If there’s one thing the Pro AV industry is known for, it’s our continued adoption of and reliance on proprietary systems for signal management products. Consider that related industries (telecom, broadcast, cinema, streaming, and digital imaging) work in collaborative, worldwide industry groups to develop, test, and adopt standards for audio and video interfacing and compression. Meanwhile, we often simply pick “winners” from groups of competing proprietary systems and stick with those, basing our choices on strong marketing and sales pitches.
Think of all the HDMI-based switchers and extenders offered over the past two decades: While most of them worked quite well, the dominant products got that way simply because their manufacturers were big enough to outsell competitors early on, establishing an iron grip that eventually pushed out any newcomers.
