Adam Holladay of Harman‘s System Development and Integration Group was gracious enough to give me a quick demo of the new version (2.0) of Harman HiQNet’s System Architect Software as the show floor was shutting down tonight when the discussion evolved into a larger look at the arrival of, and Harman’s support for, the new AVB (IEEE Audio Video Bridge) audio networking protocol for standardized ethernet, developed by the IEEE 802.1 Audio Video Bridging Task Group–a consortium of engineers from a wide range of major technology companies, including Harman and many other AV players, as well as from other industries. Adam was raving about the concept and the rise of the protocol as having the potential to inexpensively, and seamlessly, become an industry standard ahead of many well known and respected networking protocols already on the landscape, and soon, maybe within a year or two.

He also pointed out that Harman, like other manufacters, including Meyer Sound, is stepping up by making plans for Ethernet AVB to become a standard element of new technology moving forward. Thus, today, Harman announced an agreement between its BSS division, and Netgear to debut what Harman says is the world’s first AVB switches for networking multichannel audio and video over standardized Ethernet. The initiative launches with the introduction of a pair of 16-port and 24-port co-branded switches featuring specialized AVB hardware and software–a prototype of which I saw running at the Harman booth. The company has also written AVB potential into System Architect, is integrating it with HiQNet, and Adam insists the long range goal is “to get it across all our boxes” as soon as possible.

He urges folks to check out the IEEE AVB Pavilion on the InfoComm show floor Friday, if you haven’t already, to learn more about Ethernet AVB.

–MG