, under real conditions is the only way to know what “compatible” truly means.
In corporate and campus environments alike, collaboration between AV integrators and IT teams is non-negotiable. The most successful projects I’ve seen involve both groups sitting side by side during evaluation, dissecting claims line by line.
A Case from the Field
At a local university, the IT department piloted two AV over IP systems for lecture capture. One vendor promised “open architecture” but required proprietary control software that couldn’t authenticate with the campus identity provider. The other demanded firmware upgrades on every network switch to support multicast routing.
Neither solution was perfect but one vendor brought their engineers on site, shared documentation, and helped IT tune the network for stability. That transparency made the difference. The university chose the partner who told showed up and solved problems, not the one with the slickest demo.
Convergence or Coexistence?
As IPMX gains momentum and API-driven control evolves, the industry stands at a crossroads. True convergence between AV and IT is within reach but only if manufacturers commit to interoperability as a principle, not a slogan.
IT leaders can accelerate that shift by refusing to accept vague promises. Ask harder questions. Request proof. And make vendors earn their place on your network the same way any other enterprise system would. If you speak with your wallet/purchase order they are apt to listen.
The Bottom Line
Trust, in the end, comes from testing. The most innovative codec or flexible API means little if it can’t coexist peacefully with your existing infrastructure. AV over IP has matured but scrutiny must mature alongside it.
In 2025, the best solution isn’t the flashiest one on the show floor. It’s the one that tells the truth in the demo room. On your network.